Eco-Power ads policies... I think that will help for curious minds:-)

[carpenia]

Hi guys, I have written down a long argument analysis and I think it will be helpful for curious minds... any scoring will be enthusiastically welcomed



The following appeared in a memo from the sales manager of Eco-Power, a company that manufactures tools and home appliances.
"Many popular radio and television commercials use memorable tunes and song lyrics to call attention to the products being advertised. Indeed, a recent study of high school students showed that 85 percent could easily recognize the tunes used to advertise leading soft drinks and fast-food restaurants. Despite our company's extensive advertising in magazines during the past year, sales of our home appliances declined. Therefore, to boost company profits, we should now switch to advertisements featuring a distinctive song."


The author of the memo from the sales manager of Eco-Power claims that the company should use advertisements featuring thrilling and retentive tunes to promote the sales of their products. To bolster his claim the author cites that their profits are declining despite their pervasive advertisements during the past years. In further support of his claim, he relates the recent survey that high schools students can easily recognize the songs of advertisements pertaining to soft drinks and fast-food restaurants. However, the author fails to convince me because the argument is not complete and flawed in several critical respects, since it presents fragmentary evidence. Therefore the argument is very evidently the result of a hasty generalization and fails to provide a holistic picture. The following essay will expose these flaws and demonstrate how the argument could be strengthened.

A threshold problem with the argument is that the author unfairly assumes that the retentive characteristic of ads’ songs also results in an increasing in sales. Perhaps the aforementioned students are only interested in listening to or talking about tunes and there is no promotion in the sales as a result. Although this is entirely possible, the argument provides no evidence to substantiate this assumption. Without such evidence, the argument can be easily rejected out of hand.

Even assuming that the students recognizing the ads’ tunes are interested in purchasing the relevant products, the author fails to mention that the students participated in the survey are the representative of overall population. Moreover, common sense and experience inform me that the students are not the factor contributing to sales of home appliances since they cannot purchase by themselves. Due to the reality that the company’s target realm of consumers are parents and adults, recognizing of ads’ tunes by the students will not result in an increase in the sales of home products.

Even if the students recognizing the tunes lead to promotion in the sales, the author does not provide dear evidence that the purchasing trends will be duplicated in the sales of home products when they employ the proposed strategy. Since the interested areas of youngsters and parents are mutually exclusive, the promotion in the sales of fast-foods or soft drinks has nothing to do with the sales of home appliances. Without addressing this issue, the author cannot justifiably conclude that the purchasing trends will be replicated.

The other problem with the argument is that the author unreasonably assumes that their current advertisement policies are responsible for the decline of their home products. It is entirely possible that the other factors might be responsible for that. Perhaps the management or marketing problems are responsible for this situation. Without ruling out this possibility, the speaker cannot reasonably conclude with any confidence that the proposed course of action will be successful.


Finally, the last but not least flaw with the argument is that, the author overlooks the possibility that there are other means of achieving the desired result. Perhaps the prices are too high; or perhaps there is another competitive company competing in the same market. It is also possible that their fashion is not up to date and the products fail to attract consumers. Without considering and ruling out these and other possible reasons that might contribute to decline, the author cannot convince me.

In sum, the author’s argument is logically flawed, weak on several grounds and therefore unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen the argument, I would need to know that the students recognizing the ads’ tunes are also interested in purchasing the related products and the same trend will replicated in the sales of home products. To better assess the argument I would also need to know that the current advertisements policies are responsible for decline and the proposed course of action will be successful. Had the author taken the above discussed factor into view, it would have rendered the argument irrefutable. In a nutshell, without closing the gap and fixing the other problems discussed in this essay, the argument is simply vulnerable to criticism.