Bài viết tham khảo cho đề IELTS 24/4/2014

Task 2 – tested on April 24, 2014: An increasing number of advertisement on TV aims at children. What are the effects of television advertising? Should television advertising be controlled?

The endless development of technology combined with the ever-increasing creativity of men today, have taken the world of media and marketing to new heights, perhaps none more noticeable than television advertising, the most popular and widely used advertising form. While there is no denying of its effectiveness, it does also pose some potential harmful effects that must be genuinely considered and determined whether more control should be applied, especially when its target audience focuses more and more on children nowadays.

Television advertisement can be informative as it usually introduces new, innovative and useful products or services that can be beneficial to the general public. When done right the result of an advertisement is extremely effective if the message intended to deliver to the viewers is appropriate and constructive in content.
However, if a television advertisement aiming at young children depicts a mature theme or content with inappropriate graphics and languages, such as beer or liquor ads with many scenes of night clubs and beautiful girls flirting men, it can certainly leave lasting negative effects on our young children whom obviously lack the knowledge and experience to fully grasp and judge the message behind such advertisement when seeing it. Even the seemingly harmless advertisement of fast-food or soft drinks, if shown continuously on television can create totally unnecessary demands and young adolescents can easily be captivated or obsessed. Needless to say, the potential effect of this on children can be catastrophic.

Therefore, in recognizing the potential power and impacts of television, advertisers should use this marketing tool sensibly with well-constructed theme which is suitable to each target audience group based on their demographics before airing such advertisement. At the same time, there must be clear regulations and guidelines applied to editing and filtering of television advertisement by competent agencies or authorities. In other words, television advertising should be controlled for the sake of its purpose.

(314 words)
Written by Mr. Duong – Online Program Coordinator of ArrowEnglish