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这是：商务英语考试（BUSINESS ENGLISH CERTIFICATE简称BEC）的真题，指的是剑桥商务英语资格考试。
A manufacturer of sportsshoes starts selling consumer electronics. A soft drink lends its name to arange of urban clothing. What’s going on? In simpler times, you knew where youwere with brands. One brand name meant good-quality sports shoes, another a softdrink. No confusion. Today, however, big companies try to redefine brands asnot so much a product, more a way of life, and stretch them into new areas. Inthe early years of the consumer society, a brand name on a box simplyidentified what was inside. People were looking for products that would improvetheir quality of life, and chose brads most likely to achieve that purpose. Butas people in industrialized nations became more affluent and fulfilled theirbasic needs, brands acquired other attributes. The functionality of the productwas still important, but people also started using brands to say somethingabout themselves, for example, choosing a brand of cosmetics which wouldsuggest that they were sophisticated jet-setters.
Now, we have entered athird age of branding, in which so many companies are making roughly the sameproduct at roughly the same price that functionality rarely succeeds as a pointof differentiation. Instead, companies are trying to make their brands standout by emphasizing their emotional aspects, hoping consumers will identify withthe set of values the brand represents.
一个运动鞋制造商开始销售消费电子产品。软饮料借名义给一个范围的城市的服装。发生什么事了?在简单的时代,你知道那些品牌。品牌意味着高质量的运动鞋,另一个是饮料。没有混乱。然而,今天,大公司试图重新定义品牌不是一个产品,一种生活方式,延伸到新的领域。消费社会的初期,一个品牌在一个盒子只是确认里面是什么。人们正在寻找产品,提高他们的生活质量,并选择钉牢最有可能实现这一目的。但随着工业化国家的人们变得更加富裕,满足他们的基本需求,品牌收购了其他属性。产品的功能仍然是重要的,但是人们也开始使用品牌说说自己,例如,选择一个品牌的化妆品,建议他们先进的喷气式飞机。
现在,我们已经进入了第三个品牌的时代,在很多公司正在以大致相同的价格大致相同的产品,功能很少成功的分化。相反,公司正试图使他们的品牌脱颖而出通过强调他们的情感方面,希望消费者认同品牌代表的一组值。
One disadvantage of aproduct-based brand is that if the product goes out of fashion, the brand goeswith it. This is a serious concern for manufacturers of breakfast cereals, whoare struggling to counter weak demand for the products that bear their names.So far, their marketing efforts seem to be having little effect. The advantagefor emotional brands is that companies can transfer their brand strength into otherareas, increasing revenues and reducing their exposure to the lifespan of asingle product.
The elasticity of brandsseems to be related to their position on a spectrum ranging from those rootedin solid, tangible assets to those with highly intangible, emotional qualities.At the one end, you have train companies that tend to associate themselves withinfrastructure and their ability to get you from A to B, and at the other endwould be a leisure brand that positions itself on dreams and making people havefun. It is the latter which has the maximum potential for stretch.
一个基于产品品牌的一个缺点是,如果产品过时,品牌会随着增长。这是一个严重的关心早餐麦片制造商,他们正努力应对产品的需求疲软,他们的名字。到目前为止,他们的营销努力似乎没有什么影响。情感品牌的优势,公司可以自己的品牌力量转移到其他领域,增加收入和减少暴露于一个产品的寿命。
弹性品牌似乎是与他们的立场在光谱从那些根植于固体、有形资产与无形,情感品质。在一端,火车公司倾向于将自己与基础设施和能力让你从A到B,和在另一端是一个休闲品牌,职位本身的梦想和让人们获得乐趣。它是后者的最大潜力。
But even emotionalbrands have a limit to their elasticity. The merchandise has to be consistentwith the brand promise. Just to sell merchandise with your logo on it is ashort-term, mistaken idea. From this viewpoint, the decision to move fromsports shoes into consumer electronic makes sense. Most items in the range,such as the two way radio for hikers, are sports-focused, even though theproducts may be adopted as fashion accessories, and the sports shoe customerswill probably snap them up.
但即使情感品牌限制他们的弹性。商品必须与品牌承诺一致。只是要卖商品与您的标志是一个短期的,错误的想法。从这个角度来看,决定从运动鞋到消费电子是有意义的。大多数项目范围,比如徒步旅行者的双向无线电,sports-focused,即使产品可能被采用为时尚配饰,和运动鞋的客户可能会抢购。
When the move was madeform soft drinks into clothing, however, it left the branding consultants cold.It was a difficult mental leap into clothing from the drink so closelyassociated with that particular brand name. On the other hand, the emotional attributesthat youngsters seem to find appealing in the drink, like its heritage andglobal appeal, are fashionable at the moment, and in fact response to theclothes with the same name has been overwhelming. Maybe this just shows that aninspired move –and by all accounts a snap decision– sometimes pays off againstthe odds, leaving the manufacturer laughing all the way to the bank.
当饮料是由形式进入服装,然而,它离开了品牌顾问冷。这是一个困难的精神进入服装从喝所以与特定品牌密切相关。另一方面,年轻人的情感属性似乎找到有吸引力的饮料,喜欢它的遗产和全球吸引力,当下的时髦话题,事实上对具有相同名称的衣服是压倒性的。也许这只是表明一个启发的举动——据说提前决定——有时回报,克服重重困难,使制造商笑到银行。
1. What led to a change in attitudes to brands?
A. the influence of consumers on each other
B. the personal circumstances of consumers
C. more sophisticated marketing
D. greater choice of products
2. According to the writer, an attribute of thethird age of branding is that __________.
A. competing products may serve their purpose equallywell.
B. the range of products available is too large forall to survive.
C. consumers are becoming confused about theproducts available.
D. price has become a key factor in consumers’choice of products.
3. The writer mentions manufacturers of breakfastcereals to illustrate how __________.
A. competition can have an impact on a product.
B. a brand can lose its popularity despite a strongmarket for the product.
C. advertising can affect sales of a product.
D. changes in the popularity of products can causedifficulties.
4. The writer argues that the stretch from sportsshoes into consumer electronics is likely to be successful because _________.
A. existing customers have demanded the newproducts.
B. they will be sold in the same outlets.
C. the new lines will expand the manufacturer’s market.
D. there is a connection in the way that the goodscan be used.
5. The writer argues that the stretch from softdrinks into clothing ________.
A. was a gamble which succeeded.
B. built on the popularity of certain types ofclothing.
C. showed the value of careful planning.
D. created production problems for themanufacturer.
BADDA
你的题目中有这题：
6 The writer refers to railways to show that brands like this
A do not recognise the value of stretching.
B suffer from having an unattractive image.
C are unlikely to lend themselves to stretching.
D are notoriously difficult to advertise.
A
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