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232The following appeared in a memo from the sales manager of Eco-Power, a company that manufactures tools and home appliances.
"Many popular radio and television commercials use memorable tunes and song lyrics to call attention to the products being advertised. Indeed, a recent study of high school students showed that 85 percent could easily recognize the tunes used to advertise leading soft drinks and fast-food restaurants. Despite our company's extensive advertising in magazines during the past year, sales of our home appliances declined. Therefore, to boost company profits, we should now switch to advertisements featuring a distinctive song."
In the argument, the arguer recommends that they should make advertisements featuring a distinctive song in order to increase company profits. To justify the claim, the argument cited the result of study that 85 percent of high school students recognize the tunes easily in ads of leading soft drinks and fast -food restaurants. In addition, the arguer assumes that the declining sales of their home appliance are attributed to the advertisement in magazines. The argument suffers from several critical fallacies.
Firstly, there is no information available to establish any causal relationship between the well sale of the leading soft drinks and fast-food restaurants and the recognized tunes of advertisement by students. On the one hand, the arguer ignores the possibility that the soft drinks and fast-food are delicious so that the sale is good. On the other hand, perhaps the tune is derivate from a familiar song, such as the Beatles' "Yesterday" so that students are able to recognize the tune. Also, students may dismiss it as hurting their hears so that the impression of the tune is too strong to erase. Any of these scenarios, if true, would cast considerable doubt on the argument’s conclusion that it is the ads featuring the distinctive music that bring good sale of leading products to the companies.
Secondly, the argument is based on a false analogy. The arguer simply assumes that their home appliance will sold as well as the leading products by such ads. Given that the well sale of leading products is benefited from the application of music in ads, it does not equal that the ad with music will stimulate people's consuming of their home appliance. The groundless argument fails to take into account other possible reasons for the discrepancy in soft drink and fast food and home appliance, such as the price, the usage life, the type of customers. As we all know, we drink and eat the cheaper leading food for half an hour at most while we use the more expensive home appliance for 10 years at least. Thus, it is likely that students are stimulated only by the music in the ads due to its low price. Oppositely, the housewives always have a general idea about the quality of appliance with all brands before purchasing it. Therefore, even though they use ads featuring a distinctive song, it is no guarantee that the sale of appliance will increase.
Thirdly, as we all know, profits a company gains equals to its income minus its cost. Thus, the assumption that ad with distinctive music is essential to greater profits is suspect. It is conceivable that good advertisement stimulates the sale to some extent, but only if the cost is effectively controlled, they will obtain greater profits. To make a abstractive advertisement with a melody and publicize it on TV and radio possibly cost the company more money than the original ad on magazine, so whether the company will gain profits is still in doubt.
To sum up, this argument is not persuasive as it stands. To strengthen the argument, the arguer would have to provide more evidence concerning the relationship of ads featuring distinctive music and sale of products. To better solidify the argument, we need more information about the cost for making such ad and publicize it on TV. |
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