The art of persuasion - ESB Class (FCE level - cloze reading text)

Marketing Techniques:


Hi everybody!

I'm doing research for a project about advertising for Mr Anderson's class and I wanted to pass on some information I learnt that really made me think.. You might like to forward this to anyone else on your contacts  list who you think would be interested.



Advertisers have realised that children and adolescents  have a lot of say in the way money is spent n their families. (1)....................And , let's be honest, we also use "pester power"


 to get our parents to buy us the things we think we just have to have. That's why so many ads are aimed at us.



(2).......... Ads, online, on TV  and the radio, in magazines and on billboards

 all try to grab our attention. We know that advertisers use catchy jingles,

 slogans and famous people to sell their products. We recognise that ads are trying to  persuade us to buy something ,and many of us think that we are immune to adverts and can't be taken in by marketing tricks. But is this true?




Advertisers go to great lenghts to harness our purchasing power. .....(3)For example, they use product placement

 in our favoutrite films , music videos and television programmes to increase their  brand recognition. They pay teen stars huge sums in the hope that we will subconciously link their product to the stars' glamorous lifestyles.  Another technique is to use fit-looking young actors to advertise unhealthy food products; this sends confusing messages to teenagers, who don't often know much about nutrition.





(4)..............This is where representatives of a company go into a neighbourhood and give free products to the "cool kids"., thinking that everybody else will want to imitate 
them and so will buy the same stuff.


Some advertising companies go even further than that. They employ psychologists and researchers to analyse our lives, our behaviour, and even our dreams. (5)....................

So what can we do? First of all, we should remeber that advertising isn't all bad . Without advertising , many of our favourite websites , TV shows and magazines wouldn't exist. (6)..............Whenever we use an advert, we need to think about who produced it, what they want us to buy, and how they are trying to influence us.

Some schools have media literacy classes
 which teach students about the strategies used by advertisers to manipulate young consumers. (7)..................My firend Ben and I are going to talk to the headteacher  about it tomorrow  after school. I'm also thinking about doing a podcast on how advertisers target young people ,. If you'd  like to record it with me, or help me upload it to the school's website, let me know..

Thanks!

Anieta

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