📕 Part 1: Ads

This episode's vocabulary

Billboard (noun) - a very large board on which advertisements are shown, especially at the side of a road.

Viral marketing (noun) - a marketing activity in which information about a product spreads between people, especially on the internet.

Cookie (noun) - a piece of information stored on your computer about internet documents that you have looked at.

Tailor-made (adj.) - specially made for a particular purpose.

Branded (adj.) - made by a particular company and sold under a particular name.

Slogans (noun) - a short easily remembered phrase, especially one used to advertise an idea or a product.

In a nutshell - very briefly, giving only the main points.

Word-of-mouth (adj.) - given or done by people talking about something or telling people about something.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, what advertisements do you watch?

R: I don't. I try and skip them as soon as they come on. Unless it's a trailer for a game or a book or a movie I'd like to see, or an ad on this podcast. Those are usually quite entertaining, aren't they?

M: Do you watch them from the beginning to the end?

R: Oh, only if they're interesting, or if I can't reach the skip option in time. I sometimes have YouTube on while I work out and it's difficult to do crunches and reach over at the same time. So I just had to put up with them until they're done, or I am.

M: How do you feel about advertisements?

R: Well, usually I think ads are just a way of getting people to dislike your product before they even look at it. However, some ads are quite brilliant and funny. Like the iron brew adverts, for example. They usually have a story or a joke, which has great music too match the visuals.

M: What advertising do you have in your country?

R: Oh, it's everywhere. We have billboards, and posters, and viral marketing, and YouTube ads inserted into videos and ads and the breaks on TV shows. I think the only recipe is on the BBC and even they have them for their programs.

M: Is there much advertising in your country?

R: Well, I think it's everywhere, isn't it? And it's rather sophisticated at that. Especially online where your cookies are used to track what you look at and they send you almost tailor-made adverts, don't they?

M: Where can we see advertisement?

R: It's probably easier to say where you can't see advertising, frankly speaking. It's all over social media. And, well, any online media, newspapers, TV, some people even get paid to be branded with tattoos or wear goods with advertising slogans. That's a bit depressing.

M: What do you think is the purpose of advertising?

R: In a nutshell, to make money it's all about getting attention and getting customers to buy your

good or service. There are some adverts for social services but PSA is like that aren't usually classed as adverts and they're very few and far between.

M: Have you ever bought anything because of adverts?

R: Not directly. It's usually been word of mouth to be honest. So maybe that's indirect advertising of the kind but nothing like what we discussed already.

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Discussion

M: Rory, thank you so much for your answers. So, what is it going on with this advertisements? Do I use advertisements, adverts, ads, commercials.

R: You can decide, you should use all of them to paraphrase for a high score. Band nine score.

M: So wait, but advertisements and commercials, are they the same thing?

R: They are but advertisements that term is used more in the UK and commercials is used in the US. They have commercial breaks, for example, whereas we just have breaks, ad breaks.

M: Okay. Yeah. So, dear listener, advertisements and you should see advertisements, then adverts. The same, shorter and the shortest option is ads. One ad, an ad. I hate ads, adverts advertisements, or TV commercials. There is one more thing advertising. And we say advertising. Right? So advertising is like the general industry. Yes. Like I'm into advertising.

R: I'm in advertising.

M: What?

R: I'm in advertising.

M: What did I say?

R: You said I'm into advertising. I'm an advertising means I work there but I'm into advertising means I'm interested.

M: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And Rory, you said that I try and skip them. You skip.

R: Yeah. And this is the option that you see on YouTube. It comes up it says that you can skip and you should because they're usually complete trash.

M: Yeah. And we can call them like pop up ads. Pop up.

R: That's a phrasal verb.

M: Oh, phrasal verbs.

R: If you like phrasal verbs, you're just gonna love our phrasal verbs Podcourse.

M: Shut up already. So yep. You can skip these pop up ads, when they come on. So they pop

up or come on.

R: It's another phrasal verb. Sorry. In this podcast on advertising we're gonna do a lot of self

advertising and self promotion, which is another kind of lexical chank for advertising, self

promotion.

M: Yeah, different companies do their self promotion.

R: Well, they do promotion. Self promotion is more something that a person does.

M: Hmm. Not companies?

R: Yes. I'm very self promoting. I talk about my books all the time. I'm talking about them now. You

can buy them on Amazon. I'm sorry, I'm having fun.

M: Unfortunately, in this episode, you can't reach the skip option.

R: I will have more fun Vanya. Don't worry. I'm gonna have a lot of fun. He is wearing clothes for

once. We can't have that in the podcast. I mean, the discussion of unity, not clothes. You need to

have clothes.

M: Right, so, dear listener, you can't reach the skip option, so there's no skip option in this episode

about advertisements

R: Sorry.

M: And you have to put up with adverts. Our episodes are full of phrasal verbs.

R: Yeah, you know what is full of phrasal verbs? Our podcast on phrasal verbs.

M: Put up with advertisements - tolerate advertisements, so I really can't. I dislike them so but I

have to tolerate them. I have to deal with them. Yeah, I have to put up with them

R: It's another phrasal verb.

M: Rory, you said that it's difficult to do...

R: Crunches.

M: Yeah, to do crunches. You said, like while I workout it's difficult to do crunches.

R: Yeah. Crunches is just like sit ups. Well, not really, crunches are different to sit ups. They're

basically the same thing. It's just something that you do. It's the kind of exercise where you lie on

the floor and you flex your stomach muscles.

M: Yeah, so Rory does crunches.

R: I try to do crunches, it rarely works for me.

M: Yeah, he walks out and does crunches.

R: Oh, do you know what? Work out, that's also a phrasal verb, isn't it?

M: Some adverts however, are quite brilliant and funny. Some brilliant adverts like our adverts

right?

R: Like our subliminal advertising that we're doing in this. Oh, we didn't mention subliminal

advertising. But we should, subliminal advertising is advertising that is not it's not obvious

advertising. It's like you advertise a product by stealth for example. You see this a lot in in movies

where people are drinking a can of coke for example. And they're paid that's kind of their

promotion, that's subliminal advertising. So it's designed to advertise the product without you

thinking about it. And in sort of the same way that we keep mentioning our Podcourse. This is

subliminal advertising. But if you're in Russia, and you don't have access to Amazon, don't worry,

we've got you covered. If you go to my Instagram, you can purchase them on there.

M: So this is not subliminal, it's pretty much like straightforward. It's overt. You have subliminal

advertising and you have overt advertising.

M: Overt?

R: Overt. Covert is subliminal, covert is something you don't recognize over to something obvious.

M: Oh, so obvious adverts, overt adverts?

R: Yeah.

M: Okay, cool. Wow. Well, again, you can talk about brilliant adverts like our adverts, Guinness

adverts.

R: But if you're interested in Scottish adverts, you should definitely check out the Irn-bru ones. They're absolutely hilarious. They're not politically correct either.

M: Right, then, we have specific vocabulary about advertising. So what advertising do you have in your country? We have billboards, billboards,

R: We have billboards. That's like the giant posters that you see over streets, highways, freeways. They are huge and they usually have like one picture on them.

M: Yep. posters.

R: Posters are small, maybe the size of a four or a one piece of paper, even.

M: Viral marketing.

R: Viral marketing is like, well, they create an advert that sticks in your head for a while. I'm trying to think of an example of that that everybody will know about viral.

M: And, you know, when a video goes viral, loads of people millions of people watch it and then just went viral.

R: YouTube ads which are inserted into videos, it's another phrasal verb. successwithielts.com

M: So you can talk about YouTube ads, like I can't stand YouTube ads when I watch my favorite

video, and then this ad pops up. And also ads in the breaks of TV shows. Right? So you watch a

TV show and then you have adverts or commercial breaks.

R: But sometimes you have ads which are tailor made.

M: Oh, yeah, like suits, like tailor made suits, like clothes. So and our adverts are tailor made so

we kind of make these adverts. Specially you know for you.

R: Tailor made was a phrasal verb, but it's now one word because it's just merged together.

M: Yeah.

R: It's been used so often that it's just a single word now. However, even though that's not a

phrasal verb, other phrasal verbs are available on our Podcourse.

M: Oh dear listener, how are you? Are you okay? Are you okay? All right. So bear with us. All

right. Don't forget to talk about cookies, cookies, not biscuits, but cookies are cookies in the

programs. So cookies. are used to track what you like what you dislike and then send you tailor

made, tailor made adverts.

R: So cookie is like a small... What's the best way to describe this? A cookie is a small bookmark

almost it's made whenever you go to a website or you click on a page and the system stores this

and it registers that you looked at this page. And then your internet service provider sells that

information to advertisers so that they can make adverts which are more relevant to you. But that

almost never works. Because I know what I want to buy. Advertisers don't know what I want to

buy. Like really, if anyone is if anyone has ever bought something because of an advert, only

because of an advert please send me a message on Instagram. I don't believe that adverts are

that effective. I would love for someone to prove that to me.

M: Interesting. Alright, so if you did buy something because of an ad, please let Rory know, on

his Instagram page where you can also buy his books. Okay, anyway, some people are paid to

be branded with tattoos.

R: Yeah.

M: Wow.

R: So a brand is like the image of a product. Branded is like the verb for when you put a brand

on something. So for example, some people have got company slogans on them. And you're

paying to do this.

M: Wow. So if for example, I want to advertise Louis Vuitton bags, so I go like, oh, Louis Vuitton,

hello. Get me a tattoo with Louis Vuitton on on my face.

R: Well, I don't I think Louis Vuitton are supposed to be classy. So they don't really reward you for

that. But there are companies that do this kind of thing.

M: McDonald's or example.

R: I don't know. Does McDonald's pay for that?

M: I don't know. Maybe we can find a person and pay them to be branded with tattoos IELTS

speaking for success podcast, Rory, freedom, Scotland.

R: Well, they might balk at that slightly. However, if you would like to help our brand improve,

then you can always purchase our Podcourse.

M: Oh yes, dear listener it's an episode about adverts. Anyway, you did use a very good one. It's

usually been word of mouth.

R: Yeah, word of mouth is just when someone tells you about a product.

M: Mm hmm. So you don't use an article. So it's a word of mouth. The word of mouth.

R: It sounds like you just have a conversation but word of mouth can also be actually you find out

about something from an article you read that said it was very good. Our podcast became

popular because people used word of mouth and they said to their friends, so why don't do that

now. If you don't have any friends, you can also leave us a five star review on our podcast.

M: Wow, wow, this episode is just, oh dear listener, how are you? Anyway, we did give you

some precise words and phrases about adverts, ads, advertisements. And just for you to know

that advertisement is one of the freshest topics in the IELTS speaking exam.

R: You know what else is fresh? Our Podcourse on phrasal verbs.

M: Bye!