The Advertisement That Promised Everything
A pupil finds this advertisement in a magazine: "SPEEDY SNEAKERS - the only shoes you will ever need! Runners who wear them finish faster. Made from space-age material. Limited stock - buy today!" The pupil's class is studying how adverts persuade. The teacher asks three questions: What is the advert trying to make you do? Which claims can be checked, and which cannot? How does the wording try to persuade you? The pupil notices the words "only," "faster," "space-age," and "today," and sees no price, no shop name, and no evidence for the speed claim.
1. Identify the purpose of the advert and explain how two specific word choices help achieve that purpose.
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The purpose is to persuade readers to buy Speedy Sneakers quickly. Two word choices do this work. "Only" in "the only shoes you will ever need" suggests the product is uniquely good and makes alternatives seem unnecessary, pushing the reader toward a single choice. "Today" in "buy today" creates urgency, implying that waiting is risky because stock is limited. Other choices reinforce this: "faster" flatters the buyer with a promised benefit, and "space-age" sounds advanced and exciting without giving any real information. Together these words appeal to the reader's desire to be quick and special, and to a fear of missing out, rather than offering checkable facts.
2. Sort the advert's claims into those a reader could check and those that cannot be checked, and explain why the unchecked ones are effective in an advert.
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Checkable claims include "Runners who wear them finish faster" (this could be tested by comparing runners' times) and "limited stock" (a shop's stock levels could be confirmed). Harder or impossible to check are "the only shoes you will ever need," which is a sweeping promise about the future, and "space-age material," which sounds scientific but names no material. The unchecked claims are effective because they create a strong impression without exposing the advertiser to easy contradiction: nobody can prove that no other shoes would ever be needed, and "space-age" has no fixed meaning to test. This lets the advert sound impressive while avoiding specific, falsifiable statements - a common persuasive technique pupils should recognise.