Direct-mail advertising usually consists

Answer choices

1. A

   Weakens, if anything3% picked this

   Although the primary intent of most direct-mail advertisers is to convince people to buy products from their homes, direct mail can also lead to

   The author's whole case was that direct-mail ads obviate the need to drive to the store, and that's where the environmental 'savings' comes into play. This answer is saying direct-mail ads are actually triggering a desire for people to drive to a store.

   3%
2. B

   Correct55% picked this

   Most of the products purchased in response to direct-mail advertisements would be purchased even without

   Why this is right

   This is one of those correct answers on Strengthen that makes way more sense if you already had the objection that it's countering. Some people may have objected to the original argument that, "Direct-mail isn't saving me a trip to the store to buy something I was otherwise going to buy. It's showing me these items I never even thought about buying until I got the direct-mail ad. Look at my figurines from Avengers! I would have never driven somewhere to buy these, but when I got a direct-mail advertisement I decided I wanted them and ordered them." For purchases like these, where direct-mail created a consumer desire that didn't exist before, it's not fair to say "direct-mail is better for the environment, because it saved you a trip to the store!" There was not going to be any trip to the store. We'd be measuring all the environmental harm of the direct-mail flyers for the Avengers figurines + the harm of the delivery truck that brought it to my house vs. the alternate world in which I never knew they existed and never bought them. That would mean that the direct-mail world was more environmentally harmful than the world without direct-mail. So since it would be a big objection to say, "most things purchased because of direct-mail wouldn't have been purchased otherwise", it strengthens the argument to say, "most things purchased because of direct-mail would have been purchased either way." To put it another way, the author was Assuming a Similarity between the Direct Mail world and the non-Direct Mail world: in both worlds, people wanted to buy items X, Y, and Z. And then she's stating a difference between the two worlds: in the Direct Mail world, you don't drive to get it. In the other world, you do drive. And that's how she's deriving the idea that direct mail leads to environmental benefit, but if we deny that initial assumption (if we say people would not have gone out to buy this otherwise), then her argument doesn't work any more.

   Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   55%
3. C

   Irrelevant Comparison: mail vs. magazine8% picked this

   A person who receives and reads a direct-mail advertisement is more likely to purchase the product advertised than is a person who reads an

   We were never talking about magazine vs. direct-mail, so it's hard to judge what impact this answer would have. If people were already going to buy a product because of seeing an ad for it in one of their magazines, then getting the direct-mail ad would be a redundant, environmentally wasteful addition. But saying that people are more likely to buy from direct-mail could just as easily weaken this argument slightly by making it seem like direct-mail is creating new purchases that would otherwise not exist. All other things being equal, the less consumer purchases we do, the less environmental harm we do.

   8%
4. D

   Too Weak13% picked this

   Usually, a company that sends out direct-mail advertisements has good reason to think that the person to whom the advertisement is sent would be

   This strengthens a tad, in the sense that one objection to direct-mail might be that it's very wasteful since most of us don't even read the direct-mail ads; we just toss them into the trash or recycling. This answer goes against that objection somewhat by making it seem like the ads are at least somewhat targeted. But that's a very weak addition to the conversation. The fact that the advertiser usually thinks these ads are somewhat targeted doesn't really tell us whether people ever read the ads or just toss them with all their other junk mail.

   13%
5. E

   Unclear Impact20% picked this

   Products purchased as the result of direct-mail advertising comprise an increasingly large portion of the consumer

   Without knowing the issue that's resolved in (B), we don't know how to interpret the impact of this answer. If direct mail is giving us a more efficient way to get products we'd be buying either way, then the fact that it's a large proportion sounds like, "maybe it's saving us a lot of car trips?" But if direct mail is just creating new consumer wishes and leading us to buy stuff we otherwise wouldn't, then the fact that it's a large proportion of purchases sounds like, "Jeez, maybe direct-mail is inspiring us to buy lots of crap we don't need."

   20%