仲恺2013年蓝鸽第三阶段阅读食品黄家宝【仅供参考】

Many people are believers in their own immunity to advertising. These naive inhabitants of consumer land believe that advertising is childish, dumb, a bunch of lies, and influences only the masses of the less sophisticated. Their own purchases, they think, are made purely on the basis of value and desire, with advertising playing only a minor supporting role. Are consumers really immune to ads?

Advertisers know better. Although few people admit to being greatly influenced by ads, surveys and sales figures show that a well-designed advertising campaign has dramatic effects. A logical conclusion is that advertising works below the level of conscious awareness and it works even on those who claim immunity to its message.

Advertisers delight in an audience that believes ads to be harmless nonsense, for such an audience is rendered defenseless by its belief that there is no attack taking place. The purpose of studying advertising is to raising the level of awareness about the persuasive techniques used in ads. One of the simplest ways is through an analysis of the language of the advertising claim. What is the advertising claim?

The \"claim\" is the verbal or print part of an ad that makes some assertion of superiority for the product being advertised. A few of these claims are downright lies, some are honest statements about a truly superior product, but most fall into the category of neither bold lies nor helpful consumer information. They balance on the narrow line between truth and falsehood by a careful choice of words.

Why are so many claims false?

The reason so many ad claims fall into the category of false information is that they are applied to parity (同等，平价) products, those in which all or most of the brands available are nearly identical. Since no one superior product exists, advertising is used to create the illusion of superiority. The largest advertising budgets are devoted to parity products such as gasoline, cigarettes, beer and soft drinks, soaps, and various headache and cold remedies. The rules of advertising claims

The first rule to parity claims involves the Alice-in-Wonderland (荒诞不经的) use of the words \"better\" and \"best\". In parity claims, \"better\" means \"best\" but \"best\" only means \"equal to\". If all the brands are identical, they must all be equally good. So \"best\" means that the product is as good as the other superior products in its category. When Bing Grosby declared Minute Maid Orange Juice \"the best there is\he meant it was as good as the other orange juices you can buy. Bing could not have said that Minute Maid is \"better than any other orange juice\". \"Better\" is a claim to superiority. The only time \"better\" can be used is when a product does indeed have superiority over other products in its category or when the \"better\" is used to compare the product with something other than competing brands. An orange juice could therefore

claim to be \"better than a vitamin pill\drink\".

The second rule of advertising-claim analysis is simply that if any product is truly superior, the ad will say so very clearly and will offer some kind of convincing evidence of the superiority. If an ad avoids mentioning a product's advantage over the competition, you can strongly suspect it is not superior--maybe equal to but not better. You will never hear a gasoline company say \"We will give you four miles per gallon more in your car than any other brand.\" They would love to make such a claim, but it would not be true. Gasoline is a parity product, and, in spite of some very clever and deceptive ads of a few years ago, no one has yet claimed one brand of gasoline better than--and therefore superior to--any other brand.

To create the necessary illusion of superiority, advertisers usually resort to one or more of the following six basic techniques. Each is common and easy to identify.

1) The Weasel Claim (鼬鼠型广告词)

A weasel word is a modifier that almost contradicts the claim that is made. The expression \"weasel word\" is aptly named after the egg-eating habits of weasels. A weasel will suck out the inside of an egg, leaving it to appear intact to the casual observer. Upon closer examination, the egg is discovered to be hollow. Words or claims that appear substantial at first glance but break up into hollow meaninglessness on analysis are weasels. One sample of the Weasel Claim

\"Only half the price of many color sets.\" \"Many\not \"all\". The claim does not say that the television set is the cheapest, it says the set is cheaper than many other sets.

2) The \"Water Is Wet\" Claim

\"Water is wet\" claims say something about the product that is true for any brand in that product category. The claim is usually a statement of fact, but not a real advantage over the competition.

One sample of the \"Water is Wet\" Claim

\"Skin smells differently on everyone.\" As do many perfumes. 3) The \"So What\" Claim

This is the kind of claim to which, the careful reader will react by saying, \"So what?\" A claim is made that is true but gives no real advantage to the product. This is similar to the \"water is wet\" claim except that it claims an advantage that is not shared by most of the other brands in the product category. One sample of the \"So What\" Claim

\"Geritol has more than twice the iron of ordinary supplements.\" But is it twice as much beneficial to the body? 4) The Scientific or Statistical Claim

This kind of ad uses some sort of scientific proof or experiment, very specific numbers, or a mystery ingredient that sounds impressive. One Sample of the Scientific or Statistical Claim

\"Easy-Off has 33 percent more cleaning power than another popular brand.\" \"Another popular brand\" often translates as some other kind of oven cleaner sold somewhere. Also the claim does not say Easy-off works 33 percent better.

5) The \"Compliment the Consumer\" Claim This kind of claim flatters the consumer.

One Sample of the \"Compliment the Consumer\" Claim \"The lady has taste.\"

6) The Rhetorical Question

This technique demands a response from the audience. A question is asked and the viewer or listener is supposed to answer in such a way as to affirm the product's goodness.

One Sample of the Rhetorical Question

\"What do you want most from coffee? That's what you get most from Hills. \"

Whether you realize it or not, you are persuaded by advertisers to buy certain products. Even if you peer into the refrigerator during televised ads, or close your eyes when you drive past billboards, commercials are working on you. 1. 1

1.Sophisticated consumers are immune to advertising.____ Y N NG

2. The word \"better\" is used when a product is indeed superior to other products of the same brand or when it is compared with products of different brands.____ Y N NG

3. Some gasoline companies do have claimed that their brands are better than other brands because their gasoline have superiority over others.____ Y N NG

4. \"Skin smells differently on everyone.\" is a true statement, so the perfume \"Skin\" has an advantage over the others.____ Y N NG

5. The statement \"Wonder Bread helps build strong bodies in twelve different ways.\" may fall into the Scientific or Statistical Claim.____ Y N NG

6. Consumers don't like the \"Compliment the Consumer\" claims because they try to flatter them.____ Y N NG

7. If you turn off the TV and close your eyes when driving past billboards, then you may avoid being affected by ads.____ Y N NG

8. All the claims are made to ensure the superiority of the product being advertised.

9. Most of the advertising budgets are used in parity products.

10. The \"So What\" Claim differs from the The \"Water Is Wet\" Claim in that it claims a(an) advantage not shared by most of the other brands.

Newspapers in Great Britain

The population of the United Kingdom, or Great Britain and Northern Ireland is now over ,000,000. About 17,500,000 newspapers are sold every day. The British people, therefore, are great readers of the newspapers. There are few homes to which one newspaper is not delivered every morning. Many households have two, or even three, newspapers every day. One newspaper may be delivered at the house, a member of the family may buy one at the station bookstall to read in the train as he goes to town, and someone else in the family may buy an evening newspaper later in the day.

Different categories of newspapers in Great Britain

Daily papers are those that are published daily from Monday to Saturday. There are the morning papers and the evening papers. The morning papers are on sale early in the morning. The evening papers begin to appear during the morning, and new editions appear every two or three hours until the final edition comes out in the evening.

As in other countries, newspapers in Great Britain vary greatly in their ways of presenting the news. There are serious papers for those who want to know about important happenings everywhere, both domestic news and foreign

news. There are popular newspapers for those who prefer entertainment to information. There are newspapers whose pages are largely filled with news of sport--football, boxing and racing--and with stories of film stars, or accounts of crime and of law-court trials. Most newspapers today provide interesting and useful articles for their women readers. They tell them about the latest fashions in clothes, how to furnish their homes, and how to cook new and exciting dishes. The popular newspapers naturally have much larger circulation than the serious newspapers. The number of daily newspapers published in London is only nine or ten. Many of them are national papers, selling throughout the country.

In addition to the London dailies, there are other papers, published in the provinces, and the best of them sell throughout the whole country, in competition with the London papers.

The Guardian was formerly a Manchester paper and was called the Manchester Guardian. It is now printed in London as well as in Manchester. The motto it formerly used, \"Facts are sacred, comment is free\" was famous. This paper, because of its very honest comment on the news, is very influential.

The Times is the London newspaper that is best known outside Great Britain. It began in 1785, and has a high reputation for reliable news and serious comment on the news. It calls itself an independent paper, which means that it does not give its support to a particular political party. Its leading articles give the opinions of its editorial staff, not those of the owners of the paper.

The correspondence columns of the Times are always interesting and often amusing. Most of the letters are on serious subjects, but from time to time there will be a long correspondence on a subject that is not at all serious, perhaps on a new fashion of dress, or the bad manners of the younger generation compared with the manners of thirty years ago.

The Times, of course, does not publish the strip cartoons that are so common in the cheaper and popular papers. It does, however, publish a cross-word puzzle every day, with clues that are both clever and amusing. Many Times readers try to solve the puzzle every morning as they travel to town by train from their homes in the suburbs.

The Daily Express and the Daily Mail are also independent, though they are usually more sympathetic to Conservative than to Socialist policies. The Daily Telegraph, also a serious paper with a high reputation, is not independent. It supports the Conservative party.

Two popular papers, with larger circulations, are the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sketch. These have many photographs and numerous strip cartoons. The news that appears in their pages is not always the most important news, it is the news that will, in the editors' opinion, be most interesting to the man in the street. The two London evening papers, the Evening News and the Evening Standard, are sold not only at the ordinary newsagents' shops and station bookstalls, but also at busy street corners.

The evening papers sell well because they print, throughout the day, the

latest sports results. The sports pages also give advice to those who bet on results. Those people who have made bets on horse races are anxious to know whether the horse on which they have bet has come in first. During the football season the papers provide information to help those who try to win large sums of money in the football pools.

Not all the Sunday papers are Sunday editions of the daily papers, even if, as is sometimes the case, the owners are the same. Two of them, the Observer and the Sunday Times, have a high standing like that of the Times and the Guardian. The Observer, started in 1971, is the oldest Sunday paper published in Britain.

The Observer, the Sunday Times, and the Sunday Telegraph provide, in addition to the news, interesting articles on music, drama, cinema, newly published books, and gardening. Many of the best critics write for these three papers. They also publish special magazine supplements, largely filled with photographs, printed in color, and with many pages of advertisements, also in color. The Sunday papers in Britain, however, cannot rival those published in the USA.

Other Sunday newspapers are more popular. Most of them give full accounts of the many sporting events that take place on Saturday afternoons, and provide numerous articles for their women readers.

A modern newspaper could not be sold at a profit without advertisements. A single copy costs more to produce than the price paid by the reader. A newspaper with a large circulation may cost about ~ 100,000 a week to produce. About a quarter or this sum is received from the business firms who advertise in its pages.

11. The newspapers in Great Britain can divided into the following categories: morning papers and evening papers, serious papers and popular papers, national papers and provincial papers, weekend papers and weekday papers.____ Y N NG

12. It can be inferred from the passage the Guardian attaches great importance to facts and comment.____ Y N NG

13. The Times publishes cross-word puzzles as well as strip cartoons.____ Y N NG

14. The Daily Express, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph are all supportive of the Conservative party and are all independent.____ Y N NG

15. The Sunday paper in Britain is better than those published in the USA.____ Y N NG

16. The Times has larger circulation than the Guardian.____ Y N NG

17. Sunday newspapers may be more welcomed by women readers.____ Y N NG

18. The evenning newspapers in Britain have several editions a day.

19. Observer is the oldest Sunday paper published in Britain.

20. Newspapers make profits mainly from advertisements.