Cue Card # 201: An advertisement you watched but did not like

IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card # 201

Describe an advertisement that you watched but did not like.

You should say:

• what product or service it was advertising
• when you saw it
• where you saw it

and explain why you did not like this advertisement.

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Model Answer:

I don’t think that I have a keen mind and sharp eyes to analyse an advertisement in an objective manner. But, still, I somehow have managed to separate some “crappy” advertisements from some good and interesting ones with whatever little insights and analytical capabilities I have. Today, I would like to discuss one of those “crappy” advertisements here.

I saw this not-so-interesting advertisement just about a few months ago when I was too busy completing the yearly audit work at my office. This audit work becomes so tiring and boring for me sometimes that I just go to my apartment and lay on my bed. Sometimes, I watch TV too, especially, when I see some of my favourite sports being shown. So, as I was watching one of my favourite sports on that day, I came across a TV commercial for a very popular soft drink in my country.

In that TV advertisement, an old man is seen to be laying on his bed, very sick, asks for his favourite soft drink. A young person, in charge of taking care of that old man, gets a soft drink from a store, but before handing it over to that old and sick person, he sips a little in his throat, out of curiosity, just to see how it tastes. But. Instead of stopping at just one sip, he finishes the entire bottle. On the other hand, the old and sick person, who couldn’t move at all, suddenly becomes so energized that he jumps up from his bed, apparently in an effort to snatch that bottle of soft drink away from his aid.

Now, I can completely understand what the advertiser was trying to say in that commercial, but I didn’t like it, mainly because I think that the advertiser was trying too much by using a serious subject like “illness”. After all, the drink is already very popular in my country. I didn’t like it also because there was no proper “ending” in that advertisement. In other words, it was a rather weakly-planned advertisement with a rather “weak script”.