Unit 3  Paying the price
A Reading and Interaction
The influencers
Imagine this: you are in a cafe when you hear a young man talking about a new computer game.He’s explaining its amazing features to a girl,who then asks where she can buy it.Nothing unusual,you might say,until after 15 minutes,they move to another cafe and have an identical conversation.On your way home,a “tourist” in the street asks you to take a photo with their camera. You do and,afterwards,they tell you how they bought the camera recently and how it’s on special offer.Welcome to the world of stealth marketing.You may say you haven’t met a stealth market yet,but that’s the point.Contrary to what you might expect,this practice is quite common.
Stealth or “word of mouth” marketing isn’t like normal advertising.We can recognize advertisements or billboards or in fashion magazines,but it’s difficult to spot stealth market
ing—it just tricks us.Studies have shown that people are more likely to trust a person on the street,who they think is giving free advice,rather than an advertisement.In fact,in a recent survery of young adults,only 5% believed advertisements,compared with 52% who trusted their friends.
More than $500 billion a year is spent on advertising worldwide,but compared with conventional advertising campaigns,stealth marketing is cheap and effective.So how does it work? Well,let’s look at company X. Company X wants to launch a new product for 20-25-year-olds. They need their product to look “cool” and interesting,so they decide to pay young marketers are carefully selected—company X researches social media and targets the most popular people or “trendsetters”.These people sign contracts where they agree to promote the company’s product,for instance by talking favourably about its products on social media.Twenty-year-old Tanya Fulham is one of them.
Tanya Fulham is beautiful,sporty and clever.She’s interested in fashion,loves shopping,and listens to the latest pop music.She has more than 15,000 followers on socia
l media and she often influences their choices and opinions.She’s been hired by an undercover marketing agency to promote brands in blogs and on social media. “Products which are fashionable or have a strong brand image are easy to sell,”explains Tanya. “I can usually get people to buy everything from make-up to luxury goods,like designer jeans.”Other young marketers upload videos of themselves, which describe recent shopping trips and display their latest purchases.They show peoplei how a product works or what it looks like up close.
“It’s great to get free samples of cool,new products that my friends haven’t heard about,”adds Tanya. “It makes me feel important because I have insider knowledge.”But do her friends know that she is paid to promote them? “No,they don’t,” she admits. “But I don’t think it’s dishonest.If I find something I like,I talk about it.It doesn’t make any difference whether I’m paid or not.”
Perhaps Tanya is right.Anyhow,lots of people tell others about the new book they’re reading, a new place they’ve discovered or a cool gadget they’ve just bought.We’ve also
a 24/7 generation and see more than 3,000 ads a day,so what difference does it make?However,other people are worried. “You think a person is being helpful,” says a psychologist, “but that’s very different from someone telling us something because they are getting paid for it.You don’t know who to trust or who to listen to anymore.” Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between free advice and paid advertisements.We have already met the stealth marketers and they are just like us.
【参考译文】
高中英语课文
有影响力的人
想象一下:你在一家咖啡馆里，听到一个年轻人在谈论一款新的电脑游戏。他正在向一个女孩解释它的惊人特征，然后女孩问她在哪里可以买到它。你可能会说，没什么不同寻常的，直到15分钟后，他们去了另一家咖啡馆，进行了一模一样的谈话。在你回家的路上，一个“游客”在街上叫你用他们的相机照一张相。你照做了，然后，他们会告诉你他们最近是怎么买的相机，以及它是怎么打折的。欢迎来到隐形营销的世界。你可能会说你还没有遇到过隐形市场，但这就是重点。与您可能预期的相反，这种做法非常普遍。
秘密或“口口相传”营销不同于普通的广告。我们可以识别广告、广告牌或时尚杂志上的广告，但很难发现隐形营销——它只是在欺骗我们。研究表明，人们更容易相信街上的人，他们认为这是在提供免费的建议，而不是广告。事实上，在最近的一项针对年轻人的调查中，只有5%的人相信广告，而相信朋友的人有52%。
全球每年在广告上的花费超过5000亿美元，但与传统的广告活动相比，隐形营销既便宜又有效。那么它是如何工作的呢?让我们以X公司为例。X公司想要推出一款面向20-25岁人的新产品。他们需要他们的产品看起来“酷”和有趣，所以他们决定支付年轻的营销人员是精心挑选的——公司X研究社交媒体，目标是最受欢迎的人或“潮流引领者”。这些人签订合同，同意推广公司的产品，比如在社交媒体上赞扬公司的产品。20岁的Tanya Fulham就是其中之一。
坦尼娅·富勒姆美丽、运动、聪明。她对时尚感兴趣，喜欢购物，喜欢听最新的流行音乐。她在社交媒体上有超过1.5万名粉丝，她经常影响他们的选择和观点。她受雇于一家卧底营销机构，在博客和社交媒体上推广品牌。谭雅解释说:“时尚的产品或有很强的品牌形象的产品更容易销售。”“我通常能让人们买各种东西，从化妆品到名牌牛仔裤等奢侈品。”还有一
些年轻的营销人员上传自己的视频，描述他们最近的购物之旅，并展示他们最新购买的商品。他们向人们展示产品是如何工作的，或者它是什么样子的。
Tanya补充道:“获得朋友们从未听说过的酷新产品的免费样品是件很棒的事。“这让我觉得自己很重要，因为我了解内情。”但她的朋友们知道她是拿钱来推销他们的吗?“不，他们没有，”她承认。“但我不认为这是不诚实的。如果我发现了我喜欢的东西，我就谈论它。我拿不拿工资都没有关系。”
也许坦尼娅是对的。无论如何，很多人会告诉别人他们正在读的新书，他们发现的新地方，或者他们刚买的酷小玩意。我们也是24/7的一代，每天看到3000多个广告，这有什么区别呢?然而，其他人却很担心。“你认为一个人是在帮助我们，”一位心理学家说，“但这与有人告诉我们一些事情是因为他们从中得到了报酬是非常不同的。你不知道该相信谁，也不知道该听谁的。”有时候很难区分免费建议和付费广告。我们已经见过隐形营销人员了，他们和我们一样。
E Cultural focus
Traditions for sale
Driven by profits,big businesses make use of festivals for marketing purposes.Festival are not only cultural symbols,but also commercial events.Nowadays,people use them as an excuse to spend money,but shouldn’t our traditional festivals be about spending time with family and loved ones instead?
The spring Festival
It’s early February,and Zhang Xiao is packing her suitcase for the Spring Festival.She’s not alone; another 400 million Chinese will be on the move during the week-long break.The Lunar New Year is the biggest public holiday in China,with a history stretching back thousands of years.It is celebrated across the world,in cities from New York to London,from Sydney to Vancouver.