To suit the needs of corporate clients, advertising agencies have successfully modified a strategy originally develop...

Emil-Kunkin on July 2, 2022

Hi Brandybailey93,

The passage tells us that agencies have successfully used a strategy for corporate clients in which they draw attention through controversial ads.

If this was successful, it is not the case that the controversial ads hurt more than they helped- that is, the value of the free publicity must have been greater than the loss of value from running controversial ads.

This is a must be false question.

A tells us that the only goal of an ad campaign is to persuade. If this were true- a campaign whose goal was only to draw attention (and by running controversial ads, would likely actually dissuade customers) would not be successful.

While this is not airtight (maybe controversy is persuasive), the passage does undermine the possibility that A is true.

Erica on July 8, 2023

Why is this a cannot be true question? It seems like a weaken question stem.

Emil-Kunkin on July 10, 2023

Good question, this is tricky but pay close attention to what the question is actually asking us to do. The question is asking us to use the passage to disprove an answer choice, which is what we do in cannot be true questions. For a weaken we would be using an answer choice to undermine the passage, the opposite of what we are doing here.