GMAT Essays (AWA)

"Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle was started five years ago, The Mercury's circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels, The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper."

The analysis of this argument mainly assumes the lower-price as the factor for the popularity of "The Bugle" newspaper. There is no consideration of other factors such as the content of the newspaper itself. What if "The Bugle" covered news such as Technology or Art which attracted more users and was not that prominent in "The Mercury" newspaper. Furthermore the argument talks about reducing the price until the circulation increases to former levels. What if the readers are not concerned about the price and are more concerned about the content of the newspaper. This strategy will clearly not increase the circulation which the argument assumes. Another assumption is that the 10,000 readers actually went to the rival company. What if the users stopped subscribing to newspapers and started reading news on the internet.

In addition the argument assumes that the advertisements on the newspapers are solely based on the circulation numbers. It does not look into the advertising strategies that are used in newspapers. Also the argument does not provide information as to how it would sustain the readers once the circulation increases to the former levels.

Since the argument lacks a lot of these questions it would be more convincing and thorough if it did explain all the above questions in its argument.