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                 People Change Their Attitudes towards Ads

    One night, when television began broadcasting a boring TV show, I said to my wife, "The programme is even less interesting than the advertisements, or commercials. Let us have a change.
    My wife, who happened to have a remote control in her hand, consented immediately, switched to another channel and enjoyed an advertisement of riee flour with me. Just at the moment, I found that we were no longer as disgusted with the commercials as we had been before.

    The next day when I told my experience to my colleagues, they, to my surprise, all had the same feeling. A few even sang several of the commercials songs.
A few years ago, when advertisements began to appear in the Chinese media, most people, including myself, were against the practice. Some sighed: "The socialist TV, newspapers have started imitating the Western bourgeois media too!"
    What has changed the audience's mentality in only several years' time?

    First, Chinese advertisements have improved their advertising techniques. At the beginning, the language of advertisements was simple, the music insipid and the images coarse and crude. Later, some better foreign advertisements came to Chinese TV and newspapers.
    "Where there is a mountain, there is a road; where there is a road, there is a Toyota." The words of the Japanese advertisement publicizing the Toyota car are very absurd but impressive and easy to memorize. " Nestle coffee is tasty indeed." The American advertisement promoting the sale of the Nestle brand coffee has become a new household phrase in China.

    Gradually, Chinese advertisements also have learned how to dress themselves up. They have strange and humorous associations, charming, deep male voices, colourful images and songs that are pleasing to the ear and easy to learn.s For these reasons, the commercials for Santana cars, Fud colour film and Orient beverages have successfully attracted a TV audience.

    Second, life needs advertisements. Everything in modern society is linked to information, while the main function of advertisements is to disseminate information on commodities, service, culture, employment, student enrollment and even marriage.
    Of course, one can obtain such information by listening to hearsay and making on- the-spot investigation, but the information provided by advertisements in doubtless the most direct, comprehensive and detailed.