COMPREHENSION. Ex. 1. Answer the following questions.

§ Classify them according to how much you think each of these advertising messages costs, going from the most expensive to the cheapest. § Explain your point of view.

Ex. 3. Look through the following passage to learn more about commercial advertising media. Do other advertising media use the same techniques and effects as TV-commercials?

Commercial Advertising Media

Commercial advertising media can include billboards (outdoor advertising), street furniture components, printed flyers, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, taxicab doors and roof mounts, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, stickers on apples in supermarkets, the opening section of streaming audio and video, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an “identified” sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising. Covert advertising embedded in other entertainment media is known as product placement.

The TV-commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format and this is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Boel football game in the United States is known as much for its commercial advertisements as for the game itself, and the average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached $2.3 million (as of 2004).

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the “relevance” of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.

E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is known as “spam”. A message is spam only when it is unsolicited and in bulk.

Some companies have proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising (mind control), and the pervasiveness of mass messages (propaganda).

Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising) can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal recommendations (“bring a friend”, “sell it by zealot”), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (“Hoover” = “vacuum cleaner”, “Kleenex” = “tissue”) – these must provide the stuff of fantasy to the holder of an advertising budget.

Ex. 4.Discuss with a partner.

1. TV-commercials are considered the most effective. What is there effectiveness due to?

2. Who constitutes the target audience of E-mail ads? Do you know how to avoid spam?

3. Word of mouth advertising or personal recommendations are too subjective. What do you think of it?