Principles and Practice of Advertising - The Law Of Sequence

By: Donald Hammond
Submitted: 2007-01-17 15:36:02
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The Law of Contiguity states that one thought will lead to another based on conditioning. Such as "Abraham" and "Lincoln". As a matter of fact two ideas are never present at precisely the same moment; so that "contiguity" really means "rapid succession". One idea being given, the other follows directly in its wake. So in reading advertisements one word of a headline is seen before another, one part of a paragraph follows an earlier part, so that a "train of ideas" is set up. The Law Of Sequence states that mental associations work more easily in one direction than in the other. "Forward associations", that is, associations in the direction in which ideas were originally presented, are stronger, more lively, and more easily recur than backward associations.

This is especially true of such ideas as take the form of spoken words and other sort of acts that involve motor processes. Thus I have seen the letters in the word "advertising" so often, one immediately after the other, that I can begin with "a", "d", "v" and go on quickly and easily to spell the whole word. But it is a very significant fact that I cannot spell the same word backward. The letter "a" calls up "d" and these two call up "v" etc. But if I begin with "g" and try to reverse the direction of the original sequence I can proceed only with difficulty.

In advertising this means that ideas should be presented in the order which they will later be desired to take. The first idea in the mind of the prospective purchaser will be the feeling of some particular need - such as "hotel". Effective advertising means that when this need is felt, it leads at once, by virtue of established associations, to the hotel you are advertising. First the need then the product is the sequence in the mind of the buyer. This should be, therefore, the order in which the two ideas are presented in the advertisement, in the brand-name, the trade-mark, etc.

Some examples would be:
Hotel Astor
Academy Riverview
Cafe Boulevard
Encyclopedia Britannica

Contrasting with these names are those such as the following, which fail to take advantage of the law and in so doing sacrifice real association and memory value:

Douglas Shoes
Mennen's Talcum
Ridgefield School

The same law holds for the arrangement of items in the advertisement as a whole. The common practice of beginning the advertisement with the name of the brand or firm or company and following it with a description of the need it satisfies may gratify the personal vanity of the firm, but it does not establish the most effective associations in the mind of the reader. In reading the advertisement the mind should be led in the direction in which it should go on the occasion of need.

Article source: Expert Articles