Variant III

I. Read the text and translate it:

How Companies Advertise

Advertising informs consumers about the existence and benefits of products and services, and attempts to persuade them to buy them. The best form of advertising is probably word-of-mouth advertising, which occurs when people tell their friends about the benefits of products or services that they have purchased. Yet no providers of goods or services rely on this alone, but use paid advertising instead. Indeed, many organizations also use institutional or prestige advertising, which is designed to build up their reputation rather than to sell particular products.

Although large companies could easily set up their own advertising departments, write their own advertisements, and buy media space themselves, they tend to use the services of large advertising agencies. They have more resources, and more knowledge about all aspects of advertising than a single company. The most talented advertising people generally prefer to work for agencies as it gives them the chance to work on a variety of contracts to advertise products or services.

The client company gives the advertising agency an agreed budget; a statement of the objectives of the advertising campaign, known as a brief; and an advertising strategy concerning the message to be communicated to the target customers. The agency creates advertisements (the word is often abbreviated to adverts or ads), and develops a media plan specifying which media – newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cinema, posters, mail, etc. – will be used and in which proportions. (On television and radio, ads are often known as commercials.)

The agency’s media planners have to decide what percentage of the target market they want to reach (how many people will be exposed to the ads) and the number of times they are likely to see them. Advertising people talk about frequency or “OTS” (opportunities to see) and the threshold effect – the point at which advertising becomes effective.

How much to spend on advertising is always problematic. Some companies use the comparative-parity method – they simply match their competitors’ spending. Others set their ad budget at a certain percentage of current sales revenue.

II. Find the English equivalents of the following:

потребитель, преимущество, устная реклама, создать репутацию, работать на агентство, цели рекламной кампании, средства массовой информации, реклама на телевидении и радио, «пороговый» эффект, рекламный бюджет.

III. Read the text and answer the following questions:

1. What is the best kind of advertising?

2. Why do most companies use advertising agencies?

3. When a company hires an advertising agency, what are the roles of both parties?

4. What is the task of the agency’s media planners?

5. How do companies decide how much to spend on advertising?

IV. Read the text and translate it:

BICC

BICC plc is a large multinational with about forty thousand employees worldwide and a turnover of approximately four billion pounds. The group’s main activities are construction and the manufacture of cables. There are five different divisions in the group. Balfour Beatty is Britain’s leading construction company with a turnover of around £1,700m. The company is famous for its work constructing motorways, building and of course, the channel tunnel.

The next division is BICC Cables. We are the largest manufacturer of fibre optic cables in Europe and we now own the Italian company, Ceat Cavi, Celcat in Portugal, part of CGC in Spain and KWO in the former East Germany. BICC Cables is expanding fast in Asia too and it has a turnover of £1,183m.

Now I’ll turn to BICC’s overseas activities. There are three overseas divisions, Australasia, North America Cables and BICC Cables Asia Pacific. Australasia’s principal activities are cables, piping and wholesaling and it has a turnover of £595m. North America Cables operates in the US and Canada and it’s the market leader in medium voltage power cables. And finally, BICC Cables Asia-Pacific. Based in Singapore, this division is growing fast. It is responsible for the manufacture and marketing of the group’s cable products in the important Asia-Pacific region. It’s our newest division so we haven’t got turnover figures yet.

V. Correct the sentences:

1. The group’s main activity is selling cables.

2. There are a lot of divisions in the group.

3. Balfour Beatty is a small construction company.

4. BICC Cables is famous for constructing motorways.

5. There aren’t any new divisions in the company.

VI. Grammar:

Open the brackets:

1. He always (buy) lottery tickets but he never (win) anything.

2. Anna (make) a dress for herself at the moment. She (make) all her own clothes.

3. As I (cross) the road I (step) on a banana skin and (fall) heavily.

4. I (make) a cake when the light went out. I had to finish it in the dark.