Homemakers are the main decision-makers in the process of buying of the household
goods with the objective of satisfaction of family’s needs and wants. With the urbanization and
advancement in technologies, there is a much wider availability of varieties of goods and with the
change in diffusion of purchasing power, the wants, needs and attitudes for the household goods are
ever changing and getting more diversified. Present study entitled, “Effect of advertisements on
awareness and knowledge of urban homemakers” was taken up on randomly selected 160 respondents
from four localities of Ludhiana City. Data were collected through specially structured interview
schedule. It was observed that pamphlets and leaflets give more awareness about all the household
goods and services than the brochures for the majority of the selected respondents. The reason
could be that most of the newspapers were daily carrying the pamphlets and leaflets whereas most of
the brochures come monthly. Among audio visual and other media, TV was found to be an effective
medium for giving awareness about different items to be purchased. It was further found that gaining
knowledge on food items, vehicles, soaps & detergents and furniture; the advertisements on TV,
newspapers, magazines and window displays were found to be the most effective whereas radio was
found to be the least effective medium. In case of building materials, services, clothing and consumer
durables; advertisements in pamphlets & leaflets, TV, and window displays were found to be the most
effective and radio remains to be the least effective medium. The reason for this could be that radio is
out dated and at the same time it is the oldest medium and number of commercials was also very small