Money con buy you love

Unit 6 PAGE 51

Comparatives and superlatives

Marketing
PAGE 53

Career skills: Considering alternatives

PAGE 55

www.longman-elt.com www.economist.com Dilemma: A scent of risk

PAGE 56
.

Seducing
masses

ffit: Keynotes
The various activities of the
marketing process are referred
to as the marketing mix and
traditionally include the four Ps:
product (characteristics and
features), price (appropriate market
price), promotion (communicating the
product's benefits), place (distribution
of the product.in markets). In order to
gain a competitive advantage over rivals,
companies create brands that represent
aspirations and a desirable image of life that
the customer would Like to identify with.
 Preview Brands
Q W h a t are yo u r favou rite brands o f the fo llow ing products? W h y
do you prefer these to other sim ila r brands?
soft drinks clothes cars shampoo

□ N o w choose one o f the products you use and consid er the

m arketing m ix fo r that b rand. T hink about the follow ing .
product - what are the product’s features?
price - in comparison with similar products
promotion - where and how is it advertised?
place - where can you buy the product?

Do you th in k you are a typ ical custom er fo r the b rand?

E l People’s attitudes to brands and m arketing can be very different.

W hich o f these statem ents do you agree w ith ?
‘Marketing transforms brands, making them stand fo r things that they just
don’t stand fo r. They d o r’t d eliver.’ Naomi Klein author of No Logo: Taking
Aim at the Brand Bullies.
‘Brands provide us w ith beliefs. They define who we are.’ W ally Olins, a
corporate identity consultant.

Reading Marketing brands

n Read the text on the opposite page and decide w h ich o f the
above view s is closest to that o f the author.

H Read the text again and m atch the headings a-f w ith paragraphs
1-5. There is one extra heading.
a Brands past ----
b Advertising brands ----
c The new consumers ----
d Guilty ----
e The case against brands ----
f The importance of brands ----

§3 Read paragraph three again. Are the statem ents true o r false?
1 It was relatively easy in the past to create a new brand.
2 Buying a branded product did not cost customers more.
3 Brands were developed for the international market.
4 The government closely controlled the markets at home.
5 Brands deterred other companies from entering the market.

Speaking The author suggests young people no longer believe advertisem ents.
Do you agree? W h a t does influence young peop le’s buying decisions?

50 ■ U n it 6
 Marketing brands
Money can buy you love
Are w e being m anipulated into buying brands?
1 BRANDS are accused o f all sorts o f
evils, from threatening our health and
destroying our environm ent to corrupt­
ing our children. Brands are so powerful,
it is said, that they force us to look alike,
eat alike and be alike.
2 This grim picture has been made
popular by m any recent anti-branding
books. The argument has been most
forcefully stated in N aom i Klein ’s book
No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand
Bullies. Its argum ent runs something
like this. In the new global economy,
brands represent a huge portion o f the
value of a com pany and, increasingly, its
biggest source o f profits. So com panies
are switching from showcasing product
features to marketing aspirations and
the dream o f a more exciting lifestyle.
3 H istorically, b uilding a brand was
rather simple. A logo was a straightfor­
ward guarantee o f q uality and consisten­
cy, or it was a signal that a product was
something new. For that, consumers were
prepared to pay a prem ium. Build in g a
brand natio n ally required little more
than an occasional advertisem ent on a
handful o f television or radio stations
showing how the product tasted better or
drove faster. There was little regulation. It
was easy for brands such as Coca-Cola,
Kodak and M arlb oro to become hugely
powerful. Because shopping was still a
local business and com petition lim ited, a
successful brand could m aintain its lead
and high prices for years. A strong brand
acted as an effective barrier to entry for
competing products.
4 Consum ers are now bombarded w ith
choices. They are also harder to reach.
They are busier, more distracted and
have more m edia to choose from . They
are “ com m ercials veterans” experiencing
up to 1,500 pitches a day. They are more
cynical than ever about marketing and
less responsive to messages to buy.
Jo n ath a n Bond an d Rich ard
Kirshenbaum , authors o f Under The
Radar - Talking To Today’s Cynical
Consumers, say “ some o f the most cyn­
ical consumers are the young.” Ne arly
h a lf o f a ll U S college students have
Glossary
manipulated influenced to do what
someone else wants
corrupt make morally bad
aspirations hopes and wishes
bombarded repeatedly attacked
veterans very experienced people
taken m arketing courses and “ know the
enemy” . For them, “ shooting down adver­
tising has become a kind of sport.’ ”
5 Marketers have to take some o f the
blam e. W h ile consumers have changed
beyond recognition, m arketing has not.
Even in the USA, hom e to nine o f the
w o rld ’s ten most valuable brands, it can
be a shockingly old-fashioned business.
M arketing theory is still largely based on
the days w hen Procter & Gam b le’s
brands dom inated the USA, and its
advertising agencies wrote the rules.
Those rules focused on the product and
where to sell it, not the customer. The
new marketing approach is to develop a
brand not a product - to sell a lifestyle
or a personality, to appeal to emotions.
(It is a much harder task than describing
the features and benefits o f a product.)
How ever, brands o f the future w ill have
to stand for all o f this and more. Not
only w ill they need to be a stamp o f prod­
uct q uality and a promise o f a more desir­
able lifestyle but they w ill also have to
project an image o f social responsibility ■
• T he
Economi st
U nit 6 ■ 51
 Vocabulary | Fin d w ords in the text on page 51 to com plete the w ordm ap.

dominate s tro n g

verbs BRAND adjectives

i f jBfiilt. rnn!f'»In|iif ; »£•!£•£»(is

3 Com plete the m agazine article w ith the fo llo w in g words.

cynical consumers competition markets effective pitches
customers marketers impressed

W h e n yo un g couples get m arried in th e
USA th e y also receive a gift bag m arked
‘newly-wed k it’.
In a world o f ever increasing
1 co m petition many companies are
the
such as Procter & Gamble have found
this to be a very5_____________way to
target extremely profitable
6_____________such as young couples.
US newly-weds spend an average of
$70bn in the first year of marriage. One
rketers
7____________ of the same stores they
had shopped in before the wedding.
While the gift bags do appeal to a lot of
young couples, others are a little less
8____________ . As one rather
9______________ yo u ng m an said w h en he

happy to use this new way to reach
2____________ . Corporate
3____________ say that certain points
in life make people especially vulnerable
to sales4_____________. Companies
study shows that 67 per cent of women
wear the same perfume they wore when
they got married and a Bride’s magazine
study showed that after three years of
marriage women were still
fo un d a sam p le o f deo d o ran t a nd an offer for
a new ch equeb o ok in his g ift bag, ‘does this
m ean th a t m arriage stands fo r bo dy o do u r
an d financial worries? T h is stu ff seems be tte r
suited for a d iv o rc e k it!

W h at do you th in k about this m ethod o f m arketing? Can you th in k

o f other ‘points in life ’ w h en people w o u ld be ‘p articu la rly
vu ln erab le’ to m arketing tactics such as these?

52 ■ Unit 6
 Language check Comparatives and superlatives
Look at the fo llow in g sentences from the text on page 51.
1 They are also harder to reach. They are busier, more distracted and
have more m edia to choose from .
2 In the new global econom y, brands represent a huge portion of the
value of a company and, increasingly, its biggest source of profits.
3 Jonathan Bond and Richard Kirshenbaum, authors of Under The Radar
- Talking To Today’s Cynical Consumers, say ‘some of the most cynical
consumers are the young.’
4 The argument has been most fo rcefully stated in Naom i K lein’s book No
Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies.

H o w are the com p aratives and superlatives o f the follo w in g form ed?
- adjectives of one syllable
- adjectives ending in -y?
- adjectives of more than one syllable
- adverbs

For more information, see page 159.

Practice ( f Com plete the table.

adjective comparative superlative adverb comparative superlative

1 powerful more powerful m o s t powerful powerfully more powerfully m o st powerfully

2 excitinc

3 fast

4 cynical " f i l l : :r ■:

easy

hard

responsive

8 good

The only thing

to worry about .
in this vehicle
is low flying
aircraft

U nit 6 ■ 53
 B Com plete the article w ith the correct form o f the adjectives
in brackets.

That little, v o ice

in your head
Laser-like audio technology is currently being developed to
provide marketers with one of the ( 1new) newest and
( 2innovative)___________ marketing techniques they’ve seen
for years. Hypersonic sound speakers on supermarket shelves
and vending machines send messages to customers as they
walk past.The sound is ( 3clear)___________ than normal, which
allows it to reach directly into the listeners’ ears. They will think that I’ve ever heard of.’ But some people are
the message is coming from inside their heads! Marketers ( 7sceptical)____________ about consumer reaction. People may
believe that it will have a far ( 4great)____________ effect on not like the fact that this method is ( 8intrusive)___________
sales than other forms of point of sale promotion. ‘It will also than others. But marketers remain optimistic as one consultant
make people laugh,’ one consultant said, ‘it is said, ‘This is ( 9good)____________ chance w e’ve got of ever
( 5funny)____________ and ( 6amusing)____________ way to sell actually getting inside our customers’ heads.’

Listening i © The importance of brands

Bl Pat H ill is a b ran d strategy consultant.
Listen to her talk about
the im portance o f brands and answ er the questions.
1 W hy do companies need to create brands?
2 What are the five most important characteristics of a brand?

3 W hy has Chanel No 5 been successful for so long?

4 What helped establish the No 5 brand in the 1960s?

Speaking 0 Can you th in k o f other celeb rity endorsem ents?

A successful b ran d appeals to people’s em otions and desires. M atch

the fo llo w ing slogans to the types o f appeal.
1 Don’t leave home without it a patriotism
2 Think Different b self-esteem
3 It keeps going and going and going c insecurity
4 Because I’m worth it d originality
5 The great American chocolate e value for money

E n e r g iz e ! :

LOR EAL
54 ■ U n it 6