Sample response & feedback

Advertising Power vs Consumer Indifference

Question

Some people say that advertising is extremely successful at persuading us to buy things. Other people think that advertising is so common that we no longer pay attention to it. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Annotated response

10 correction notes

Showing 10 correction notes.

Advertising has a ubiquitous presence in our daily lives, and companies spend millions of dollars to to enhance their brand reputation and increase sales. While some believe that advertising has become so commonplace that it no longer has an impact on consumers, others argue that it remains an incredibly effective tool for convincing us to buy things. In this essay, I will explore both viewpoints and ultimately argue that advertising is indeed successful at influencing our buying behaviour.

On the one hand, some argue that advertising has lost its effectiveness due to its ubiquity and . According to this view, we are bombarded with ads everywhere we go and are tired of hearing from every brand that their product is the best in the market. As a result, we have become desensitized to them. We are so used to seeing ads that we no longer pay attention to them, and they have lost their power to influence us. However, it is important to remember that advertising is still a massive industry, with companies spending billions of dollars each year to create and disseminate ads. Clearly, advertisers would not continue to invest such large sums of money if they did not believe that advertising is effective at persuading us to buy things.

On the other hand, many argue that advertising is incredibly successful at influencing our purchasing decisions. Advertisements are designed to tap into our emotions, desires, and aspirations, and they often succeed in doing so. By associating their products with , advertisers create a powerful connection between their products and our deepest desires. For example, a perfume advertisement might depict an impossibly beautiful model living a life of luxury, thereby suggesting that if we buy the perfume, we too will experience that same level of glamour and sophistication.

In conclusion, while some may claim that has become so commonplace that it no longer has an impact on customers, I believe that advertising remains an exceptionally effective tool for persuading us to buy things. Advertisements tap into our emotions and desires, and they create powerful connections between products and our deepest aspirations.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 7.0

The response presents a clear personal position and discusses both views with generally controlled language and relevant support, including the perfume example. Its main limitation is uneven development: the loss-of-attention argument repeats itself, while continued advertising expenditure shows business confidence more directly than actual persuasion. Explaining how glamorous imagery can affect a purchase would make the preferred view more convincing.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

TR Task Response

7.0

The response addresses all parts of the task, discusses both views and states a clear consistent opinion, though the supporting ideas remain somewhat general and under-extended in places.

CC Coherence and Cohesion

7.0

The essay has clear paragraphing and a generally logical progression. Some development repeats the loss-of-attention claim, and the first body paragraph turns to advertising’s effectiveness before the next paragraph introduces that same side with “On the other hand”.

LR Lexical Resource

7.0

There is a good range of vocabulary for the topic, including 'ubiquity', 'desensitized', 'disseminate', and 'aspirations', used naturally with only minor imprecision.

GRA Grammatical Range and Accuracy

7.0

Complex structures, including subordinate clauses and conditionals, are generally controlled and easy to follow. A local noun-use error remains in “advertisement has become so commonplace”, where the uncountable activity noun “advertising” is needed.