essay - GMAT: Argument 11

The following appeared as part of a promotional campaign to sell advertising space in the Daily Gazette to grocery stores in the Marston area:

"Advertising the reduced price of selected grocery items in the Daily Gazette will help you increase your sales. Consider the results of a study conducted last month. Thirty sale items from a store in downtown Marston were advertised in The Gazette for four days. Each time one or more of the 30 items was purchased, clerks asked whether the shopper had read the ad. Two-thirds of the 200 shoppers asked answered in the affirmative. Furthermore, morethan half the customers who answered in the affirmative spent over $100 at the store."

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

Answer:
The writer of this promotional campaign insists the merit of advertising to the Daily Gazette by citing two statistical data, what percentage of all shoppers who bought advertised items read the advertisement and how much those shoppers purchased at the store. This argument, however, has serious flaws that weaken the conclusion.

First, "two-thirds" certainly seems a considerable figure, but the writer should have showed a figure regarding the other people. That is, the readers cannot judge whether the "two-thirds" is a good figure or not, unless the figure of what percentage of all people in the area read the advertisement. For instance, if the Daily Gazette is a major newspaper in the area and almost all residents there usually read the advertisements, "two-thirds" is not necessarily a good figure. In other words, the advertisement fails to inspire peopleto buy its items. Therefore, the argument is weak and the writer should include the kind of information.

Second, although the writer cites the data that more than half the customers who answered in the affirmative spent over $100 at the store, this citation makes no sense. That is, if the average of amounts that all shoppers spend at the store is also more than $100, the advertisement fails to increase the store's sales, and this means that this citation fails to support the argument. In order to convince the readers, the writer at least should have showed the comparable figure like the average of all shoppers.

To sum up, since the writer fails to show how much value the advertisement has, the argument is very weak. Thus the argument fails to convince the readers to advertise in the Daily Gazzeta. To strengthen the argument, the writer should cite meaningful data that the readers can compare the case of advertising with the case of not.