私醫聯招 英文歷屆試題｜第 399 題

Advertisers are willing to pay top dollar for a good tune. It might seem strange for advertisers to spend a large amount of money on music alone. After all, the direct connection between music in a commercial and the amount of money the company will make from it is difficult to quantify. But advertisers know that a memorable song will do most the work of catching and keeping people’s attention, sometimes regardless of the product. Catching people’s attention can be much more important to sales than trying to get any particular information across about the product or service being advertised.

Music also has the power to be retained in a person’s memory long after it has been heard. We’ve all had the experience of trying to get a catchy song out of our head. This phenomenon encourages advertisers to use music to “get inside the heads” of customers. One very important reason for using popular music and popstars in commercials is to have a direct message permeate a particular demographic, or group, within the general population. For example, it doesn’t take a marketing whiz to know that young people are the main consumers of soft drinks. This leads soft drink makers to choose recording artists who are popular with young people to help sell their products. In the same way, popular musicians and styles of music from the 1970s might be used to sell luxury cars or other items for more sophisticated tastes.