The regional brand manager sent the following memo to the national brand manager for Sun-Beam Facial Cleanser.
“We need to institute a huge publicity campaign for the launch of Sun-Beem’s improved formula. Without an enormous media blitz, including television, radio, internet, and magazine ads, potential new customers will not be aware of our product. And previous customers will not be aware that Sun-Beam’s new, non-carcinogenic formula is on the shelves. The best way to combat the negative publicity Sun-Beam’s old formula received is to fight fire with fire, by using the media’s insatiable interest in any new news about Sun-Beam to sell the new formula. This will erase the negative connotations in the minds of former customers, and will ensure that Sun-Beam is once again the best-selling facial cleanser on the market.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument
According to the argument, the erstwhile top facial cleanser Sun-Beam has lost its number one position in the market thanks to the negative publicity given by the media on its old product. The regional manager in his argument appeals to the national head, to fight 'fire by fire'. The argument traces a plan that has been envisaged to help the product regain its formal glory. But to conclusively believe that the plan actually comes to fruition, a number of specific evidences are needed to back up the assumptions on which the plan is sketched out.
In the argument, regional manager assumes that the negative publicity attributed to the old formula lead to its downfall. There is no evidence to back up this claim. Furthermore, he claims that huge publicity to the new formula may once again evince customer's interest in the product. Was the negative word of mouth entirely due to the media's publicity ? There may be other factors which could have spread the negatives that existed with the old formula. There is also an emphasis faced on the new formula being 'non-carcinogenic'. Was the old formula carcinogenic ? If so , it would be a much more decisive factor of the declining popularity of Sun-Beam's old formula and would undermine the argument that media publicity was the reason being negative reviews for the old product.
Backing the above assumption, any idea that involves fighting fire by fire i.e. employing media publicity to improve company's brand image is bound to fail as the crux of the issue would be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Also, more quantifiable evidence of the product's popularity before and post media publicity might shed some light on how to approach the problem with media publicity as the main tool to achieve company goals. If the figures on the effectiveness of media publicity compared to actual profits gained in terms of customers actually proportional, the campaign addressed in the argument can be taken forward in full throttle based on historical evidences. If not, the regional head's assumptions will be undone and the campaign can end up becoming disastrous.
Despite the above arguments and assumptions, the argument is visibly interested in retaining old customers along with a keen eye for potential customers. This is based on the assumption that the existing and former customers use publicity in television,internet and magazine ads are the primary factors to consider while choosing a facial cleanser. This assumption, without any numbers or figures to back the claim can be ambiguous in its results. Specific trends of the intended customer base with respect to their choice while choosing a beauty product needs to be taken into account.
If the trends reveal that majority of customers rely on their previous experiences with the product rather than the media publicity, the strategy implied to work in the argument will backfire. On the other end, if the customers are found to actually be influenced by the media blitz, the plan just might work. In its entirety, more historical data on the customer behavior and the reasons for the flak on their older product can shed light on the effectiveness of the mentioned strategy.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 525 350
No. of Characters: 2615 1500
No. of Different Words: 248 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.787 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.981 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.696 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 189 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 161 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 119 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.826 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.206 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.522 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.092 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 571, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...Was the old formula carcinogenic ? If so , it would be a much more decisive factor...
^^
Line 5, column 264, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'products'' or 'product's'?
Suggestion: products'; product's
...Also, more quantifiable evidence of the products popularity before and post media public...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 253, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , internet
...er customers use publicity in television,internet and magazine ads are the primary factor...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, furthermore, if, may, so, while, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2669.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 524.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09351145038 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7844588288 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83425281033 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 255.0 204.123752495 125% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.486641221374 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 850.5 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.3238465596 57.8364921388 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.043478261 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.7826086957 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.0 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.177750978666 0.218282227539 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0518026285171 0.0743258471296 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0361461584006 0.0701772020484 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.095933163573 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0354409419007 0.0628817314937 56% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.49 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 125.0 98.500998004 127% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.