Q13 - People aged 46 to 55 spend

[john]

13. (D)
Question type: Explain a result

Since people between the ages of 46 and 55 spend the most money per capita, we would expect advertisers to focus on them. Instead, the advertisers focus on a much younger group of consumers. Is there a reason that the economic potential of the middle-aged viewers is ignored? Yes, if advertisers think that advertising would not be an effective way of altering these consumers’ spending habits, as choice (D) suggests.

(A) doesn’t explain why the advertisers don’t target people between 46 and 55.
(B) really makes the advertisers’ behavior mysterious, since the slots that would reach the people who spend the most are cheaper.
(C) is irrelevant; we don’t care about explaining the TV executives’ decisions, we want to explain the advertisers’ decisions.
(E) brings up the irrelevant issue of print advertising.


#officialexplanation

[shirando21]

why can't A be the answer? the companies have to spend their advertising budget most effectively, that is to target young people who are most likely to purchase their products.

[camerojg]

I'm struggling to eliminate A and C with sound reasoning, so I'm posting to see if I'm on the right track.

C states that tv execs decide what shows to renew based on viewership among those 25 and under. But because we don't know whether they desire high or low viewership, we can't say that C resolves the paradox.

Along that same line, we can eliminate A. Sure, companies want to advertise to those most likely to buy their products, but because we don't know whether 46-55 year olds or 25 & unders are more likely to buy, we can't say A resolves it.

Is this the line of thought you all took as well? Thanks in advance for your help!

[austindyoung]

(A) Makes things more confusing, for if true, we would expect them to target the Oldies instead of the Youngins who spend less.

(B) Same as (A). If it costs more for popular shows than news programs, they'd want to cover that costs by targeting a group that spends more money on products in general.

(C) This is tricky because its hard to figure out how this relates to the argument. It has a lot of the same terms. It seems out of scope though, the argument isn't about renewing shows. Eliminate.

(D) They never change their buying habits. Hmm, well if that's true, these companies better catch their interest before another one does, because they'll be buying those brands for the rest of their lives! And they'll eventually be the 46 to 55 year olds that spend the most.

I'll circle this as the correct answer. I'm good on time so I can quickly eliminate (E):

(E) Print media? Well maybe they want to target all age groups, so they are making the advertising distribution equitable. But, it says "primarily," so there's still room to advertise to the younger audience. So I can forget that contention. Also, why not primarily target these older guys, instead of "exclusively" focusing on a group that doesn't spend as much? This doesn't help. Peace!

HTH, this one bugged me when I took it timed, since I thought "The answer will say something like that older group doesn't change their habits because they are old and stubborn, and the younger group is young, dumb and ambivalent so those companies need to constantly vie for their attention." Nope! It did the opposite, kinda, but it worked!

[redcobra21]

Not sure why people are so quick to dismiss (C) as irrelevant.

One way to resolve the paradox would be that while people aged 46-55 spend more money than younger people, the younger people are more likely to watch TV than older people. So it would make sense for companies who advertise on TV to focus on the younger demographic, because it wouldn't matter to appeal to the older people since they are not watching TV in the first place.

We need some kind of information to confirm that this the case, and (C) appears to provide it by showing that TV executives are catering to the younger demographic.

(D) strikes me as a really flawed answer. It says that advertisers think older people "almost" never change buying habits, but why would this mean that they would not cater to older people? After all, BMW could advertise a $50,000 car, and while it's true that a 50-year olds "almost" never change their habits, BMW would still want to advertise to them because there is a chance they might change their habits. It is hard to say why they would "almost exclusively" focus on younger people if the older people are the only ones with the means to buy such high-priced items.

I don't really agree with John's explanation since this stimulus is specifically about TV advertisers, but John only talks about advertisers in general and does not distinguish this specified category.

Any thoughts?

[niksethi12]

@RedCobra21

I just took this test two days ago and got this wrong. But after looking at this I think I may have figured out why.

As another suggested, 'renewing shows' isn't the focus. However, after looking at this, I thought about the scope of the answer in general and felt it was too narrow. For example, how many shows are actually 'renewed?'

While we might bring in outside info and suggest, from our own memory, that majority of shows have been renewed, this is an assumption that would need to be stated for C to be correct. Otherwise, it's possible that shows never get renewed and thus C ends up becoming irrelevant. For that reason, the next best choice becomes B.

[ohthatpatrick]

RedCobra, there were a few things you said that we should go back to.

Your case for (C) involved a potential way to resolve the paradox: what if ppl 46 to 55 just don't watch nearly as much TV as those under 25. If that's true, then it makes good sense why ads would target younger people.

Does (C) tell us or imply that ppl 46 to 55 don't watch nearly as much TV as those under 25?

Not at all.

It just says that shows are normally renewed based on how they play to younger audiences. That says nothing about the frequency with which older/younger people watch TV.

It could still be true that younger people are only 10% of the viewing audience (and 46 to 55 year olds 80% of the audience), but execs nevertheless cater their decisions to the younger crowd. This would not explain WHY ads are targeting younger people. It would just add to the equation that TV execs are ALSO targeting younger people. We still don't know WHY everyone is targeting the younger crowd.

Your hesitation with (D) seemed to be based around the fact that it says "almost never" rather than "never". Be careful: you seem to be thinking that the correct answer needs to PROVE this strategy is legit beyond the shadow of a doubt. It doesn't. The correct answer just has to give us a way to help explain why ads target younger people.

We don't have to prove that the ad execs are correct to target younger people; we just have to explain why they do. If they don't believe that people older than 25 often switch buying habits, then what's the point of advertising to that group?

Moreover, the stim doesn't say that ads NEVER target older people; it says that they focus "almost exclusively" on younger people, so this is actually a strength of language match for "almost never" in (D).

You also made a claim that people in the 46 to 55 range would be the ONLY people who could afford a BMW, for example. But be careful, the first sentence said that the older crowd has MORE money, not that the younger crowd has NO money.

Hopefully this has eased some of your qualms, but let us know if not.

[jeanlouisf]

There are three statements that must always be considered when answering this question.


1. People aged 46 - 55 spend more money per capita than people of any other group
2. Companies advertise almost exclusively on people aged 25 & under
3. The value of a television advertising think that the VALUE of a television advertising slot DEPENDS entirely on the NUMBER of people aged 25 & under who can be EXPECTED to be watching at that time.


If value of a slot depends on the number of people in that group 25&Under expected to be watching, it is because that group never change their buying habits and the companies can expect that group to act a certain way.

Plus the argument said that group 45-55 spend more money per capita than any other group, so we only know that they have stronger buying power than any other group but just because that is true does not mean we can expect that they spend more on those products being advertised. So it may be that the companies are advertising to a viewership they know and expect to spend on the products being advertised.

Also, we have to believe that the argument is logical/reasonable. Why would they advertise to a group other than the one with stronger buying power ? Maybe because they can expect the other group to buy more of their product than the other with the stronger buying power.

So the 25 & Under group has an advantage the other does not.

[andrewgong01]

I am still not fully convinced at how "E" can be eliminated

To me , "E" is solving the paradox by suggesting that older people are not looped out of the advertizing; rather they are being targeted by other means and perhaps companies spend even more on print advertizing since older people have a higher purchasing power. This is by no means perfect but "D", the credited response, is not perfect either in fully explaining the paradox. I chose "D" over "E" when doing it timed because "D" does explain why we would target under 25s (under the assumption that can't change buying habits = advertizing won't be effective). But for "E" I was tempted in choosing it because it sounds like it telling us 'Hey, you are forgetting there are other ways we can reach our consumers such as print media'.

[ohthatpatrick]

To make (E) click, we need extraneous assumptions:

- "perhaps companies spend even more on print advertizing since older people have a higher purchasing power", as you said

or

- people 26 and over consume print media in much greater amounts than TV media

Without those assumptions, we still haven't explained why TV ads don't target the money spenders.

We're thinking,
GIVEN THAT 46-55 yr olds are the big money spenders
WHY IS IT THAT tv ads don't target them?

We would expect TV ads to target them, print ads, radio ads, etc.

We would expect an ad ON ANY MEDIUM to target the big money spenders, unless we hear something like "the big money spenders aren't actually the people watching TV ... they are spending most of their time on print media".

The actual information that is told to us in (E) does not permit us to weave the backstory that would turn (E) into an effective explanation for the unexpected.

(E), as written, just confirms the expected: advertisers target the big money spenders.

[rodion.raskolnikov1866]

(D) strikes me as a really flawed answer. It says that advertisers think older people "almost" never change buying habits, but why would this mean that they would not cater to older people? After all, BMW could advertise a $50,000 car, and while it's true that a 50-year olds "almost" never change their habits, BMW would still want to advertise to them because there is a chance they might change their habits. It is hard to say why they would "almost exclusively" focus on younger people if the older people are the only ones with the means to buy such high-priced items.

I agree. Furthermore, this answer seems to require the test taker to assume too much about the nature of advertising. For example, it assumes that the purpose of advertising is to change the buying habits of people as opposed to simply informing existing or creating new purchasing habits. But that seems like a narrow perspective on how advertising works. Advertising might work in some cases to inform viewers that a product exists that fits within said person's buying habits. If I purchase soda, and I see an ad for a new soda I didn't know existed, by purchasing that new soda, it does not follow that my purchasing habit changed. Perhaps I always choose to buy whichever soda is on sale, and the ad is for a soda on sale.

[AlexandraP965]

Hi!

I am still struggling with understanding why A is not correct. Is this because this answer talks about the "expense of television advertising slots..."? Thanks!