Advertising Products as New: Causes and Effects

In their advertising, businesses nowadays usually emphasise that their products are new in some way. Why is this? Do you think it is a positive or negative development?

Annotated response

5 correction notes

Showing 5 correction notes.

It is becoming increasingly common for companies to place focus on the novelty of their products. In my opinion, this has its basis in the psychology of consumer behavior and is generally a negative development.

The reason many marketing departments present products as new is they are hoping to incentivize increased consumer demand. One of the chief principles of business is that products must meet a real consumer need and, ideally, be unique in some way. For example, advertising for the made by Tesla highlights that they are different from traditional automobiles and this offers novel benefits for the environment and the individual motorist. This strategy created a niche in the automotive industry that to become one of the largest companies in the world. It follows that every business attempts to present their products as new to inspire interest and compel demand.

There are exceptions, as in the case of Tesla trend generally leads to disingenuous ads and consumer fatigue. Most companies framing their products as new in some aspect are actually attempting to mislead the public. This is often the case with soft drink companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi that regularly rebrand their bottles and cans to give the appearance of novelty. These tactics are recognizably dishonest and audiences are rarely convinced. In fact, the net effect is that consumers become tired of watching ads for familiar products pretending to be innovative. leads to a growing feeling of apathy and disinterest towards the exploitive methods of advertisers.

In conclusion, the reason businesses often present their products as new lies in the importance of consumer psychology and the in the aggregate is negative. More savvy companies often eschew this trend and produce honest advertisements.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 7.5

The response presents a clear, consistent position and develops both parts of the question with relevant, well-chosen examples such as Tesla and Coca-Cola. The language is precise and varied, though a few awkward phrasings and a slightly confusing link back to the Tesla example weaken cohesion and grammatical accuracy at points.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Response

7.5

The response fully answers both questions with a clear position, well-developed main ideas, and relevant supporting examples including Tesla and soft drink rebranding.

Coherence and Cohesion

7.5

Ideas progress logically across well-organised paragraphs with effective cohesive devices, though the transitional reference to Tesla as an 'exception' creates minor confusion in the argument's flow.

Lexical Resource

7.5

Vocabulary is flexible and precise, with natural use of items such as 'incentivize consumer demand', 'disingenuous', and 'consumer fatigue', alongside only occasional imprecision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

7.0

A wide range of complex structures is used with generally good control, but noticeable slips in verb and linking constructions occasionally reduce accuracy.