2a Read and check your answer to question 4 in 1b. Advertising as persuasion
Advertisements want to persuade us to buy particular products.
How do they do it?
Let's imagine You're watching TV. It's a hot evening. You feel thirsty. You see an advert for a
refreshing drink. You see people looking cool and relaxed. You notice the name of the refreshing
drink because you think it could be useful for you to satisfy your thirst.
Advertisers study how people learn so that they can teach' them to respond to their advertising.
They want us to be interested, to try something, and then to do it again. These are the elements
of learning: interest, experience and repetition. If an advert can achieve this, it is successful. If an
advert works well, the same technique can be used to advertise different things. So, for example,
in winter if the weather is cold and you see a family having a warming cup of tea and feeling cosy,
you may be interested and note the name of the tea ... Here the same technique is being used as
with the cool, refreshing drink.
If advertisements are to be learned, there is a need for lots of repetition. But advertisers have to
be careful because too much repetition can result in consumer tiredness and the message may
fall on 'deaf ears'.
Consumers learn to generalize from what they have learned. So advertisers sometimes copy a
highly successful idea that has been well learned by consumers. For example, the highly success-
ful 'Weston Tea Country' advertising for different tea has led to 'DAEWOO Country' for automobile
dealers and 'Cadbury Country' for chocolate bars.
2b Read the text again and answer the questions.
Why do we need to see advertisements several times?
2 Why do advertisers use 'generalization'?
2Not knowing what to answer she blushed.
3Being a shoolboy he used to play football.
4Having read the book he retured it to the library.
5Having listened to his explanations
we understood that he was right.
6Having lived in this city for 20 years
he knew each street here.
7Being in London we visited the British Museum.
8Saying good-bye to his friends he left
for the airport.
9Coming home she found the telegram
10They couldn't get into the house because they had left the keys at work.