arguemnt232 【0806G-Sunbird小组】第8次作业

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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."


In this argument, the author recommends that we should now switch to advertisements fraturing a distinctive song so as to boost company profits. To support his recommendation, the author refers to a recent study of high school students and the decreased sales of their home appliances. However, the argument suffers from several critical flaws.

First of all, the author unwarrantedly assumes that it is their failure type of advertising that leads to the decline in sales of their home appliances. Nonetheless, the author fails to account for other possible factors such as price, quality of product and after-service. It is possible that the price of their home appliance increased significantly and people cannot afford them. Or perhaps the quality of their product is so poor that customers prefer to other company's product with a relative high quality. Therefore, without ruling out such possibilities, the author cannot convince us that the current type of advertising accounts for the failure of sales.

Secondly, even though the failure type of advertising causes the declined sales of home appliances, the survey cannot prove that switching to advertisements featuring of a distinctive song would work well. Firstly, as for the object of the survey-high school students, they are further from their potential customers such as adults. Thus no evidence shows that their potential customers would prefer this type of advertising. In fact, it is possible that most of adults detest advertisement with songs. Secondly, the product of soft drinking is much different from the home appliances, the success of advertisement in soft-drinking is not necessary means this type of advertising would also success in home appliances. For instance, the soft drinking is much cheaper than the home appliances, so people would be more cautious to buy the later kinds of product. As we know, advertisement in magazine are more likely to provide much detailed information about product such as home appliances, which may make the advertisement more attractive to potential customers.

Finally, even though it is failure in selecting type of advertising that leads to the decline in sales, it does not mean switching to advertisements featuring a distinctive song would boost their profits. As we know, if we want to invite some famous singers, we have to pay a large amount of money. Profit equates revenue minus cost. Even if the company can increase sales of our home appliances, the company's profits would not necessarily increase as a result.

In sum, the argument fails to be cogent due to its critical logical flaws, to better support its recommendation, more information and evidence should be provided.