Imagine a cell phone that can do things you’ve never thought possible. That is the slogan of the Irish company Three.ie .
The full slogan is:
Do things you never thought possible. 3 your mind.
For that, they created a campaing of funny commercials. On the last one, even Adolf Hitler succumbed /səˈkʌm/ to the Irish company's services. It’s worth seeing it.
I hope you have some fun and some English practice as well!
It’s produce cultivated without herbicides and pesticides. Although they take more time to ripe (to get fully developed or matured and ready to be eaten or used), they are better to your health.
Note that the spelling of the verb "to produce" and the noun "produce" is the same, but the pronunciation is different.
TO PRODUCE (verb) /prəˈdus/ to make or grow something, especially in large quantities and in order to be sold
PRODUCE (noun) /ˈproʊˌdus/ fruit, vegetables, and other things that farmers grow.
Why should I buy organic produce?
Because many scientists believe that chemicals (like herbicides and pesticides) can cause cancer. Organic produce doesn’t use chemicals, what’s more, they don’t pollute the environment.
Why organic produce is good for health?
Because it respects you and your environment. When you eat some organic produce, like a fruit or vegetable, not only your body feels better and clean but your mind too, because you are helping the environment. The chemicals won’t pollute rivers and kill animals like fish or birds. When you disagree (with the current eating habits) and don’t buy regular produce you start a change in your life!
Why organic produce are more expensive? They're more expensive because:
You can’t grow as much produce as other farmers;
The farmers who plant this kind of produce are, usually, smaller farmers;
The produce has to arrive at the store very soon after it’s picked.
Vocabulary:
to squash (verb): to damage something by pressing or crushing it and making it lose its normal shape.
If only I buy organic produce will it change the world?
First of all, it’ll change your health, your body, so will change your life, changing yours, you also can change the lives of the ones near you! It’s a beginning. Somehow, it also changes the environment. You won’t kill, indirectly, some animals and you’ll be proud of yourself! It doesn’t change the world, but make your part and question up more the things, sometimes (almost every time) what you think, in reality,it isn’t!
Advertising has changed a lot along the time, take a look at it:
But the techniques are essentially the same.
Advertising techniques are tools used to attract attention, spark interest, to explain ideas, trigger emotion, create desire, initiate action and influence what people think, feel or remember. Herefollow some techniques:
1. Celebrity Testimonial: Commonly called "testimonials," or "celebrity endorsements," this technique of persuasion says that consumers relate to the person(s) appearing in the ad: if the celebrity/athlete/star uses the product, then it must be good, so I will purchase/use it too.
Be careful testimonial is different from testimony. Take a quick look at both definitions.
Testimonial: Using a well-known person to *endorse a product.
*to endorse: to express support for someone or something, especially in public.
Testimony: a formal statement about something that you saw, know, or experienced.
2. Emotional appeal: type of advertising designed to stimulate one's psychological, social, or emotional needs, rather than one's sense of the practical or impractical. It can arouse fear, love, hate, greed, sexual desire, or humor, or otherwise create psychological tension that can best be resolved by purchase of the product or service. For example, a security alarm company might show a scenario where the home of a mother and her children is burglarized. Advertisers also appeal to sentiment, often through images like babies, cute animals, and touching parent-child interactions
3.Bandwagon appeal is an advertising technique that aims to persuade people to do a certain thing because the masses are doing it. A bandwagon commercial can actually convince a consumer to do or buy something they don't actually need, just to do or have what others have. It encourages the consumer to “jump on the bandwagon."
4. Snob appeal is an exact reverse of the bandwagon technique. In this advertising appeal, people are induced to buy a certain product so that they can stand out of the crowd. It is often indicated that buying the product will make them look different from the rest. It is often indicated that the product is not affordable for the common masses by attaching a 'sense of exclusivity' to such products.
5. Scientific Evidence: This technique attempts to appeal the masses to use the advertised product, by providing the audiences with survey results. The advertisers often use statistical evidences and market surveys to publicize their product. Take a look at this well done advertising:
This commercial might contain more statistics than several reports or articles.
6. Feel-good Factor: A majority of viewers opt for purchasing the product, not because they need it, but simply because the advertisement makes them feel good and think differently. This is one of the most common advertising techniques used in marketing.
7. The Association Principle: Association is an advertising technique that involves drawing a mental link between a product and desirable qualities of various kinds that may include attractiveness, wealth, success, family, patriotism, security, happiness, youthfulness, health, adventure, independence, love, romance, sex, etc. If the ad contains:
üa visual of a handsome man offering the ring to a beautiful woman
üa luxuriously furnished apartment
üa table set with wine and candles; and
üa text which reads "Love has no price"
Then the ad would be associating the purchase of the diamond ring to wealth. Depending on the positioning of the male & female, for example, a close embrace, the association may extend to love and romance.
8. Repetition: T vhis advertising appeal uses the technique of repeating the product name several times during an advertisement. Jingles are often used in this advertising technique to linger the product name in the minds of the masses. Advertisers also create repetition by running an ad frequently. When it comes time to make a purchase, and the name of one of the products on the shelf has been repeated to the consumer many times, that product might just stand out enough for the consumer to choose it.
9. Humor Appeal: Of course, one of the most effective ways to get the audience's attention is to be funny. Humor is one of the best ways to break through the "noise" of all the competition advertising messages out there and get people to pay attention to the sales pitch.
10.Shockvertising: This advertising appeal makes use of shocking images or scenes to impact the message. The name is derived as a combination of the two words, ‘shocking’ and ‘advertising’.
11. Slogans are memorable, striking phrases used to convey important information of the product to be advertised in an interesting manner. The video below is a speech made up just of 3. I’m sure you know some of them. Take a look at it.
12.Music Effects: Music is also one of the most common advertising techniques used in commercials for latest gadgets. Good music in the TV commercial in fact serves as an indirect advertiser for the product.
13.Eye Candy: This advertising technique creates a visual image so striking, so original, and so appealing that it simply leaps off the page or out of the screen. It makes the viewer think I've never seen such a thing before. This advertising technique will usually make strong use of vibrant color or contrast brilliant colors to set the image.
From the commercials below which one have you liked the most? Post a comment voting in it and saying what kind of advertising technique you thought effective on the commercial. You’re free to say what you want or even to post other commercials. We’re eager to hear from you.
Times have changed a lot! I really like the technology era we live at. I can't imagine my life without computer, internet, washing machine, refrigerator, etc... And I think so do you. But new changes bring new habits and if we don't manage them appropriately we can have bad consequences. I’ve posted some cartoons that provoke critical thought about the technology influence on people’s lives. In order to make the discussion easier I have divided the internet influences in 18 categories. Here they are:
1.Good manners
2.Cyberbullying
3.Social Relationships
4.Overweight
5.Sleep Deprivation
6.Teenagers Social Ineptitude
7.Feeling of Inaptitude
8.Elderly Adaptation to Technology
9.Less Family Time
10.Children
11.Marriage
12.Impersonal Customer Service
13.Internet Addiction
14.Time Wasting
15.Bad Scores
16.Education
17.Plagiarism
18.Self Knowledge
I know that is too much for seeing at once. So, you can read them (not exactly read because most of them are cartoons) during the week. As you see them, think about one pro and one con of technology, especially internet, or how you feel about it. Later post a comment, please. Your colleagues will be happy to see it. Don’t worry if you make some language mistakes. This is a community of English learners. Even natives misspell words when they write on the internet. However, it’s better to write your comment on a Word document first. Some followers have complained that when they submit their comments they disappear, the coments of course, hehehe! As we’re going to see, technology is not always reliable, so it is better to prevent it. Here we go.
GOOD MANNERS
Imagine how disturbing would it be living in a place that every moment people announced on speakers what they're doing or thinking. It would be like that:
That is what people do on Facebook and Twitter. Is there any problem telling about your actions and thoughts to others? No, there isn't. However, the boundary between what is appropriate and inappropriate it isn't clear, and some cross the line. Watch the video below and decide by yourself what would be the limit.
That is another consequence of modern life; people have lost the parameters for what is called good manners, etiquette or politness. See how easy is to lose the notion of good manners.
So, mind your manners on the internet.
CYBERBULLYING
When it is done on the internet, it just looks like a play, but unhappily it's not. The effect is the same as it were on the real life. How would you feel in a situation like the one below?
Unhappily the consequences of playing with cyberbullying are so serious that North American people created a word for naming one of these consequences: bullycide.
VOCABULARY
The term Bullycide is a *portmanteau word first used by Neil Marr and Tim Field in their book Bullycide: Death at Playtime. It refers to suicide attributable to the victim having been bullied. The term has come to prominence during the highly publicized teenage suicides in the USA in the latter part of 2010. However the term has been used prior to 2010.
In response to 2010 deaths an online event, Spirit Day, was created for 20 October 2010 in which participants wore purple items to signify opposition to bullying of LGBT people.
Legal analysts criticize the term because it links a cause with an effect under someone else's control.
Bullycide has also been defined as the killing of the bully by the victim.
Research shows those who are bullied have a higher probability of considering or performing suicide than those who are not.
*portmanteau/pɔrtˈmæntɔu/ (noun) a new word formed by joining two others and combining their meanings ("`motel' is a portmanteau word made by combining `motor' and `hotel'")
Bullycide: Death at Playtime
by Neil Marr & Tim Field
Available in paperback or ebook download from
BeWriteBooks
SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
VOCABULARY
What is a twitter bot?
It is a contraction of robot, which is apt, as they work automatically or by scheduling or programming. They are very easy to create, and usually collect website links, RSS feeds or Twitter posts and then feed them to Twitter. This term is also used on computing for naming a computer program that works automatically, especially one that can find information for you on the Internet.
The most common auto feeders are Twitterfeed, SocialOomph, Ping.fm, Google, Twittelator or via an API. There are many others. Luckily Twitter has made the origin of a Tweet very clear on the ‘Home’ screen of a user’s Twitter page.
So some of the tweets we receive can come from a bot, not a person that is interested in us.
OVERWEIGHT
SLEEP DEPRIVATION
TEENAGERS SOCIAL INEPTITUDE
INEPTITUDE (noun) the quality or state of being inept.
Ineptitude is related to the adjective inept that means:
1. not suitable to the time, place, or occasion : inappropriate often to an absurd degree.
e.g.: Ineptitude is frequent on internet, for example, racism, cyberbullying, pornography, etc.
2. lacking in fitness or aptitude : unfit, e.g: inept at sports
3. lacking sense or reason : foolish
So on this cartoon the word used is ineptitude because some teenagers fail into the ability of fitting appropriately to social relationships.
FEELING OF INAPTITUDE
VOCABULARY
Although the words inaptitude and ineptitude can sometimes be used interchangeably they have different meanings.
INAPTITUDE (noun) lack of aptitude; lack of talent or ability.
☺don’t confuse aptitude with attitude, they’re different words.
Inaptitude comes from the word aptitude, that means: natural ability that makes it easy for you to do something well. E.g.:
One of the greatest problems in our country is the Government’s inaptitude to improve the education system.
So on this cartoon the word inaptitude is used instead of ineptitude because the man doesn't have the necessary ability to use computers.
ELDERLY ADAPTATION TO TECHNOLOGY
LESS FAMILY TIME
CHILDREN
MARRIAGE
IMPERSONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE
INTERNET ADDICTION
TIME WASTING
BAD SCORES
EDUCATION
PLAGIARISM
SELF KNOWLEDGE
EVEN THE ANIMALS CAN FEEL SOME TECHNOLOGY CHANGES!!!
I've just listed some cons, because they're not so obvious as the pros. Internet has a lot of advantages. Post a comment about at least one pro and one con or how you feel about it. We eager to hear from you.
Imagine a cell phone that can do things you’ve never thought possible. That is the slogan of the Irish company Three.ie . 
