GMAT Essays (AWA)

‘The Cumquat Café began advertising on our local radio station this year and was delighted to see its business increase by 10 percent over last year’s totals. Their success shows you how you can use radio advertising to make your business more profitable.’

As one reads across this argument – quite obviously the reader can identify the conclusion of the argument. The author of the argument concludes that radio advertising can make a business more profitable. The evidence the author uses to arrive to his conclusion is not convincing and has many logical loopholes. Let’s get down to the argument and understand what those loop holes are and how they can be strengthened.

The author of the argument quotes The Cumquat Café as evidence to support his conclusion. The question here is – why the author of the argument has failed to consider other café’s in town.

The second point which is vulnerable to attack is – why the author of the argument hasn’t considered other domains such as Personal Computers, furniture, automobiles for comparison. Based on just single evidence and with no comparison to other articles the author concludes that radio advertising increases profitability of business.This is objectionable and dubious.

The third point – the author fails to discuss about the cons of radio advertising. The author presents a very rosy picture of radio advertising. The author fails to consider cases where radio advertising would not be very effective. For example, marketing groceries over the radio would have unpredictable impact on the sales. There are chances that customers might visit the grocery store but not buy anything. The same might hold good of cars, furniture. The case is different for a café.

The author of the argument could have presented this argument with not just single example but multiple examples. He could have as well compared the increase/decrease in profitability in other domains through radio advertising. This kind of comparison would have presented a clearer picture and would have made the argument stronger.