Many famous sportspersons are advertising sports products. What do you think about it?

Another version of this question appeared in an October 2018 IELTS exam: Some people think that the advantages of advertising sports products through famous sports players outweigh the disadvantages. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

40 minutes, 250 words at least.

Answer:

Advertisements are one of the most effective means for of introducing and selling new products in the market. Many sports companies endorse hire (1) eminent sports personalities to promote their products among the public. I feel it is an ideal way to lure people into buying these goods.

1. Wrong word choice will impact your LR score. Endorse refers to supporting (promoting) something. Sportspersons can endorse a product. Companies HIRE sportspersons to endorse their products.

When a new product is launched, the primary aim of the company will be is to reach out to as many people as possible. TV commercials and those on printed media, with the flamboyant appearances, play a pivotal role in achieving this goal. (2) In addition to these, some of the famous sports brands are endorsed by famous sports personalities e.g. such as Christiano Ronaldo, the world-renowned footballer as the brand ambassador for NIKE and the world record holding athlete Usain bolt represents PUMA. (poor sentence structuring. Due to missing commas, it is not clear where Ronaldo ends and Usain Bolt begins. You can do this by using ‘WHO’ as an adjective pronoun that acts as a starting point of an adjective clause. WHO is a pronoun because it refers to the player. WHO is an adjective because it gives a QUALITY of that player.) … such as Christiano Ronaldo, who is a world-renowned footballer and a supporter of Nike brand of shoes, and Usain Bolt, who is a record-holding athlete and represents Puma. (Note the structure: CR, who ….., and UB, who ……)

2. This sentence is weak on task response. The question is NOT about ways to advertise a product. Stick to the question. Write only about sportspersons endorsing sports products.

Weak task response. You’ve not explained whether this is a good development or not. Note that the question is “What do you think about it“? That’s an opinion question demanding whether this is a good development or not.

When people watch an athlete winning a gold medal, in a particular shoe brand, there is a natural tendency to connect the success to the quality of the shoes. Likewise, (missing subject and verb. This is called a fragment sentence. It is NOT a complete sentence and this impacts your grammar score.) they (subject) link (verb) the success of a Tennis player with the a particular Racket brand, and that of a Cricket player with a particular Bat brand. (this sentence is poorly structured). So endorsing (wrong word choice as explained in point 1) a sports person increases the visibility of sports goods. Children and youth get inspired watching their role models on screen, to follow their path and become more active in outdoor activities and games. (Children and youth – A. get …; B. follow; C. become. The first words of A, B, and C should belong to the same family. Read my article on Rules of Parallelism)

However, as the success of an athlete is connected to the endorsed brand, when his performance suffers or when he (3) is involved in any scandals, the brand gets affected too. The sales tend to drop and popularity plummets. Also, companies spend millions of dollars on these endorsements. As a result, sales of those companies, which cannot afford such eminent sportspersons, are adversely affected even though qualities are comparable.

3. In absence of HE, it is assumed that the subject is performance. Your sentence is “… performance is involved in any scandal”. Performance can’t be involved in a scandal.

Note that the paragraph above violates your opinion. Your opinion is “I feel it is an ideal way to lure people into buying these goods.” This means that you think the question’s statement has advantages only and there are no drawbacks. In the above paragraph, you’ve explained the drawbacks. This will reduce the task response score.

In conclusion, I would say that endorsing a celebrated sportsperson to promote sports products is an effective method to reach out to more people.

Important Note: You’re meant to explain YOUR OPINION only. NOT the other view. That’s incorrect in “What do you think?” type question.

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