Text 3

The rough guide to marketing success used to be that you got what you paid for. No longer. While traditional “paid” media—such as television commercials and print advertisements – still play a major role, companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media. Consumers passionate about a product may create “earned” media by willingly promoting it to friends, and a company may leverage “owned” media by sending e-mail alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its Web site. The way consumers now approach the process of making purchase decisions means that marketing’s impact stems from a broad range of factors beyond conventional paid media.

Paid and owned media are controlled by marketers promoting their own products. For earned media, such marketers act as the initiator for users’ responses. But in some cases, one marketer’s owned media become another marketer’s paid media – for instance, when an e-commerce retailer sells ad space on its Web site. We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-commerce engines within that environment. This trend, which we believe is still in its infancy, effectively began with retailers and travel providers such as airlines and hotels and will no doubt go further. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has created BabyCenter, a stand-alone media property that promotes complementary and even competitive products. Besides generating income, the presence of other marketers makes the site seem objective, gives companies opportunities to learn valuable information about the appeal of other companies’ marketing, and may help expand user traffic for all companies concerned.

The same dramatic technological changes that have provided marketers with more (and more diverse) communications choices have also increased the risk that passionate consumers will voice their opinions in quicker, more visible, and much more damaging ways.Such hijacked media are the opposite of earned media: an asset or campaign becomes hostage to consumers, other stakeholders, or activists who make negative allegations about a brand or product. Members of social networks, for instance, are learning that they can hijack media to apply pressure on the businesses that originally created them.

If that happens, passionate consumers would try to persuade others to boycott products, putting the reputation of the target company at risk. In such a case, the company’s response may not be sufficiently quick or thoughtful, and the learning curve has been steep. Toyota Motor, for example, alleviated some of the damage from its recall crisis earlier this year with a relatively quick and well-orchestrated social-media response campaign, which included efforts to engage with consumers directly on sites such as Twitter and the social-news site Digg.

31. Consumers may create “earned” media when they are

[A] obsessed with online shopping at certain Web sites.     

[B] inspired by product-promoting e-mails sent to them.

[C] eager to help their friends promote quality products.   

[D] enthusiastic about recommending their favorite products.

32. According to Paragraph 2, sold media feature

[A] a safe business environment.                                    [B] random competition.

[C] strong user traffic.                                                   [D] flexibility in organization.

33. The author indicates in Paragraph 3 that earned media

[A] invite constant conflicts with passionate consumers.    

[B] can be used to produce negative effects in marketing.

[C] may be responsible for fiercer competition.                

[D] deserve all the negative comments about them.

34. Toyota Motor’s experience is cited as an example of

[A] responding effectively to hijacked media.                   

[B] persuading customers into boycotting products.

[C] cooperating with supportive consumers.                     

[D] taking advantage of hijacked media.

35. Which of the following is the text mainly about?

[A] Alternatives to conventional paid media.                    

[B] Conflict between hijacked and earned media.

[C] Dominance of hijacked media.                                  

[D] Popularity of owned media.
 

31.D

解析：细节题。题目“当消费者__________________时，可能会造就‘免费’媒体”。定位到第一段第三句前半句话“Consumers passionate about a product may create “earned” media by willingly promoting it to friends”，意思是“消费者由于很喜欢某个产品，故主动地将之向朋友推荐，由此造就了‘免费’媒体”，选项[D] enthusiastic about recommending their favorite products(热衷于向朋友推荐他们最喜欢的产品)。

32.C

解析：细节推断题。题目“由第二段可知，收费媒体的特点是_______________”。定位到第二段第四句“We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-ecommerce engines within that environment”，由此句可知收费媒体(sold media)是指那些流量非常大的免费媒体，由于他们的流量如此之大以至于其他的机构也乐于把自己的产品信息或者电子上午引擎置于这些免费媒体中，于是就会向免费媒体购买广告位置(结合本段第三句理解)，由此可知选项[C] strong user traffic(强大的用户流量)为正确答案。

干扰项：[A] a safe business environment (安全的商业环境)[B] random competition (自由竞争)[D] flexibility in organization (组织灵活)均非文中信息，无中生有。

33.B

解析：细节题。题目“第三段中，作者认为免费媒体__________________”。第三段提到免费媒体提供便利的同时，也带来了风险，比如可能被利用去传播某个品牌或产品的负面信息，由此可知选项[B] can be used to produce negative effects in marketing (可能会被用来制造对营销不利的负面影响)正符合此意。

34.A

解析：例证题。题目“Toyota Motor是一个_____________________的例子”。定位到末段，末段主要提到热情的消费者可能会号召其他人抵制某个产品，威胁到产品所属公司的名声，这时公司的回应有可能不够迅速、周到。这是本段的核心信息。接下来就拿Toyota Motor举例，举例中提到这个公司在公司名声遇到如上提到的危机情况时作出的反应，且成功减轻了危害程度。由此可知，例子是对本段中心句的一个反面例子论证公司对hijacked media的反应。故选项[A](有效地回应被劫持利用的媒体)为正确答案。

35.A

解析：主旨题。题目“这篇文化在那个主要讲述的是__________________”。本文首段第三句就提出文章中心“companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media”，即虽然传统收费媒体仍在发挥重大作用，但是现今的公司可以去选择其他媒体形式。后文主要是介绍其他可选择的媒体形式，并对其作出评论。故选项[A] Alternatives to conventional paid media (与传统收费媒体对应的其他媒体形式)为正确答案。