📙 Part 2: Describe an advertisement you don't like

This episode's vocabulary

Pop-up (noun) - an advertisement that is shown in a new window in front of the window that you are looking at on a website.

To market (verb) - to make goods available to buyers in a planned way that encourages people to buy more of them, for example by advertising.

To enhance (verb) - to improve the quality, amount, or strength of something.

To influence (verb) - to affect or change how someone or something develops, behaves, or thinks.

Algorithm (noun) - a set of mathematical instructions or rules that, especially if given to a computer, will help to calculate an answer to a problem.

Decency (noun) - behaviour that is good, moral, and acceptable in society.

Aim (noun) - a result that your plans or actions are intended to achieve.

Predatory (adj.) - people or organizations who are predatory tend to use others for their own advantage.

Superficial (adj.) - not complete and involving only the most obvious things.

To cater to someone/something (phrasal verb) - to satisfy a need or to provide what is wanted or needed by a particular person or group

Uptight (adj.) - worried or nervous and not able to relax.

Resistance (noun) - the act of fighting against something that is attacking you, or refusing to accept something.

Drive (noun) - energy and determination to achieve things.

Standardise (verb) - to make things of the same type all have the same basic features.

For one (idiom) - used to say that you think your opinion or action is right, even if others do not.

Questions and Answers

M: Okay, Rory. Give us your story.

R: There's nothing that annoys me more than these pop-up ads that come up on YouTube which market these online language schools. There's one in particular that markets itself as being able to enhance your accent or change it to be more like that of a native speakers. I don't really like pop-up ads anyway, since I'm the kind of person who looks for things they want to buy when they need it. I don't need to be influenced by some random ad thrown up by the algorithm on my screen when I'm trying to work or listen to music. So when these things come up, I'm already annoyed and unwilling to engage with it. As if that wasn't bad enough in the case of language school adverts in particular, it really offends my sense of decency and justice. Since like I said, they state their aim is to change how people speak in terms of their accents. Personally and professionally, I don't think people should have to change their accents in order to be understood by others. Since I was brought up to focus on what people say rather than how it's said and this sort of thing just flies in the face of that. Aside from that, it comes across as quite predatory and superficial in a way that caters to some people's greatest insecurities. Many students are already uptight about their accents and worried people might judge them for sounding foreign. And I think this only serves to make it worse. They could be doing something so much more productive. Like enhancing people's grammar or vocabulary for a high score. But instead, they choose the path of least resistance and focus their efforts on something like that. Moreover, I think the drive to standardise people's accents really takes away from all the variety in the world. I, for one, really enjoy how Polish and Russian people speak English, and if they decided to change that, especially to standardise it, it would make things a lot less fun. If this sort of advert weren't around on the internet. I'd definitely feel a lot happier about it.

M: And have you talked to your friends about this?

R: No, because most of my friends are not as sad as I am.

Discussion

M: Hey, thank you, Rory, for your story. Such an interesting topic, yeah? Describe an advertisement you don't like. Yeah, dear listener? You may not watch TV or YouTube, you may not even know anything about advertisements that you don't like. Please make a choice. Go watch some ads and choose an advert that you don't like on YouTube, on a billboard or television. Maybe something from your childhood. So you just need one advertisement, okay? Rory, I do enjoy the start of your monologue. There is nothing that annoys me more than these pop-up ads on YouTube.

R: Well, what a great way to talk about something you don't like. There's nothing that annoys me more.

M: Yeah. So there's nothing that annoys me more than pop-up ads on YouTube. Pop-up ads. That's kind of you watch your favourite episode of IELTS Speaking for Success podcast on YouTube and then these pop-up ads...they just pop up.

R: Shall we just list all the different ways that I used of talking about how much I don't like it? Just to get that out of the way first.

M: Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, so I dislike it. Or what else?

R: I don't really like and then going into that. So starting off gently and then when I talked about when these things come up, I was saying I'm already annoyed and unwilling to engage with it. And then to enhance this feeling further as if it wasn't bad enough. So like, it's already bad, but it's about to get worse. And then talking about how it offends me. It offends my sense of something. And where else did I talk about things that annoy me? So I changed it slightly to make things negative as well when I said if they decided to change that, it would make things less fun. And then a final part to underline how much I dislike it. If this sort of advert wasn't around the internet, I'd definitely feel a lot happier about it. So again, talking about negative and then the positive outcome.

M: Sweet. And also some synonyms. The task says advertisement. So Rory used ads, so the ad I don't like, or advert. Did you say commercial? No, I don't think so.

R: No. But pop-up ads.

M: Pop-up ads. Yeah, online or if you watch TV, then a TV commercial, a TV ad, a TV advert. Yeah, but careful with pronunciation. It's advertisement. Whereas advertising is an industry. Yeah? So I work in advertising. So that's like a more general thing. So we are talking about specific ad. Like Nike advert, Nike advertisement. And then you can have this ad on YouTube, on the internet, on Instagram. Here, Rory talked about a pop-up ad for an online school, yeah? And you can say like there is one in particular that annoys me a lot. And this ad is about an online school. You can say that I'm the kind of person who looks for things when they want them. And I don't need to be influenced by some random ads. So passive voice, I don't need to be influenced by the ads. So ads influence us. I don't need to be influenced by them.

R: So ads influence us, but other vocabulary that we can use to describe what ads do or what companies do is they market things. So a company markets itself through its advertising. So it tries to attract customers. And also adverts can come across. So that just means the image they project seems to be a certain way. It's not just companies that do this and it's not just for advertising. Something can come across as something else. For example, hopefully, we come across as professional.

M: You can say that this ad offends my sense of decency and justice. So it offends my feelings or it offends my sense of beauty, my sense of justice in this world. Or it just offends me.

R: But that's just describing what it does. That's just another way of describing why I dislike it.

M: Ooh, you can also, if you talk about an online ad, you can talk about the algorithm. So the algorithm throws up some ads for you, right?

R: Yeah. But that just means it presents them to you. And if you throw something up, then it just comes on screen with no warning and it's there, dominating the view. And the algorithm does this quite a lot and it's very annoying.

M: The verb cater is a nice one here. So different advertisements cater to different people, right? So for example, Rory is an English teacher, so he does watch a lot of content about English teaching. And he has advertisements which cater to his tastes in teaching.

R: Well, they should cater to my tastes. This advert doesn't. It's horrible. I don't like it at all. But if something does cater to your tastes, then it matches up perfectly. It doesn't have to just cater to your tastes, though. Things could cater to your sense of justice or cater to your... Just cater to you, as a person.

M: And we wrap it up with this strategy, like if... With the second conditional, yeah? If this sort of advert wasn't around the Internet, I'd definitely feel a lot happier. You can use the third conditional. If I hadn't seen this ad, I wouldn't have been so annoyed at that time. Yeah? So now I think about it. What helped you organise your answer?

R: Well, the task helped me organise it, to be honest, I was just thinking of ways to introduce the point in ways other than seeing an advert that really annoys me is... I don't like it because. So in order not to sound like a robot, I started off strong. There's nothing that annoys me more. And then I clarified by saying I don't really like them anyway, but this advert in particular is bad. And then I explained why and I went into even more detail. As if that wasn't bad enough. It gets even worse and explained that further. And then even more detail, actually, on why I don't like it. Aside from that and again saying why it's a bad thing. And then I wrapped up in the way that we love to with our conditional sentence. Another thing that I wanted to draw attention to was the fact that I use this expression "taking the path of least resistance". That just means taking the easiest path. And in advertising that often involves preying on people's insecurities. So it's not necessarily a bad thing, but in the context of talking about this advert, it is a bad thing. They could have done something much deeper and it would have connected with people a lot more. But instead, they were like, I'm just going to make people feel worse about themselves in order to make them buy my product. And I don't like that. That's not what I stand for.

M: Excellent. Yeah, dear listener, you can choose an ad on a different topic, right? And also you can talk about audio ads. So when you listen to some episodes in your podcast app, there might be some audio ads with some music or with some strange voices interrupting your favourite episode. So audio ads or pop ads or TV commercials. Also, you can say that this advertisement is offensive. It doesn't agree with the laws or ethics of your country or of your own ethics, for example. And what else can be bad about an advert? Like music could be silly. Voices could be too loud or it's just stupid. Like the message is just stupid and shallow. Shallow like there's no depth.

R: It could be unrelatable.

M: Unrelatable to real life. So they don't show like real life. Or they can just lie. You can talk about some ads on the website. You read an article and then there are a lot of ads there. And also, you can say that, okay, this size of this ad annoys me. It was just too big. If you talk about an online ad inside a text, for example. But I think the easiest one could be to talk about an ad on YouTube. Rory, would you agree?

R: Well, everybody watches YouTube, don't they? So I feel like...

M: Or maybe a TV commercial.

R: Yeah, exactly. It's like YouTube or television, but they all involve watching visual media. So that's about it. Maybe there's... Is there an annoying billboard? Do billboards even stick around long enough for that to be annoying? I don't think so.

M: Anyway, dear listener, if you have no idea what to talk about, you can just google top bad ads of all time. Like watch some videos, choose one advert. Something like really silly and ridiculous, when they advertise, I don't know, a toothpaste. And then talk about it, right? Make sure you use some synonyms that we gave you about, like I don't like it, it annoys me. And to organise your answer logically, okay?

R: Are there any other words that are negative that we used here? Insecurities, worries, being uptight?

M: Yeah. What does uptight mean?

R: Uptight just means that you're very nervous and very insecure about something.

M: So like, why are you so uptight?

R: It's definitely like the opposite of relaxed.

M: Mhm. Yeah. You've also used unwilling. I am already annoyed and I'm unwilling to engage with it. So I saw this advert and I was unwilling. So I didn't want to engage with it, read it, listen to it, click on it.

R: Yeah. Or you could just say I don't want to, if you forgot. However, we've spent so much time describing adverts we don't like, but as always, hopefully, you are willing to engage with the grammar and vocabulary here.

M: Thank you very much for listening! And we'll get back to you in speaking part three, where we talk about ads in general, okay?

R: Hopefully in a much more positive way!

M: Bye!

R: Bye!

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