Topic 1: Does increasing travels between countries enable people to learn different cultures or to

Topic 52: Advertising encourages customers to buy in quantity not in quality. To what 
extent do you agree or disagree?
 
(sales promotion) (part of a marketing process);
(whether a mistake is serious or easily recoverable)
(The effect of advertising is temporary, not lasting.).
(perform primary functions);
(dispose of excess production)
Living in the information age, people are bombarded with substantial daily doses of 
advertising in multiple media. The argument that advertising, with its overwhelming power, 
leads to consumers' impulsive purchase has been accepted by more and more people. 
Consumers are encouraged by advertisements to purchase products in quantity without paying 
heed to quality. This allegation is flawed, as far as I am concerned.
The first fact to note is that despite the strength of advertising, viewers remain as decision 
makers.
They gather information from advertisements based on their own interest. While some people 
focus on quality, others are concerned with price. Likewise, advertisements stress different 
aspects of a product, either quality or price, which is determined by contexts. Consumers are 
now desensitized to the information delivered by commercials and become increasingly 
cautious. Quality is, in most cases, a primary concern to them. Even those most loyal users of 
advertising are now concentrated on product quality, believing that neither pricing nor 
advertising is an effective facilitator of sales and consumers' satisfaction with quality is the 
key to repeat purchases.
Price is perhaps an inducement used by marketers to trigger sales, but other elements, 
such as product package, functions, after-sales service and warrantee, appear to gain in 
importance. Advertising informs people of more choices, allowing them to make a buying 
decision according to their needs and favour a product for different reasons, either quality or 
price cuts. Needless to say, people have become more circumspect than ever before and more 
prone to the interaction of other factors, such as the advice of their friends, past experience, 
current knowledge and physiological state.
It is also necessary to draw a line between the concept of marketing and that of advertising. 
Advertising alone is not able to contribute high sales and the link between advertising and 
product usage is in fact not clear. In its broadest sense, advertising is merely a means of 
generating demand in society by offering specific information on a product or service in a 
persuasive format; it is similar to sales promotion, package sales, low-pricing strategy and 
other marketing techniques. Advertising simply conveys the message relating to price, rather 
than creating this message.
The facts outlined above, when taken together, are in favour of a view that consumers 
take in the information delivered by an advertisement differently, and they are influenced by a 
variety of factors and driven by forces in a decision making process. Quality is of concern to 
them in most cases, instead of price.
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1. Dose=quantity=amount
2. Allegation=c1aim
3. Flawed=faulty=blemished
4. Stress =emphasize=underline=underscore=accentuate
5. Desensitized to=indifferent to=uninterested in
6. Concentrate on=focus on=be conscious of=be immersed in
7. Inducement= stimulus
8. Circumspect=cautious=prudent=careful
9. Interaction =interplay
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