8 The role of advertising

Unit 3

Name _______________________________________________ No. _______ Class _________ Date _________________

1. Do you think teens are easy prey to marketers? Explain.

2. Read the text.

Advertising to teens
Why do marketers love teens? For a number of reasons. They have money to burn, and the
items they buy are largely “luxury” items, like clothing, electronics, and music. They make
many, if not most, of their purchasing decisions independently. And they have significant
influence on family purchases. Perhaps most importantly, companies know that once they
5 have “branded” a child, he or she is likely to be a customer for life.
How do they reach kids? Advertising is in magazines, movies, TV shows, and on the
internet. Licensed products, in the form of clothing, toys, and accessories, abound. Schools
make deals with soda companies and sell naming rights to their gyms to the highest bidder.
Companies glean important demographic info about kids, spending habits from seemingly
10 innocuous internet “quizzes” and “surveys”. Marketing comes at kids from all directions,
24/7.
How do marketers do it? They know how to capitalize on important teenage issues and
anxieties, like body image, peer acceptance, coolness, and a need for power. They use these
themes repeatedly in advertising geared towards children and teenagers.
15 Why is advertising so effective? Advertising works best when it creates insecurity about
something, such as appearance. Successful ads convince the viewers that they have a
problem that needs fixing, and then proposes to offer the solution, which just happens to be
the product they are selling. The message is that teens aren’t good enough the way they are.
Many kids unwittingly buy into that message, and as a result, end up being hypercritical of
20 themselves because they don’t fit a certain “image” that they believe is necessary for their
happiness.
What’s wrong with this picture? This generation of kids is growing up in what is perhaps the
most materialistic society we have ever had. They are surrounded by images of excess and
the idea that buying “things” will bring them satisfaction. They are given things easily and
25 rarely have to delay gratification. Worst of all, many of the things that are advertised to
teens do not promote healthy development.
http://suite101.com
accessed in November 2013

Editable and photocopiable © Texto | Link up to you! 45

 3. Identify the general topic of the text.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Say who the personal pronoun “they” refers to on:

a. line 1 _______________ c. line 13 _______________ e. line 18 _______________

b. line 4 _______________ d. line 16 _______________ f. line 23 _______________

5. Scan the text to find the words or expressions that have the following meaning.

a. Conducive to physical comfort or sumptuous living, but not a necessity of life. _______________
b. Identifiable as being the product of a particular manufacturer. _______________
c. Given official approval to act. _______________
d. Extract information from various sources. _______________
e. All the time. _______________
f. Take the chance to gain advantage from. _______________
g. Money oriented. _______________

6. Write questions for the following answers.

a. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________?
They have a great importance because they might be customers forever.
b. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________?
They use quizzes and surveys.
c. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________?
Because if they make teens insecure, they will be more successful.
d. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________?
It is successful when it convinces the public that they have a problem and that their product is the solution.
e. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________?
Teens will only feel happy if they can buy things.

1. How far does advertising influence you? Explain.

2. Do you feel depressed that you don’t conform to the
stellar image of teenagers in ads?
3. Why do you think teens are so materialistic?
4. What do your parents ask you to do in return for
something you want to buy?

46 Editable and photocopiable © Texto | Link up to you!

 9 The ethical consumer
Unit 3

Name _______________________________________________ No. _______ Class _________ Date _________________

1. Do only poor people buy second-hand clothes, do you think?

2. Read the text.

Thrifty shoppers rediscover secondhand fashion

Karen Charles remembers how embarrassed she was the first time she set foot in a thrift
store more than 20 years ago to buy black pants for her first job.
“I didn’t want anyone to see me,” said Charles, a 37-year old administrative assistant from
Atlanta. “In high school, there was really a stigma attached to it. People thought you were
5 either poor or homeless.”
Now, the fashion enthusiast says about 97% of her closet consists of secondhand clothes,
vintage dresses and all kinds of sequined accessories. Her favorite find is a navy blue Bill
Blass chiffon evening gown potentially worth hundreds of dollars that she scored for $5 at
Goodwill. Her last visit to a mall – a rare occurrence – was months ago, to use a gift card.
10 She proudly flaunts her thrift store finds on her blog, and social media. When strangers
started asking her for fashion advice, she decided to market her love of “thrifting” by
becoming a part-time personal shopper. She helps clients maintain their wardrobes and
advises them on new trends. She even organized Atlanta’s first Thrift Fashion Week in the
spring.
15 “I want to encourage people to try it,” she said. “When you see other people doing things
and you see all the great pieces they find, it kind of motivates you to at least try it.”
In fact, more people have been sharing Charles’s enthusiasm for secondhand clothing in
recent years. Goodwill Industries, one of the most recognizable names in secondhand
shopping, says it has experienced an 84% increase in revenue from the sale of donated
20 goods from 2007 to 2012, from $1.9 billion to $3.5 billion.
Secondhand clothing and vintage items are showing up in couture, street wear, even
everyday office wear. Besides the incentive of saving money, thrifting has also become
trendy. Hip-hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis won a 2013 Billboard Music Award for
their hit song “Thrift Shop,” which brags about “looking for a come up” in a thrift shop.
25 More people are discovering thrift store shopping because of the recession, said Maureen
McGill, co-founder of Manhattan Vintage, New York’s biggest vintage fashion market for
more than 30 years. But she believes that the love of vintage style and the thrill of the hunt
will keep people coming even during good economic times.
http://edition.cnn.com
accessed in November 2013

3. Identify the general topic of the text.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Editable and photocopiable © Texto | Link up to you! 47

 4. Who or what do these words refer to?
a. their (l. 12) _______________ c. it (l. 19) _______________
b. it (l. 16) _______________ d. their (l. 24) _______________

5. Find words/expressions in the text that mean the same as:

a. enter, go into _______________
b. connected to something _______________
c. obtained _______________
d. exhibits _______________
e. the designing and manufacturing of high fashion clothing _______________
f. say something in a boastful manner _______________

6. There are three types of shops in America that sell second-hand clothes: thrift shops, resale
shops and consignment shops.
6.1 Match the expression “thrift shop” to its equivalent definition.
a. buys merchandise from individual owners.
A thrift shop… b. pays the owners of the merchandise a percentage when and if the items are sold.
c. is run by a not-for-profit organisation to fund charitable causes

6.2 What definitions match the other two shops?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Answer the questions.

7.1 When Karen was young she didn’t feel comfortable buying clothes in a thrift shop. Why?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7.2 How much money did she save in her navy blue Bill Blass chiffon evening gown?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7.3 What exactly does a part-time personal shopper do?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7.4 According to Maureen, people tend to buy more vintage items during economic depression times.
Give a reason for such a phenomenon.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1. Do you think many teens buy second-hand clothes?

2. Do you know people your age who buy second-hand clothes?
3. Why do you think they buy them?
4. Have you ever bought second-hand items? If so, name them. If
not, why not?

48 Editable and photocopiable © Texto | Link up to you!