Task 1. Read the text.

As you read this article, decide which of the four statements A–D
best sums up the writer’s main point.
A The general public does not fully understand business methods.
B There is something wrong with present-day values.
C Hear’Say was a unique phenomenon.
D Television is essential for success in pop music.
Hearts for sale

If there were simply goods that we could buy and services, we could pay someone else to
provide them. Then came brands, first of all for manufactured goods, and later for services,
too. In the next stage, even people became brands. Drawn from the world of business, and in
particular of marketing, branding would have o been an alien concept to Leonardo da Vinci
or Beethoven, or most other self-respecting artists and Hear'Say musicians, and one that the
vast majority would have rejected. What's happening now, however, is that the creativity
displayed by an artist - or more often a musician - is turned into a brand, something to be
marketed and sold, as though there was no difference between a talented and internationally
renowned singer and a bar of chocolate.
At least in most cases the singer or the artist has proved their worth, and branding takes place
on the back of their talent and success. But now we have gone one step further: the brand
comes first, and the mere human beings are chosen to fit. A classic example of the
manufactured pop group is Hear'Say. More than five thousand people auditioned to join the
yet-to-be-formed group, and ten of them were shortlisted to take part in Popstars, a talent
show on British television. Here they performed in front of three judges, who chose the five
people they considered best embodied their concept of the group - two young men and three
young women, all able to sing, dance, and handle press conferences and interviews, and all
good-looking. The perfect pop group.
Out came an official video of the TV series, dolls, posters, and a line of clothing - all ways of
turning music into a business and making money from the brand. Within a few weeks of
being created in a television contest, Hear'Say had gone from obscurity to having a number-
one single, video, and other merchandise - and there was even an hour of prime-time
television about their short lives and breathtakingly brief careers. The Hearsay phenomenon
became unstoppably self-fuelling - the faster their fame increased, the more the audience
wanted of them. Within two years of its formation, however, the group split up, blaming
public hostility - which certainly existed, alongside the mass adulation - and the pressures of
music industry life.
Other groups have been branded and marketed as aggressively as Hear'Say; none as quickly.
As their licensing manager admitted, they were marketing the group before they even knew
who was going to be in it. Hear'Say succeeded because they brilliantly exploited marketing's
Big Idea - namely, the quickest way to your customers' wallets is through their hearts.
The marketing lore is that the consumer is swamped with 85 products and the only brands
which will succeed are those that make an emotional connection. Increasingly, what we want
is to buy our values - we need products to bring meaning and purpose into our lives.
The danger is that this commercialisation of our private world breeds cynicism and emotional
detachment: happiness is reduced to no more than having the latest mobile phone. Emotional
exploitation ultimately generates a pessimism about human nature which assumes that
everyone is a brand, with some failing and some succeeding, and that everyone is out to 'sell
themselves' in life's great talent contest. It is as a reflection of our times, rather than as
musicians, that Hear'Say have their greatest significance.
Task 2. Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer?
Write
YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
NOT GIVEN f it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
0 The introduction of brands for goods and services was undesirable.
Answer: Not given
1  Beethoven would probably have accepted the idea of branding.
2  The judges on Popstars were well qualified for their roles.
3  The people chosen to form Hear’Say lacked talent.
4  Hear’Say’s licensing manager built his success on his experience of marketing other
groups.
5  Appealing to people’s emotions is an effective way of selling products.
6  The most successful products are those that are best at what they are designed to do.
7  The general public is becoming concerned about the increase in cynicism.
8  Commercialisation is affecting our attitude towards other people.
Cleft sentences.
Task 1. These cleft sentences are being used to correct mistakes. Underline the key idea
and complete each sentence with some incorrect information.
1  It was in the 19th century that advertising first became common, not __________________
2  It was to increase their sales that businesses started using brand names, not
__________________
3  What was new in the nineteenth century was the use of brand names, not
__________________
4  What most consumers want is low prices, not __________________
5  It is the power of marketing that Hear’Say’s success demonstrates, not
__________________
Task 2. Underline the key idea in each sentence.
1  What the success of Hear’Say shows is that fame can be manufactured.
2  It was in a talent contest that the members of Hear’Say met.
3  It is because our emotions affect our behaviour that advertisers appeal to them.
4  What surprised many people was that the group was marketed before it existed.