If There Were No Advertisements

　　Nowadays, advertisements can be found everywhere in big cities. They shout at us from the television screen and radio loudspeakers, wave to us from every page of the newspaper, signal to us from the roadside billboards all day and flash messages to us in colored lights all night.

　　Faced with a flood of advertisement, some people wonder whether it is necessary to have such huge sums spent on advertising. They often cite in illustration of it the attractive, but false and deceptive advertisements to which many consumers fall victim. Why don't we stop advertising and use the money to reduce the price of goods? It sounds like a good idea, but they fail to notice the contribution advertising makes to our society. Because the production of a better product to compete for customers' money is the goal of advertisers, customers are thus given a chance to compare their products and get the best and cheapest one. Besides, as the advertisement can provide people with a lot of immediate and detailed information as to the availability of a certain product, or a service or a job, it makes life much more convenient. And another thing we mustn't forget: the fact that we pay so little for our daily newspapers and TV programs is due entirely to the money spent by advertisers.

　　Advertising performs such a useful service to our society that we can't imagine what would happen if there were no advertisements. (198 words)