Abstract:

To produce an effective advertisement for a product or service the creative man needs the following information. 1. Who the advertising is to be aimed at - and the more he comprehends the nature of the target audience, the easier it is for him to strike the right communication level; 2. The relevant ideas held by this target audience; 3. The ideas they need to hold to convert them into or retain them as - consumers; 4. The relative importance of these ideas; 5. The significance of the semantics in this area; 6. The significance of visual stimuli (symbolism) in this area. While this list may be a statement of the obvious, it is rare indeed for the creative man to receive his brief in these terms - or indeed to have all this information available to him. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how mathematical models and the processes leading to their construction can provide the information listed above in a readily digestible form.