Writing to Persuade: AIDA and the Copywriter’s Shortcuts

Let us consider a contemporary example, applied to a hypothetical product: an online course on public speaking.

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AIDA (Attention–Interest–Desire–Action)

• Attention: “Have you ever been afraid of speaking in public?”
• Interest: “It happens to the best of us. But there’s a method to overcome that fear.”
• Desire: “With our online course, based on proven techniques, you will learn to speak in public with confidence.”
• Action: “Register today: spots for the free trial are limited.”

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At the time, the idea of progressively guiding the prospective client toward purchase, according to a sequential logic, appeared revolutionary.

Since then, these models have multiplied, becoming a kind of basic grammar for marketing professionals. Here are more examples:

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PAS (Problem–Agitate–Solution)

• Problem: “Do you panic when you have to speak in public?”
• Agitate: “That anxiety holds back your career and makes you miss opportunities.”
• Solution: “With our public speaking course, you’ll begin speaking confidently in just four weeks.”

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BAB (Before–After–Bridge)

• Before: “Are you a shy, anxious speaker?”
• After: “Would you like to become more confident and engaging?”
• Bridge: “Our public speaking course will transform you into the most interesting person in the room.”

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FAB (Features–Advantages–Benefits)

• Feature: “Public speaking: video lessons + guided exercises.”
• Advantage: “You can learn whenever you want, in your free time.”
• Benefit: “This way, you gradually gain confidence — and leave your colleagues speechless.”

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PASTOR (Problem–Amplify–Story–Transformation–Offer–Response)

• Problem: “Are you afraid of speaking in public?”
• Amplify: “Anxiety should not be underestimated, as it can harm your career.”
• Story/Transformation: “Anna was just like you: in only a month she overcame her fear and now confidently leads presentations.”
• Offer: “Take advantage of the 20% discount, valid until September 15.”
• Response: “Click here to sign up now.”

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Surely, while reading these examples, you may feel a strong sense of déjà vu.

After all, these are the most widely used templates by copywriters.

But the real question is: can we be certain that these tools—these “magic formulas”—are truly effective?

“Do you have this problem? Here’s the solution. Buy it.”

A 1999 study by Vakratsas and Ambler, How Advertising Works: What Do We Really Know?, analyzed over 250 academic articles and books to answer a fundamental question: how does advertising really influence consumer behavior?

The authors classified the existing theoretical models into a precise taxonomy, distinguishing between cognitive, affective, experiential, hierarchical, integrative, and even “non-hierarchical” models. From this analysis, they developed five generalizations. The most relevant for those who still rely on formulas like AIDA is this: there is no universal sequence of advertising effects. Consumer responses do not follow a fixed order—such as first think, then feel, then act—but depend on a simultaneous combination of three dimensions: Cognition (C), Affect (A), and Experience (E).

To describe this complexity, the authors proposed a three-dimensional spatial model, where each advertisement can be mapped according to the relative “weight” it activates on each of the three dimensions. From this perspective, effectiveness does not depend on the sequence of stimuli, but on the composition and intensity of effects, depending on the context.

Thus, classical formulas like AIDA or PAS may be operationally useful only if applied with flexibility—as tools to be adjusted, not universal laws.

This is also demonstrated by a well-known phenomenon of selective perception: banner blindness. This learned behavior leads users to ignore anything resembling advertising—even when it is not.

In a 2018 study conducted by Kara Pernice for the Nielsen Norman Group, 26 participants were observed through eye-tracking as they searched for useful information on different web pages. The result? Although much content was technically visible, users did not look at it at all if it was placed in areas typically associated with ads (such as the top or right side of the page), or if it looked “graphic,” animated, or visually different from the page context.

A concrete example: on an Apartment Therapy webpage, relevant informational content placed near banner ads was completely ignored. Once users identified an area as “advertising space,” they avoided returning to it, even when useful elements were present—a behavior described in the study as the “hot potato effect”: a visual area to be avoided as soon as it is perceived as irrelevant.

In other words: our brain does not read everything, but filters out what appears obvious or irrelevant to the task at hand. And it does so automatically.

Intuito, ragionamento ed emozioni

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman distinguishes two fundamental modes of human thought:

• System 1: fast, automatic, impulsive.
• System 2: slow, reflective, deliberate.

System 1 is constantly active: it forms immediate judgments, recognizes familiar patterns, reacts efficiently but superficially. System 2, by contrast, comes into play only when cognitive effort is required: it checks, verifies, calculates—but consumes significant mental energy.

Kahneman demonstrates that most decisions—including economic and consumer choices—are dominated by System 1, while System 2 tends to justify decisions already made intuitively.

This insight overturns traditional assumptions: we do not reason before choosing—often, we choose before reasoning.

This model explains why persuasive formulas based on rational sequences (first think, then feel, then act) do not withstand scientific scrutiny: they do not reflect how the mind actually works.

The two-system model helps us understand why decisions are often made intuitively, before rationally. But what actually triggers us? What makes System 1 activate and select certain stimuli over others?

A key answer lies in emotional salience: the ability of some stimuli to capture attention and remain memorable precisely because they are perceived as emotionally significant.

It is not simply a matter of how emotional a stimulus is, but what type of emotion it elicits and with what intensity.

To explore this mechanism, Elizabeth Kensinger and Suzanne Corkin (MIT) conducted a study, published in PNAS in 2004, observing brain activity in subjects exposed to words with negative connotations, divided into two categories:

• negative arousing (e.g., rape, massacre)
• negative non-arousing (e.g., grief, absence) and neutral words as a control group.

The goal was to understand which neural circuits are activated during memory formation and how the type of stimulus influences retention.

The results clearly showed that not all emotions activate memory in the same way:

• Strongly arousing stimuli activate the amygdala–hippocampus circuit, automatically strengthening memory even when attention is partially occupied by another task.
• Less intense emotional stimuli activate the prefrontal cortex–hippocampus circuit, but only if the subject can consciously process the content. In these cases, memory depends on active effort, such as autobiographical association or semantic elaboration.

In short, not all emotions produce the same effect on memory; it depends on which cognitive network is activated. If the message is highly salient, it can be recorded automatically. If it is merely “relevant” but not intense, it requires active elaboration.

How to Generate Attention and Desire

Persuasive formulas like AIDA assume an orderly and conscious path: first capture attention, then generate interest, stimulate desire, and finally obtain action.

But we now know for certain that the brain does not work this way. Not always, and not linearly.

A 2017 study published in Cogent Psychology, titled On the hierarchy of choice: An applied neuroscience perspective on the AIDA model, by Montazeribarforoushi, Keshavarzsaleh, and Ramsøy, challenges the very neurocognitive foundations of the AIDA scheme.

The authors highlight that the four stages of the AIDA model are neither autonomous nor sequential, but deeply interconnected and simultaneous, managed by parallel neural systems.

In particular, each stage (attention, interest, desire, action) exists in two cognitive modes:

• an automatic and unconscious one (Au, Iu, Du, Au),
• a deliberate and conscious one (Ac, Ic, Dc, Ac).

Attention, for example, is not only voluntarily directed toward an interesting stimulus (top-down), but also passively captured by salient stimuli (bottom-up), such as a sudden noise, a familiar face, or a perceived risk.

At the neurological level, different areas are involved: the amygdala, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens—depending on whether activations are intuitive or rational.

Interest and desire, from a neurocognitive perspective, are not distinct phases but different expressions of the same motivational system.

When a stimulus is perceived as relevant, interest and desire emerge together, triggered by the dopaminergic network that mediates gratification and anticipation of pleasure.

Finally, action—or decision—can occur before the subject is even aware of it. Some studies cited by the authors show that, neurologically, behavioral response is triggered in advance of conscious awareness of choice. This is further confirmation that Kahneman’s System 1 precedes and often guides System 2.

To represent this, the authors propose a neuro-compatible reformulation of the AIDA model, structured around two parallel paths:

• Au → Iu → Du → Au: the cycle of automatic reactions
• Ac → Ic → Dc → Ac: the cycle of conscious choices

These paths do not exclude each other but integrate: a well-crafted message should activate both, speaking to the impulsive and emotional part of the brain, as well as to the reflective and rational one.

To complete the picture, two additional contributions help us understand why truly effective communication cannot be reduced to a fixed scheme.

The first is the study Bad is Stronger than Good by Baumeister et al. (2001) on the so-called negativity bias, according to which negative events have a greater impact on the mind than positive ones, both emotionally and mnemonically.

This explains why messages based on urgency, loss, or risk are often more powerful than those based on opportunity or gain. But enhancing communicative effectiveness through negativity requires balance, or it risks undermining the coherence of the message.

The second is Robert Cialdini’s work on how automatic mental shortcuts function. In his book Influence: Science and Practice, Cialdini identifies six universal principles of persuasion—reciprocity, consistency, social proof, likability, authority, and scarcity—that people use automatically to make quick decisions in complex environments.

But these principles are not phases, nor do they always work. They are psychological levers that interact with each other, and their effectiveness depends on context, audience, and timing.

In short, persuasive formulas should be known, but not worshipped.

Writing effective texts means digging deeper, surprising, testing, and investigating the human mind—not merely following a template.