Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 872.
A publicity stunt.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 872.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpod.com.
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This episode is a dialogue between Hank and Sveltana about a publicity stunt, about an attempt by a business to get people to pay attention to it.
Let's get started.
What's that for?
This costume?
I'm planning a publicity stunt to get our store more business.
You think that dressing up as a giant banana will get our store more business?
We need to get media coverage for the grand opening of our store and attract as much attention as possible.
I'll be on hand to give sound bites and organize photo ops.
How does a giant banana tie into our store?
It doesn't directly, but trust me, it'll get noticed.
I was thinking of a traditional marketing campaign, more along the lines of holding a contest or a giveaway.
And I don't see how a giant banana is going to get media attention.
The person in the giant banana costume will skydive into the parking lot of the store.
What idiot have you convinced to do that?
Well, that's actually why I'm here.
Hank begins by asking Sveltona, What's that for?
Meaning, why do you have that?
Sveltona says, This costume?
A costume, C-O-S-T-U-M-E, refers to clothing that you wear so that you look like a different person.
People wear costumes, for example, on Halloween.
They dress up or they put on clothing to make them look like someone else.
Little children may put on costumes to make them look like Superman or someone from Star Wars.
I don't know.
I don't know what kids wear nowadays for costumes at Halloween.
Sveltona says that she's planning a publicity stunt to get our stores more business.
Publicity P-U-B-L-I-C-I-T-Y is attention that you get, especially from newspapers magazines, radio stations, television stations and so forth.
Publicity refers to attention you get from what we would call the media.
M-E-D-I-A, which refers to all the different ways people get their information.
Nowadays, that would include the internet.
A stunt.
S-T-U-N-T is some action or some event that people do just to get attention.
A publicity stunt is something a business or a person would do so that everybody else pays attention to them.
Usually it involves fooling or tricking people into believing something that isn't true.
That doesn't always happen, but that's one kind of publicity stunt.
Sveltona says she's doing a publicity stunt to get our store more business.
Business here means more money, more people buying from us.
Hank says, you think that dressing up as a giant banana will get our store more business?
To dress up as means to wear a costume, to put on special clothing.
The verb to dress up usually means to put on nice clothes, like you're going to a nice dinner or a wedding, for example.
Dressing up as means you're putting on clothes like a costume to pretend like you are a different person.
Sveltonis says we need to get media coverage for the grand opening of our store and attract as much attention as possible.
Media, we've already talked about, refers to television, newspapers, and so forth.
Coverage C-O-V-E-R-A-G-E means when these media sources the newspapers and magazines write stories or have stories about you on their programs.
If someone says there wasn't a lot of coverage about the election this week, They mean there weren't very many stories in the newspapers or in the magazines or on television about that topic.
Coverage refers to the amount that the news media is paying attention and talking about something.
A grand opening is a big celebration, a big event event.
When a business opens up a new store or simply opens up their first store, grand openings often have some sort of celebration attached to them or connected to them.
Sometimes you'll have the mayor or the governor come to celebrate, Celebrate this opening of a new business or of a new location for your business.
Usually the governor doesn't come to those sorts of things, but it's possible.
Sveltona wants to get media coverage for the grand opening of their store and attract as much attention as possible.
To attract means to pull something toward yourself or, more generally, to cause someone to become interested in you.
That's why we have the adjective attractive.
A woman who is attractive attracts men.
Men become interested in her and walk toward her, and she of course turns around and walks in the other direction.
Or guess that just happens to me.
Attention, A-T-T-E-N-T-I-O-N, is a measure of how much people are noticing someone or something.
How much people are focused on a certain thing or a certain person.
To attract attention then, is to get people to pay attention, to look at you, to notice what you are doing.
Feltana says that she'll be on hand to give sound bites and organize photo ops.
The expression to be on hand means to be present, to be there, to be available and ready in case someone wants, in this case, to talk to you.
It's an expression we would use mostly in business talking about someone who is going to be at a certain event.
A sound bite.
B-I-T-E is a short phrase, sentence or paragraph with some interesting information that is used typically in a news story.
You might have a politician who wants to get attention and he knows that typically on television you only have maybe 10 or 15 seconds.
He will come up with some phrase, some expression that people will remember, that will summarize all of his ideas and arguments.
That's what a soundbite is.
It's a short phrase. quote really from someone about some situation in the news.
A photo op, O-P, is short for a photo opportunity.
It's a situation or an event that photographers like to come to or people from television stations come to to take pictures of something.
Here in Hollywood in Los Angeles, every week there's typically a new movie that is opening and they have a celebration where they invite photographers, television stations to come and take pictures of the stars of the movie.
This is a photo op, an opportunity for someone to have their photograph taken.
Hank says, how does a giant banana tie into our store?
Remember, Sveltona is going to dress up as a giant banana.
Hank wants to know how this ties into their store.
To tie, T-I-E, into something means to relate to, to be connected to something.
Sveltona says, it doesn't.
It does not tie into our store directly.
But trust me, it'll get noticed.
People will notice us.
Hank says, I was thinking of a traditional marketing campaign.
More along the lines of holding a contest or a giveaway.
And I don't see how a giant banana is going to get media attention.
A marketing campaign is an effort to get people familiar with your product or your service.
It's a term we use in business to talk about making people aware that you exist.
Along the lines of is an expression meaning related to or similar to.
Hank was thinking of a traditional marketing campaign, more along the lines of holding a contest or a giveaway.
He wants a marketing campaign that's similar to something such as holding or having a contest or a giveaway.
A contest is typically a competition, where people try to win something based either on luck or on something that they do.
A giveaway...
G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y.
One word is a noun referring to something that people are given for free, often by an organization that is trying to market their product or service, to promote, to get people to pay attention to their product or service.
Hank says, I don't see how a giant banana is going to get media attention.
Media attention is the same as publicity.
Sveltona says the person in the giant banana costume will skydive into the parking lot of the store.
To skydive S-K-Y-D-I-V-E means to jump out of an airplane and then, with what we would call a parachute, to come down to the ground and land on the ground without dying.
That's the idea.
The giant banana then is going to jump out of an airplane.
It's going to skydive into the parking lot of the store.
That's how Sveltana will get people to pay attention to the giant banana.
Hank says, what idiot have you convinced to do that?
He thinks this is a stupid idea and only a stupid person would agree to do it.
Sveltona says, well, that's actually why I'm here.
What she's saying is that she wants Hank to be the person who dresses up in the giant banana and dives out of the plane.
Skydives out of the plane.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What's that for?
This costume?
I'm planning a publicity stunt to get our store more business.
You think that dressing up as a giant banana will get our store more business?
We need to get media coverage for the grand opening of our store and attract as much attention as possible.
I'll be on hand to give sound bites and organize photo ops.
How does a giant banana tie into our store?
It doesn't directly, but trust me, it'll get noticed.
I was thinking of a traditional marketing campaign, more along the lines of holding a contest or a giveaway.
And I don't see how a giant banana is going to get media attention.
The person in the giant banana costume will skydive into the parking lot of the store.
What idiot have you convinced to do that?
Well, that's actually why I'm here.
She doesn't get the attention that she deserves.
I speak of our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
