The following appeared in an e-mail sent by the marketing director of the Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville."Over the past ten years, there has been a 20 percent decline in the size of the average audience at Classical Shakespeare Theatre product

The argument concludes that by starting 'Shakespeare in the Park' program of their own, the Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville will see a significant increase in profits. The conclusion is based on the premise that two years ago the nearby Avon Repertory Company started a 'Free Plays in the Park' program, and its profits have increased 10 percent since then. The reasoning in the argument is logically flawed, however, as it relies on a number of assumptions which appear to be unsupported due to lack of appropriate evidence.

First, the author ignores the point that there marketing and advertising could be inadequate and ineffective. It might be the case that advertising did not reach out to everyone in the town. It could have been that portion of increased budget in marketing was used wrongly by some people in marketing team. In addition, it is possible that the advertising team of the theatre did not find a suitable customer base, which would have been really interested in their programs, rather it did haphazard adevertising in the entire region, thereby making it ineffective. Another possibility could be that modes of communication and advertising were not sufficient and compatible with the target audience, which could have minimised the impact of marketing. Consequently, there is no clear indicator to establish the effectiveness of the increased advertising that author talks about. The argument would be strengthened if the author can show the effectiveness of their advertising groups by citing past sucessfull results, showing some statistics to show that advertising was done to a potential customer base which eventually responded positively. Also, the argument needs to show through reliable survey that message regarding their theatre and its plays reached most of the people in town. Without this support, argument stands weak.

Second, the author assumes that two theatres are identical and if a change is sucessfull in one theatre, it would also be the same in other. This statement is a bit stretched and unsupported. It might be the case that Avon Repertory Company has a better quality of plays, have more competent and popular actors. The author needs to show that Classical Shakespeare Theatre was also identical to its competitor in terms quality of content and effectivenss of characters. In addition, the argument also ignores the fact that Avon company could have reported increased profits due to low ticket prices; in which case evidence on current pricing in Shakespeare Theatre is needed.

Finally, the argument does not take into consideration the possibility that Avon company might have been suffering huge losses before two losses and their recovery could be the result of any other reason like increased quality, better management and marketing etc. Information on past performance and profits of Avon company is required to support the argument.

In conclusion, the argument stands weak and unsupported due to lack of sufficient and suitable evidence. If the author would have demonstrated apposite information and data to support his claims, the argument would have been greatly strengthened. Without this additional support, however, it is not possible to accept the conclusion in the argument.