Advertising by mail has become much less effective, with fewer consume

Question

Advertising by mail has become much less effective, with fewer consumers responding. Because consumers are increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of junk mail they receive, most discard almost all offers without considering them. Thus, an effective way for corporations to improve response rates would be to more carefully target the individuals to whom they mail advertising, thereby cutting down on the amount of junk mail each consumer receives.

Which of the following, if true, would most support this recommendation?

(A) There are cost effective means by which corporations that currently advertise by mail could improve response rates.

(B) Many successful corporations are already carefully targeting the individuals to whom they mail advertising.

(C) Any consumer who, immediately after receiving an advertisement by mail, merely glances at it is very likely to discard it.

(D) Improvements in the quality of the advertising materials used in mail that is carefully targeted to individuals can improve the response rate for such mail.

(E) Response rates to carefully targeted advertisements by mail are considerably higher, on average, than response rates to most other forms of advertising.

ID - CR08443

Junk Mail

Step 1: Identify the Question

The words if true and support in the question stem indicate that this is a  Strengthen the Argument  question.

Step 2: Deconstruct the Argument

Mail ad à Less eff (++ junk)

Ó Target mail ads à improve resp rate

Step 3: Pause and State the Goal

On Strengthen questions, the correct answer should make the conclusion more likely to be valid. What would make it more likely that the plan to more carefully target mailed advertisements will have its intended effect of increasing response rate?

Step 4: Work from Wrong to Right

(A) The argument focuses on the effects of a particular plan: more targeted advertising to improve response rates. Whether there alternative methods to improve response rates is not relevant.

(B) If anything, this choice weakens the argument. If some companies (successful ones!) are already targeting ads but overall response rates are still declining (as the argument states), then perhaps the plan is not a good one after all.

(C) The argument already states that consumers frequently discard advertisements. This answer does not provide any additional information.

(D) This answer provides an additional means that companies could use to improve response rates: improving the quality of materials. However, this answer does not address whether the plan in the argument (more targeted advertising) will be effective on its own.

(E) CORRECT . This answer provides evidence that the plan will have its intended effect: targeted advertising does generate higher response rates.

Evaluation of a Plan

Situation 
Advertising by mail has become less effective because consumers overwhelmed with the amount of junk mail they receive discard almost all of it without considering it.

Reasoning 
 What would most help to support the claim that making mail advertising more carefully targeted would improve response rates?  The passage recommends targeted advertising, reasoning that since targeted advertising would reduce the total amount of junk mail consumers receive, it would generate higher response rates. Any additional evidence for the claim that carefully targeted advertising would improve response rates would support this recommendation.

(A) Even if targeted advertising and every other means of improving response rates were too expensive to be cost-effective,   targeted advertising could still be effective for any corporation willing to pay the expense  .

(B) If many corporations already mail targeted advertising, and mail advertising is nonetheless yielding declining response rates, that suggests that targeted mail is an   ineffective way   to increase response rates.

(C) This could be equally true for   targeted and untargeted   mail advertising, so it   does not suggest that the former is more effective  .

(D) The question under consideration is whether more carefully targeted mail advertising would in itself increase response rates, not whether higher quality advertising would do so.

(E) Correct . This provides some evidence that carefully targeted mail advertising is associated with higher response rates than untargeted mail advertising is, and therefore that targeting mail advertising more carefully would improve response rates.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Accepted Answer

Advertising by mail has become much less effective, with fewer consumers responding. Because consumers are increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of junk mail they receive, most discard almost all otters without considering them. Thus. an effective way tor corporations to improve response rates would be to more carefully target the individuals to whom they mail advertising, thereby cutting down on the amount oi junk mall each consumer receives.

Which of the following, if true, would most support this recommendation?

(A) There are cost effective means by which corporations that currently advertise by mail could improve response rates.

(B) Many successful corporations are already carefully targeting the individuals to whom they mail advertising.

(C) Any consumer who, immediately alter receiving an advertisement by mail, merely glances at it is very likely to discard it.

(D) Improvements in the quality of the advertising materials used in mail that is carefully targeted to individuals can improve the response rate for such mail.

(E) Response rates to carefully targeted advertisements by mail are considerably higher, on average, than response rates to most other forms of advertising.

Type  : Strengthen
  Boil It Down  : Better targeting, cutting down -> More effective
  Missing Information  : No other factors, and the likelihood of success
  Goal  :  Find the option that helps ensure the success of the recommendation/eliminate interfering factors 
  Analysis  : This argument puts a rather naive recommendation forward. It assumes that cooperation among senders is possible, and that this junk mail avoiding behavior would change. This argument needs a lot of work, and thankfully one of these options will help us out.

A)  Out of focus. Other ways of improving effectiveness are outside of the scope of THIS recommendation.

B)  A 180. This option presents a factor that if true would dramatically reduce the capacity for success with this recommendation.

C)  Another 180. This option paints a very bleak picture for junk mail in general, even if we were to execute the recommendation.
 
 D)  The runner up. Even though this option adds an element that may boost the likelihood of success for the recommendation, improving the quality of the mail is Out of Focus.

E)     This option directly supports the likelihood of the recommendation working. It flat out says that response rates to well targeted mail are better, and on top of that, even better than most forms of advertising in general (including traditional junk mail since the prompt says people discard almost all offers without considering them).

NickHalden · Answer

nailgmat2015

P1: Few consumers respond to mail advt -> They are less effective
P2: Consumers receive too many junk mails -> most discard them
Conc: You should select target customer appropriately to reduce junk & thereby increase responses (Effective advtg)!

Now we need to find the strengthening statement...

(A) There are cost effective means by which corporations that currently advertise by mail could improve response rates. [Out of scope]

(B) Many successful corporations are already carefully targeting the individuals to whom they mail advertising. [Option talks only about successful corporations. Whereas our scope as per the question is not just limited to successful corporations]

(C) Any consumer who, immediately after receiving an advertisement by mail, merely glances at it is very likely to discard it. [Not relevant.]

(D) Improvements in the quality of the advertising materials used in mail that is carefully targeted to individuals can improve the response rate for such mail. [Not relevant]

(E) Response rates to carefully targeted advertisements by mail are considerably higher, on average, than response rates to most other forms of advertising. [This option increases our belief in the conclusion]
Hence E !!

Do not stop yourself from giving kudos if you find this post useful!

GMATNinja · Answer

The success of those companies MIGHT be due to their advertising strategies, but we don't know that for sure. Maybe those companies are successful for a variety of other reasons  despite  having low response rates.

The recommendation is not to improve the  quality  of the advertising materials. Rather, the recommendation is to more carefully target the individuals to whom companies mail advertising. So if quality remains the same and we start sending carefully targeted ads, will our response rates increase? (D) doesn't help answer that question.

(E) is not quite a required assumption. Notice that (E) compares targeted ads by mail to MOST other forms of advertising. The passage is only concerned with improving the response rate to ads by mail. Maybe compared to other types of advertising, ads by mail are relatively ineffective. Still, if we could improve these low response rates by using  targeted  ads by mail, then we would want to follow the recommendation.

The improved response rates only have to be higher than those of NON-targeted ads by mail. The improved response rates do not necessarily have to be higher than those of MOST other forms of advertising.

So choice (E) is not a REQUIRED assumption, but it certainly supports the recommendation. The author recommends targeted ads by mail to improve response rates. Choice (E) tells us that response rates to targeted ads by mail are considerably higher than response rates to most other forms of advertising. This supports a switch to targeted ads by mail, so (E) is the best answer.

You are right in that choice (E) does not PROVE that the recommendation will improve response rates. As you pointed out, we can think of scenarios in which choice (E) does not necessarily mean that the recommendation will improve response rates.

But we are looking for an answer choice that MOST supports the recommendation, not one that PROVES that the recommendation will improve response rates.

Also, we are told that "Advertising by mail has become much less effective" and that most consumers "discard almost all {mail} offers without considering them". Given that information, it doesn't seem likely that NTM is MORE effective than MOST other forms of advertising, as it is in your example.

By POE, (E) is the best answer.

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Advertising by mail has become much less effective, with fewer consumers responding. Because consumers are increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of junk mail they receive, most discard almost all offers without considering them. Thus, an effective way for corporations to improve response rates would be to more carefully target the individuals to whom they mail advertising, thereby cutting down on the amount of junk mail each consumer receives.

Which of the following, if true, would most support this recommendation?

Question Type:  Strengthen the Argument

Conclusion:  An effective way for corporations to improve response rates would be to more carefully target the individuals to whom they mail advertising.

Task at hand:  Find an option that shows that carefully targeting the individuals to whom mail is advertised is the most effective way for corporations to improve response rates.

A. There are cost effective means by which corporations that currently advertise by mail could improve response rates.  Other ways of improving effectiveness are not the focus of the argument. Also, since this option shows that there are other ways to improve response rates other than carefully targeting the individuals, this option weakens the argument to a certain extent.

B. Many successful corporations are already carefully targeting the individuals to whom they mail advertising.  First, just because these corporations are successful, it doesn’t mean that they have been successful in improving the response rates; these corporations could just be successful in general. Also, even if these corporations have successfully improved the response rates, this could be one exception. It doesn’t necessarily show that carefully targeting the individuals to whom mail is advertised is the most effective way for corporations to improve response rates.

C. Any consumer who, immediately after receiving an advertisement by mail, merely glances at it is very likely to discard it.  This seems to show that even the plan to carefully target the individuals will not help.

D. Improvements in the quality of the advertising materials used in mail that is carefully targeted to individuals can improve the response rate for such mail.  This option adds an element that may boost the likelihood of success for the recommendation, but improving the quality is out of focus.

E. Response rates to carefully targeted advertisements by mail are considerably higher, on average, than response rates to most other forms of advertising.   This option says that when the consumers are carefully targeted, the response rates are higher. This shows that carefully targeting the individuals to whom mail is advertised is the most effective way for corporations to improve response rates.

- Nitha Jay

egmat · Answer

Passage analysis

Advertising by mail has become much less effective, with fewer consumers responding.
 
Sending advertisements through mailers has lost much of its effectiveness.
This is evident because the number of consumers responding to these mails has decreased.

Because consumers are increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of junk mail they receive, most discard almost all offers without considering them.
 
Consumers find it more and more difficult to handle the huge amount of junk mail they receive.
As a result, majority (>50% to all) consumers reject all offers without even looking at it.

Thus, an effective way for corporations to improve response rates would be to more carefully target the individuals to whom they mail advertising,
 
Hence, if corporations want to improve the response rates, an effective way of doing that would be to choose their targets carefully
This means they should carefully select individuals whom they want to address by mailing advertisements.

thereby cutting down on the amount of junk mail each consumer receives
 
this would reduce the amount of junk mail each consumer is burdened with.

Conclusion
 
Corporations can improve response rates by carefully targeting the recipients of the advertising mail.

Pre-thinking

Strengthen Framework

Now per our understanding of the passage, let’s first write down the strengthen framework:

What new information will help us believe more in the conclusion
Corporations can improve response rates by carefully targeting the recipients of the advertising mail.

Given that

Advertising by mail has become less effective
Since fewer customers are responding to it
Almost all advertising offers are ignored/discarded without a look.
Because the customers receive much more junk mails than they can handle.

Thought process

The author clearly blames the overload of junk mails for the loss in effectiveness of the advertising mails.

The Goal- Improve response rates to advertising mail

The Plan – Carefully choose the individuals to whom they want to send the offer through mail

The author believes in this plan being a more effective way of improving response rates.

That also means that such targeting is expected to significantly bring down the volume of junk mails, thereby considerably improving the chances that a recipient will look at the advertising mail and respond to it.

Strengthener

The author’s idea is that such kind of careful targeting allows getting responses from a significant proportion of those to whom mails are sent. Any statement indicating/giving evidence to show the same will strengthen the conclusion.

Option E is the only option that is in line with this pre-thinking. Therefore, is the correct choice.

Shalabh09 · Answer

Option B says that successful corporations are following this practice. This doesn't necessarily mean that they became successful by adopting this process.
Had it been : 
 Many corporations are already  successfully  targeting the individuals to whom they mail advertising. 
then it could be a contender. Moreover, in the current scenario, E is the only option that comes any closer to being a strengthener.

Is this really a 700-level question?

WillGetIt · Answer

Hello Nick, Just see the question stats to know the difficulty level. :-D

But more than that, I think under timed condition a 600 level question can turn out to be difficult if we are not clear about the argument structure. Here goes brief analysis of the question: Premise 01: Mail advertisements are effective ONLY IN FEW selected consumers (Basically this is interference drawn from the first statement because it is very much relevant to argument) The second sentence in the argument "Because consumers......them" just supports the first premise. Basically it states that "Adv. Volume high so consumers discard". So, just mark it as evidence for premise and move. Conclusion: To improve response rates organizations should more carefully target the individuals to whom they mail advertising (i.e. the ONLY FEW as mentioned in premise 01) What could possibly strengthen this argument: - Mail advertisements are mainly regarded by customers as means to promote costly products at inflated prices - There is some technique to identify customers who actually like mail advertisement and respond to it - It is possible to improve response rates to advertisements even if a small subset of consumers could be targeted - Response rates to targeted consumers are higher than consumers in general (Again, it is not required to list possibilities of strengthening the argument, I just listed few for better understanding of argument) Now if you see (E) states that response rates to advertisements are higher for targeted consumers than consumers in general. Choice (B) is incorrect here because it is talking about "PAST SUCCESS" of similar approach. But that does not strengthen our conclusion that: For response rate improvement-------Select consumers appropriately Hope it helps. Please hit kudos to appreciate.

AryamaDuttaSaikia · Answer

The question out here is how to improve response rates to mails. The recommendation is to identify the target crowd and cut down on the junk mails they receive. Any answer choice which suggests this recommendation would work is the answer. "E" states that "response rates to carefully targeted advertisements is considerably higher" suggesting that the recommendation would work. "C" states what would happen if the mails are not carefully targeted; the reaction of the consumer but it gives no additional support to the recommendation.

WillGetIt · Answer

Hello,

I see a lot of discussion ongoing on this topic.

A detailed analysis of question with emphasis of choice C and E is attached.

Hope it helps!

kapru · Answer

I have a doubt in option E , how come we are bothered about other forms of advertising ? . so i selected Option D

Harley1980 · Answer

Hello,  kapru

In argument we have such structure:

Premise:  Mail advertising not effective because fewer customers responding. -> 
something is missing here -> 
 Conclusion:  Thus corporations need to target the individuals to improve response rates.

How we make this conclusion? We need something that will prove that targeting will improve response rates.
Answer E clearly states this fact: 
"Response rates to carefully targeted advertisements by mail are considerably higher"

D is fuzzy because it says about two factors that influence response rate: 
1) quality of material
2) targeting of material
so we don't understand why people answer to these mail: because of quality or because of targeting

manlog · Answer

The only concern I have regarding the option E is this part: "higher, on average, than response rates to most other forms of advertising." Say that this response rate (with targeting) is 80%, while other forms have 25%. Then it's clear that it's higher. However, this doesn't give us any information whether it's higher or lower than the response rate without the targeting; for instance the latter could be 85%. The argument could have been much clearer, if it explicitly stated in the premise that right now (=without targeting), the response rate is lower than that of other forms of advertising.

Harley1980 · Answer

Hello,  manlog .

We have " targeted mailing " on one scale and " most other forms of advertising " on another scale.
So on which scale you put " untargeted mailing " in this case? On first or on second?

I can not find the article about this topic but " most other " in this case is equal to " all other "

Also, this is a strengthen question so we do not need to create a 100% confirmation of the conclusion. We just need to find some fact that makes a conclusion more possible.

adkikani · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja   generis   GMATNinjaTwo

We need to select an answer choice that increases our plan that improvement of response rates will be more effective if we implement targeted advertising .
My query is regarding B, D and E.

Is B out because of phrase - many successful companies. But then why we can not equate better response rates to mail advertising to successful companies?

Is D out because of phrase - CAN IMPROVE- However in main Q stem, it is clearly mentioned treat this option as true, so clearly improving quality of material sent to targeted individuals results in increase in response rates from customers.

Is not E a sort of assumption for this argument?

TaN1213 · Answer

In my opinion E is flawed because it involves comparison with  other forms  of advertising such as advertising in websites, newspapers, banners etc with advertisements in mail.
Not only the comparison seems irrelevant, it also is flawed because of the following case:
assume response rates from newspapers(other means) be zero and that from targeted mail (TM) is 5. Interesting part is that nowhere from E can we deduce that response rate from non-targeted mail(NTM) was less than 5, and hence conclude that TM is more effective than NTM.

Hello  chetan2u ,
Would you please let me know whether I am wrong in my point stated above?
Thank you.

-Tania

gmatman1031 · Answer

I had the same concerns about this too. However, the recommendation says, "an effective way for corporations to improve  response rates ...", which means this recommendation is concerned with improving  response rates in general . If the recommendation had instead said, "an effective way for corporations to improve  mail response rates ...", then (E) would be irrelevant.

shruthiarvindh · Answer

I too have the same doubt. Can someone clarify on this? Conclusion is about: Increasing response rate by reducing spam
B - provides more assurance that spam will indeed be reduced if most corporations follow it.
Assume, only if one corporation is following and all others are not, junk will still be more - and eventually responses may get affected.

E - first part of it was fine, but the second part on "all other forms of advertising" seems out of scope to me. We are concerned only about increasing response rate for advertising by mail.

GMATNinjaTwo  Would appreciate your response.

GMATNinja · Answer

Let's take another look at the conclusion that we must support:
 
So, we need to support the recommendation to "more carefully target consumers," because this will "improve response rates" to advertisements.

Take another look at (B):
 
(B) tells us information about "successful corporations." But what does that actually mean? We specifically need to know if they are successful in  improving response rates  by carefully targeting the people to whom they mail advertising. Maybe this is the case, or maybe they are successful for totally unrelated reasons. From the information available, we cannot say that (B) supports the recommendation.

To your point about competitors filling up customers' mailboxes: (B) says that "many" successful corporations are carefully targeting individuals. The problem is that "many" could mean almost anything -- it could mean a majority, or just a small fraction of all the corporations sending out junk mail. So, we cannot infer that the information in (B) has any effect on the overall volume of mail that a consumer receives. For these reasons, (B) is out.

Now look again at (E):
 
This clearly shows that carefully targeted advertisements lead to improved response rates -- which is exactly what we need. (E) provides direct evidence that the recommendation will achieve its intended goal, so (E) is our answer.

I hope that helps!

sajalgargciv2805 · Answer

So what? Even if there are cost-effective means, it dosent help the method stated in the stimulus. Out of scope

They might be. So what? It doesn't tell how this is effective

This might be true but dosent strengthen the given argument. This choice dosent say anything about response rate.

It tells us about the quality of mail but the argument does not say anything about the quality. Again, out of scope.

Yeah, this one talks about how the targeted advertisements result in a higher response rate. We have got our winner guys!!

A kudos might be nice if this helped you. Thanks

Advertising by mail has become much less effective, with fewer consume

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GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

Advertising by mail has become much less effective, with fewer consume

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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