What ways do you suggest to make ads effective? What are their good and bad effects on the society?

Oh god, this was a tough topic as it was actually two topics in one. Hope you would help me to find the weak points of this essay. Thank you all in advance :)

Topic: Almost every successful company is using advertisements to increase their sales. What features make an advertisement effective? Is advertising good or bad for the society?

We live in a world surrounded by various types of advertisements. Advertisements are powerful tools in the hands of traders and companies to introduce their products to people. However, not all advertisements successfully grab the attention of customers. Hence, the question that goes through the mind is: how can companies make a promotion influential? Moreover, the debate over advertising is always followed by the subjects of its positive and negative effects on the society. Accordingly, this essay aims to address these two facets of advertising.

[...]

We live in a world surrounded by various types of advertisements. --- We are surrounded but the world is not surrounded.

Through years many pundits have tried to evolve enhance advertising methods in a way to increase their effectiveness.

...they unknowingly inadvertently influence the society in both good and bad ways...

Okay, you do not have many errors and I like the writing style. I think advertising is totally natural in a free market, capitalist society. People who believe in the importance of capitalism's competition must also be in favor of advertising because they are inseparable. I also think the way to improve the essay might be to do a bit of research and find a few more examples of what makes an ad effective. What about the media used to share the ad? And maybe you could mention a few research studies about effective advertising. You can search google for that. : )

thanks Kevin. useful comments as usual, but this is an IELTS writing test, so I have to rely on my own knowledge and experience. But, it might be a good idea to google the topic to get more information about advertising if in the future I face the same subject to write about.

Thanks again for your help
Cheers,
Ahmad

Since the essay is asked to discuss two related topics, it would have been in the best interest of your paper to have use transition paragraphs instead of trying to cover both topics for discussion in the introductory statement. While the rule of thumb is that we need to rephrase the prompts at the very start, this essay should have been treated more as a research paper rather than a common essay discussion. Starting off with one topic, perhaps the


would have made an excellent jumping off point that would have allowed you to show a glimpse into the final part of the paper regarding the good and bad effects of advertising. That way when you finally get into the second part of the discussion, you could have presented the paper in a more developed and analytical manner. Like I said, this paper needed to be handled in two parts as one essay rather than having mini-discussions about each topic in order to have given a more effective and sound paper.

Thanks Louisa. I'm not sure if I get you. Do you mean I have to discuss both parts of the topic together in each paragraph? For example start a paragraph talking about effective advertising method and then connect it to its good or bad effects on the society?

Something like that.The effectiveness of your essay lies in the way that you combine the two separate topics for discussion into one interesting thesis prompt. The topic that you have selected for your IELTS practice test is far more than a regular test topic. It actually requires some research and the use of transition sentences or paragraphs within the essay itself in order to discuss the topic properly. The discussion should be in two parts. The first part will be the discussion about what makes advertisements effective, then, towards the concluding paragraph, you can begin to discuss how this effectiveness has brought good and bad effects upon our society, closing the discussion with a statement that while ads do have good and bad effects, it is something that our society cannot do without for specific reasons.

I almost rewrote the essay. Would you please have a look at this version. Thank you :)

Hundreds of advertising methods have been developed, ranging from online advertisements to environmental ones, which all have the same aim of introducing a product and encouraging customers to buy it. To obtain this goal companies and traders need to find the most effective ways for conveying commercial messages. However, depending on how the advertisements are presented they might be followed by both positive and negative influences on the society, which will be addressed in this essay

A good advertisement with a high level of effectiveness must be adopted to the social norms of the society the advertisement is designed for. For instance, the promotions made for perfumes, featuring pretty female and male models, are acceptable and in many cases impressive in western countries, but they cannot be viewed as appropriate advertising in Islamic countries. In addition, an advertisement must be recalled easily. Visual promotions, such as the ones presented on posters, are saved in the photographic memory of people, remaining in the mind for a longer time. However, the colors and graphic designs shown in posters must not negatively influence customers. To be specific, dark colors or gratuitous action scenes in some commercial videos are not recommended as they convey negative messages to recipient or even increase violence in a society.

According to what was stated above, the wrong presentation of commercial messages may negatively affect the social values of a society or even inadvertently increase violence in the society. Nevertheless, if we assume that the problems stemmed from promotions are raised by finding suitable advertising methods, advertisements would bring undeniable advantages to the society. A country can thrive when adverting develops trade in both national and international levels, contributing to the betterment of the country's economic conditions. As an example, Apple company in the US is a famous company manufacturing different models of smart phones and computers. This company owes its successes to systematic and correct advertising that introduce it to countries all around the world. The prosperous marketing of this company not only drives up the economy of the US, but also it provides jobs for many. This company is only an example that shows how powerful the advertising is that can improve living standards of a society by ameliorating financial conditions, decreasing unemployment rate and poverty.

In conclusion, at the same time that companies invent new advertising methods to make them as impressive as possible, they unintentionally influence the society in both good and bad ways. In my opinion, as long as the advertisements constructively make customers familiar with different goods, not only they can improve the society's conditions financially, but also they can bring up the living quality of people based on what was argued above.

I love this topic, cause I am studying consumer behavior now and it is directly related. I think is a very good essay, but i don't agree about posters, as jingle, digital ads, and the most important word-of-mouth are the most influential in marketing nowadays.

Wish u a good luck with your test

Best wishes,
Anastasia

Rather than saying


, you could instead opt to say "... on society. This paper will look deeper into the issues that make advertising effective in positive and negative manners upon society." That way you can combine the two prompts into one discussion and offer a complete overview of the topics that are to follow without having to be too wordy. Don't forget to clarify your point of view in the introduction. Do you agree or disagree that advertising is good or bad for society?

Never say


. For one thing, you do not have a formal source for the information you previously stated, for another thing, it is not an effective transitory sentence. Instead begin the paragraph with


Your concluding paragraph is not a conclusion. It offers new information and thus, is a stand alone additional paragraph. I never read any portion in the essay that clearly states what you believe in about the prompt either. Clarify that portion. Your voice and opinion need to be clearer in this essay. It is a requirement because the prompt specifically asks you to agree or disagree with the the options provided in the prompt.

thanks for your valuable suggestions. Just one question about the line quoted above. This line only says that the paper is going to discuss how ads affect our society, but the term "effective ad" mentioned in the prompt meant an ad that improves marketing. Am I right?

In advertising, the term "effective ad" means both improved marketing and consumer reception. The better they market the product, the more well received the advertisement will be. As such, the advertisement will either have a highly positive or highly negative influence upon society. Google examples of negatively received advertisements and you should come up with some pretty good examples as to how advertising can have a negative impact upon society.

It is precisely because of the vast field covered by the essay prompt that I told you that this essay sounds more like a research paper than an IELTS test. I would even go so far as to say that I would have expected this type of question to come up in a GRE practice test. That is why you should expect this essay to instead be researched and developed from an academic, rather than a personal point of view. It is simply impossible to justify the opinions presented in the essay without at least a simple Google search being performed about the prompts.