Some people say that advertising encourages us to buy things we really don’t need. Others say that advertisements tell us about new products that may improve our lives. Which viewpoint do you agree with? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
Nowadays advertising is a huge part of our lives either we want it or not. Some say it is the way to manipulate our minds and make us buy things we can absolutely do without; others believe that it serves a crucial informative purpose keeping us updated about all the new products on the market. Indeed, both are valid points but personally I am an advocate of the first opinion. Market is overly saturated with products these days and ads basically force us to waste our time on learning about new goods; moreover, manipulative techniques used in marketing products make us buy things that are absolutely unnecessary; and finally, ads raise the cost of products as companies have to increase it to cover marketing expenses.
Not many of us ask ourselves how much time we waste listening or watching commercials. Either we are driving to work or taking a metro, walking on the streets or just being at home - everywhere we are surrounded by radio or TV ads, billboards, booklets, people trying to give us some samples or convincing to sign up for some free trays and so on. I am sure any of us can find more important things to do instead of talking to strangers about something they try to sell or listening/ watching a commercial millionth time over again.
But not only time that commercials cost us, it is also money. The most recent example of totally absurd product that I have on mind is the night table with the whole for a pet litter inside I bumped into in one of the fancy home design magazines. Why would someone need it!? But that’s exactly what advertising is for, it artificially creates a need in order to come up with something unique that competitors haven’t yet. The remaining question is do we really need all these novelties? Majority of them we absolutely don’t need!
We don’t actually think about it, but it is us who have to pay for all these ads we watch and all these multimillion dollar marketing companies that companies organize in order to promote their products. All the marketing expenses are included in the price; otherwise, companies wouldn’t pay such insane amounts of money on advertising it, unless they know this money will get paid back! Hence a product of not a widely famous brand will always cost less than a famous one.
We don’t think much about advertising, because it has become such a big part of our lives. But, maybe if we take a closer look at our consumer behavior and start asking ourselves: “do I really need this?” when buying another trendy unnecessary thing, we will realize all the manipulative nature of this marketing society we are living in and will stop being a sheep and follow trends and ads.
Hi, another excellent essay. Are you preparing for the TOEFL or just practicing your essay writing? Either way it is fine, just wondering what kind of feedback would be most helpful.
Hey Luschen, good afternoon!
Yes, I am preparing for taking my Toefl in a couple of weeks. I have taken in once before back in August and got the score of 98 (25 on Writing, 24 on Speaking, 25 on Reading and 24 on Listenning) . Strangely enough I got less points on the sections I was most confident about.)) So here I am back to taking it as I have to make the deadline of 15th of January 2013 to apply to the university. They require the Toefl score of 108 for international students which I find quite challenging. I have lived in Atlanta, GA for over 5 years and my English is not bad but I have never stidied in US and apparently the academic requirements for American students are quite different from the ones I am familiar with. In the university I studied at (in Belarus) the required format of an essay was more free and not that striclty regulated. That’s why, as you have probably noticed, I have difficulties following the American standards of essay writing ))
Oh, and thank you very much for making time to grade me essay ! Actually, you haven’t given me any grades, does my writing style makes it complicated to guess how graders would respond to my essays?
Hi, if you take the TOEFL, I would be very interested in learning how you score. I think perhaps the TOEFL does not test how well you can write, it instead tests how well you can write a standard TOEFL essay. But of course, I may be wrong. Still, really, I can’t imagine anyone rating this less than a 4, I would rate it a 4.5 due to your minor grammatical and article usage errors.
By the way, are you applying to Georgia Tech or Emory or a different university? Are you enjoying the SEC championship excitement? Hopefully by now you are a big American football fan. Georgia has a chance to go all the way - the team that wins the SEC is sure to beat Notre Dame.
I will surely let you know how I score, I have not registered yet but better hurry if I want to make a deadline in my university .
Haha, can’t say I know much about football though. I am a tennis girl and started snowboarding last year I know it’s not the most Southern sport))
Well the thing is I spend a lot of time in Canada and actually the university I am applying to is Concordia University in Montreal. I am going for Master of Arts in Media Studies and the reason why they expect such a high Toefl score is that the students will be giving a lot of writing assignments. Don’t really know if it is a good thing in my case though, I might have to adjust to their format of righting. Well we shall see if I make it first)))
Hope your cat is well
Thank you very much Luschen!!!
Oh yeah, actually in my case reading played a crucial role. I didn’t sleep 3 nights in a row before the exam and could not concentrate at all while reading, and all the background noise was irritating me big time, hence I was stressing out majorly and loosing a lot of time. So I assumed I did very bad and it was not the start I wanted to have, so I just wanted to walk out, but then I decided I wasn’t a quitter and finished the test, but I didn’t put much effort in anything and just wanted it to be over. Now, looking back at the whole thing I definitely have regrets, maybe I would haven’t been preparing for it now over again… So I take reading very seriously this time!))) Hope it will be a lesson to others not to get emotional and just keep carry on no matter how you think you do.
