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Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

Advertisers tend to think big and perhaps that is why they are always coming in for criticism. Their critics seem to resent them because they have a flair for self-promotion and because they have much money to throw around. Very often advertising campaigns are believed to be a waste of money. Many people believe that it would be better to stop advertising and reduce the price of the goods. After all, it is the consumer who pays for everything. But poor consumer! If it were not for advertising, that creates mass markets for products, you would have to pay a great deal more. It is exactly because of the heavy advertising that comsumer goods are so cheap. However, if we think that the only purpose of advertising is to sell goods we surely get the wrong idea. To inform, should be another equally important function of advertising. A great deal of the knowledge we have about the household goods comes mostly from the advertisements we read, hear, watch, or almost stumble over in the streets. Advertisements introduce us to new products that we have never heard about, or at least do not let us forget about the existence of ones that we had already got accustomed to. Supposing that you wanted to buy a washing machine or other useful equipment, it is more than likely that you would obtain details concerning performance, price, and other valuable clues from an advertisement. It would be a wonderful service that would surely help you to make a choice.