Argument232【0806G-Sunbird小组】第五次作业

lewis0409220UID: 2238498

TOPIC: ARGUMENT232 - The 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."
words: 328

In this argument, the arguer concludes that Eco-Power Company should switch to advertisements featuring a memorable song to change the decrease of sales of home appliances.  A survey on high school students is used to support the conclusion. Seeming to be correct with a first glance, the argument makes several mistakes that weakened it.
Firstly, the study of school students is failed to support the conclusion. On one hand, high school students, the informant of the survey, are not the main customers of companies that sale tools and home appliances. More willing to be fashionable and having a large interest in popular songs, high school students could remember song lyrics faster and more possibly. However, home appliances are mostly bought by adults, especially mid-age people, who less likely have interests in popular songs. On the other hand, soft drinks, such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, are always the same in quality and taste. It follows that people can only choose them with familiarity which is caused by advertisements. Fast foods have the same situation. But to home appliances, quality, which may be much different manufactured by competing companies, is more important. In short, the study of high school students has a distinct condition with home-appliance market and supports weakly to the summing-up.
Secondly, the author makes the conclusion by groundlessly assuming that unsuccessful advertisements caused the decline of home-appliance sales. Perhaps, their competitors have better quality conductions. Or perhaps, their competitors have lower prices products with the same quality. Or perhaps, their competitors provide better services after sales. All in all, without ruling out all these possibilities, it is wrongly to say that the reduction of home-appliance sales happened as the reason of losing appropriate advertisements.
In conclusion, the argument is not well reasoned. To strengthen it, more surveys on the attitude of potential customers who is interested in distinctive-song advertisement is needed. Additionally, the author should rule out the other possibilities that may cause decline of home-appliance sales.

[ 本帖最后由 lewis0409220 于 2007-12-14 21:00 编辑 ]