For those who are interested, National Public Radio and The New York Times are continuing the debate about Google, and their website even gives you a transcript. Times have never been better for learning English!
Tag Archives: Brands
Brand, make, model, label: your homework
This handout gives you some additional words related to brands and marketing. Please print, read and keep it, then complete this task as a homework by next Monday.
Brandwashed
I’m giving you this as an extra, not as a homework, because it’s rather difficult. It’s a radio interview about a book called ‘Brandwashed’ in which the author uncovers some of the practices companies use to persuade us to buy their products.
So if you are up for something more advanced, listen to the interview and try to answer the following questions:
- What does the expression brandwashed mean?
- What are examples of unconscious reactions to brands? How can branding create craving at the unconscious level?
- What does Wholefoods do to make their supermarkets more appealing?
- What was the outcome of the experiment with the Margenson family? What did this experiment prove?
- What advice is given to protect yourself from brandwashing? Do you think you need to be protected?
We won’t review this in class, but some words from the script may be interesting and worth memorising:
deceptive, perception, craving, unconscious/non-conscious, intent, word of mouth, casually, creepy, peer pressure, to be fooled
Are you brand loyal?
Which brands are you loyal to? Name one or a few and explain why you buy them and stick to them. If you’re not loyal to brands at all, give the reasons why.
Prepare to say 5 sentences in class next Monday.
Pleyel goes upmarket
I will regularly post audio and video files here, basically everything that’s not on the course book DVD. The Pleyel video, however, cannot be embedded, but you can find it on Youtube. Feel free to watch it again and use the transcript for better understanding.
And now your task: find out how Pleyel stands today and whether their strategy was successful.
Describing a brand
Source: http://www.vroomseo.ie
Your homework for Monday, 5 October:
Pick a popular brand (one your fellow students are likely to know) and prepare a short presentation about it.
Your description should answer the following three questions:
- What kind of products are marketed under the brand?
- Who buys (or is expected to buy) the products?
- How would you describe the image and qualitites of the brand?
If you have the Market Leader Course Book at hand, have a look at page 6, exercise A3. You will find some adjectives there which you can use to describe brands.
And here are some expressions you can use to talk about brands:
- I’m going to talk about a (car/computer/fashion/…) brand.
- The brand comprises … (list of products)
- The brand’s target group are …
- The brand stands for … (+ noun)
- The brand is said to be … (+ adjective)
- The brand has a reputation of being … (+ adjective)
Prepare yourselves to say 3-6 sentences in class.