3. Some Ads May Be Too Good to Be True Advertisements for vocational training courses are seen all over China owadays. But not all of them are reliable. A spare-time training school affiliated¹ with the Tiexi District library in Shenyang offered a hairdressing course nine times from October 1987 to April 1988, attracting a total of 1,628 students. The eighth term was attended by 348 students. But afterwards, 100 of them sued the school, charging that they had been cheated with false advertising².
　　The ad had stated that two well-known hairdressers from Hong Kong, one of them a woman, would teach the class and that a third from Shenzhen and a fourth from Guangzhou would also teach. But as turned out, one of the “Hong Kong hairdressers” was a man from Henan Province who had been living in Shenyang since his marriage, and the woman hairdresser was from Guangzhou. The one from Shenzhen never materialized. The ad also stated that a Hong Kong beauty salon³ would provide textbooks for the students. But the texts turned out to be only pamphlets rinted by a jobless young man.
　　The ad promised to provide an official ertificate from the city' s education bureau at the end of the course, but the seal on the certificate was that of the school. The ad said that a spacious⁴ and well-furnished classroom would be provided, but a small and dilapidated room which could hold no more than 100 people was used instead. A conference room was added, but half of the students still had to stand during the lectures.
　　The school took a group photo of all 348 students on the first day of the course and started to hand out certificates the following day. A total of 160 certificates were sent out in 20 days, loag before the students completed the course. As a result of the suit, the library was fined 15, 000 yuan and the jobless young man had to pay 2,000 yuan. The proliferation of vocational training courses in China has given rise to a proliferation of related advertisements - in newspapers and on radio and television. A study of a locai newspaper by Shenyang's Industrial nd Commercial Bureau found that from January to March 1988 the paper ran 220 advertisements and that 99 of them, or 45 per cent, were for vocatoinal training courses.
　　With flowery phrases and possibly empty promises, these advertisements re often tempting⁵ to those who want to get rich quick. In most cases, the shorter the vocational training courses, the easier they appear and the sooner the enrollees hope they can start earning money with what- they learned in class. So, naturally, the ads for short courses are all the more tempting. Who could resist an ad like this：
　　“Want to learn the most updated technique of making detergent⁶？ You need no equipment except four tubs. Attend our course, and within a week you will learn how to produce 150 kilograms and earn more than 150 yuan a day.”The eagerness with which many people rush to attend vocational training courses in the belief an easier life awaits them afterwards leaves them vulnerabIe to cheating. In 1987, a man from a rural area in Shenyang who was anxious to make money met the manager of a soap factory. By various illicit⁷ means, he got hold of the business license⁸ and the seal of the factory. He decided⁹ to open a training course on soap and detergent production under the factory's name and to charge a tuition fee of 200 yuan from each applicant¹⁰.
　　He advertised in newspapers read by farmers in Liaoning, lilin and Heilongjiang provinces. He immediately received applications from 100 people from 60 counties. The man pocketed 20,000 yuan in tuition fees, but never gave the course. He endcd up in jail for fraud, and the factory's business license was revoked¹².
　　4. Fake Advertising Seeks the Gullible¹³ Want to make gasoline and diesel¹⁴ fuel in your own home？
　　Want to have the capacity to drink a thousand shots of booze without being tipsy？
　　Want to add three centimetres a month to your height？
　　Sounds ridiculous？ These impossible dreams have been offered to people in this country. And they are just a few examples of the false advertising that has become one of the major problems hounding a modernizing¹⁵ Chinese society.
　　Last year, the Chinese Consumers ' Association alone received 55,871 complaints about the deceptive¹⁶ advertising, more than doubling the figure for 1987. In spite of repeated crackdowns their numbers are still increasing each year, according to officials with the State, Administration of Industry and Commerce （SAIC）。
　　Fake advertising, which appears mostly in print media, cheats consumers, and in some serious cases, threatens gullible people's lives.
　　As part of the latest campaign against phoney hucksters this year,the Beijing Administration of Industry and Commerce has just forbidden all publications to carry the column called “Tips on how to get rich. ” Though many people have learned about a product or a technology through the column, much of the information in the column is provided by swindlers. For instance, after a private school advertised that it was offering a course on how to make fluorescent¹⁷ lamp tubes at home, a farmer from Jilin Province came to Beijing to learn the skills.
　　However, after spending 30, 000 yuan of family savings¹⁸, the farmer didn't produce a single tube. Realizing the whole tbing was a hoax¹⁹, the bankrupt farmer repeatedly attempted suicide. According to SAIC officials, there are several reasons for the rampant²⁰ fake advertising. First, some enterprises, especially township and private ones, use fake advertising to push sales of their substandard or fake products.
　　Sheng Xincheng, a private businessman in Xinjiang, advertised for his “fine cow-hide shoes.” Customers outside Xinjiang sent him 180,000 yuan（ $48,000） only to get back inferior plastic shoes. Second, many newspapers, magazines and other media take the advertising because they need the money and don't care about the ethics²¹ of the ad's contents. Third, China does not have effective laws and regulations to prevent such advertising.
　　Gifts from heaven —— Jahn's Slimming Cream
　　5. The Language of Advertising 1 Some products are advertised as having a remarkable²² and immediate¹¹ effect. We are shown the situation before using the product and this is contrasted with the situation that follows its use. Taking a tablet for a headache in such advertisements can have truly remarkable results. For not only has the headache gone, but the person concerned has often had a new hair-do, acquired a new set of clothes and sometimes even moved into a more modern, betterfurnished house. 2 One thing reminds us of another - especially if we often see them together. These reminders²³ are sometimes more imaginary than real： for some people snow may suggest Christmas, for others silver candlesticks may suggest wealth. Theadvertiserencourages us to associate his productwith those things he thinks we really want —— a good job, nice clothes, a sports car, a beautiful girlfriend —— and, perhaps most of all, a feeling of importance. The “image” of a product is based on these associations and the advertiser often creates a “good image” by showing us someone who uses his product and who leads the kind of life we should like to lead. 3 Advertisements often encourage us to believe that because someone has been successful in one field, he should be regarded as an authority in other fields. The advertiser knows that there are certain people we admire because they are famous sportsmen, actors or singers, and he believes that if we discover that a certain well-known personality uses his product, we will want to use it too. This is why so many advertisements feature famous people. 4 Maybe we can' t always 6elieve what we' re told , but surely we must accept what we're actually shown The trouble is that when we look at the photograph we don't know how the photoraph was taken, or even what was actually photographed. Is that delicious-looking whipped cream really cream, or plastic froth？ Are the colours in fact so glowing or has a special filter been used？
　　It is often difficult to tell, but you can sometimes spot the photographic tricks if you look carefully enough. 5 If you keep talking about something for long enough, eventually people will pay attention to you. Many advertisements are based on this principle. If we hear the name of a product many times a day, we are much more likely to find that. this is the name that comes into our head when the shopkeeper asks “What brand？” We usually like to choose things for ourselves, but if the,advertiser plants a name in our heads in this way he has helped to make the choice for us.6 In this age of moon flights, heart transplants and wonder drugs, we are all impressed by science. If an advertiser links his claim with a scientific fact, there's even a chance we can be blinded by science. The question is simply whether the impressive air of the new discovery or the “man-made miracle” is being used io help or just to hoodwink us. 7 Advertisers may try to make us want a product by suggesting that most people, or the “best”people, already use it and that we will no doubt want to follow them. No one Iikes to be inferior to others and these advertisements suggest that you will be unless you buy the product. 8 The manufacturer needs a name for his product, and of course helooks for a name that will do more than just identify or label： he wants a name that brings suitable associations as well —— the ideas that the word brings to mind will help sell the product. 9 Most advertisements contain certain words （ sometimes, but not always, in bold or large letters, or beginning with a capital letter） that are intended to be persuasive²⁴, while at the same time appearing to be informative²⁵. In describing a product, copy-writers insert words that will conjure²⁶ up certain feelings,associations and attitudes. Some words——“golden”, for example - seem to have been so successful in selling that advertisers use them almost as if they were magic keys to increase sales. 10 Advertisers may invoke²⁷ feelings that imply you are not doing the best for those you love most. For example, an advertisement may suggest that any mother who really loves her children uses a certain product. If she does not, she might start to think of herself as a bad mother who does not love her family. So she might go and buy that particular product, rather than go on feeling bad about it.

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