Argument232【0806G-Sunbrid小组】第8次作业

toumingsenlinUID: 2344846

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: 481          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2007-12-6 11:45:51

In the argument, the author comes to the conclusion that we should switch to advertisements featuring a distinctive song in order to boost company profits. A basis of this recommendation is that high school students could easily recognize the tunes used to advertise soft drinking and fast-food restaurants. An additional reason in support of this recommendation is that advertisements in magazines caused declined sales of home appliances. The author also assumes that a distinctive song in the new advertisement can increase profits. A careful examination would reveal how groundless it is.

First of all, the author commits a fallacy of false analogy in assuming that distinctive song for home appliance can achieve the same results as songs for soft drinks and fast-food restaurants. The reasoning is questionable because similarities between these two events may not be sufficient enough to support the claim. For example, high school students' preference does not reflect all consumers' inclination. It is possible that rational and mature adult consumers prefer perceiving home appliance by themselves to merely enjoying a song. Apparently, differences between them two overweigh surface similarities, thus making the analogy untenable. The author's failure to prove comparability renders the conclusion based upon it highly suspect.

In addition, the author uses a positive relationship to establish a causal relationship between advertisements in magazines and declined sales. However, the fact that advertisements in magazines coincides with declined sales does not necessarily prove that the former causes the latter. There may be other factors that could have contributed to sales, such as quality of home appliance itself, rationality of price, rivals' marketing and promoting policy. If quality and price can not meet potential consumers' needs, the sales will be low. If our rivals have more attractive price and service, we will lose our market share. Thus, the author can not safely draw any significant conclusion.

Furthermore, the author attempts to establish a causal relationship between a distinctive song for home appliance and profits. While a song is an important element in determining profit, it is hardly the only one. To establish a causal relationship, other factors that could result in profit should be considered. It is most likely that a distinctive song in new advertisement will increase cost and reduce the profit correspondingly. Perhaps there is something wrong with our marketing policy rather than advertisement policy. Without ruling out such possibilities, the author can not convince me that a song in advertisement will bring profits.

To sum up, the conclusion reached in the argument lacks credibility since the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to what the author claims. To make the argument more convincing, the author should provide more information concerning all potential consumers' preference in advertisement. To better evaluate the argument, we need more concrete evidence that causality between advertisements in magazines and declined sales. Otherwise the conclusion is logically unacceptable.