GMAT Essays (AWA)

The following is from a campaign by Big Boards Inc. to convince companies in River City that their sales will
increase if they use Big Boards billboards for advertising their locally manufactured products:
"The potential of Big Boards to increase sales of your products can be seen from an experiment we conducted last year. We increased public awareness of the name of the current national women's marathon champion by publishing her picture and her name on billboards in River City for a period of three months. Before this time, although the champion had just won her title and was receiving extensive national publicity, only five percent of 15,000 randomly surveyed residents of River City could correctly name the champion when shown her picture; after the three-month advertising experiment, 35 percent of respondents from a second survey could supply her name."
Discuss how well reasoned ... etc.
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The argument that companies can increase their sales by using Big Boards billboards for their locally manufactured products omits several key points that should have made the argument convincing. Just stating that a athlete champion picture was recognized by name using a sample survey, which even if assumed correct in all aspects, it will hardly establish any connection between recognizing a product and buying that product. I am enumerating below several such points which might have made the argument more convincing.

First, the only correlation given is that of an athlete whose name become more popular. Even if everything is assumed to be correct, it only establish that if companies starts using the Billboard advertising their products will be known. But just about knowing a product doesn't necessarily means that those product awareness will translate into product sell. When we visit a supermarket we see all sort of products, but we do not go and buy all of them. But yes, if the product matches the need of targeted audience, its awareness may result in increased sell. Since no such information is presented here we can not conclude what, if any, impact will be on product sell.

Second, there are several questionable assumptions in the data shown which doesn't correlates well with local product manufactured by companies. Since the only example it illustrates is that of an athlete. The argument already accepts that she has own a championship and started getting media exposure. In that period itself, the agency displays the name and picture of her on River city billboards. Since she is already getting increased exposure by other means than Billboards, we can not be sure that increased recognition to her picture has come through Billboard advertisement. It could well be the result of other exposure, such as television broadcast, print media advertisements etc that might have increased her brand awareness. So we can not conclude that the increased awareness has come solely from Billboard advertisements.

Third, the only data shown for increased brand awareness is of two sample survey. In first survey only 5% of the 15000 respondents could recognized her name while in second sample the percentage has increased to 30. But nothing has been mentioned about the sample of the survey. Knowing that the survey has been done on same or similar audience should have some positive correlation about the brand recognition. If the two samples are taken from non representative sets we can not be sure whether Billboard display has done any good for the increased brand awareness.

Fourth, the argument mentions locally manufactured goods while example illustrated is that of an national champion. It would have been more convincing to companies if the author should have chosen an example that was parallel to the locally manufactured brands which are not known to many.

In summary, the argument should have provided the issues as discussed above to make the argument more convincing.