The following appeared in a memo from the marketing director of Top Dog Pet Stores."Five years ago Fish Emporium started advertising in the magazine Exotic Pets Monthly. Their stores saw sales increase by 15 percent after their ads began appearing in the

The author of the statement above recommends that the Top Dog Pet Stores should promote advertising in order to turn the tide of business. This conclusion rests on a premise that same advertising strategy worked in the Fish Emporium stores in Gulf City.

First the author has taken for granted that a 15 percent increase in the Fish Emporium sales is tied to significant increase of its profit. As the author provided no evidence showing the net profit of Fish Emporium, it is possible that even with this increase in sales the stores stand to lose heavily; the advertising costs might exact a high price for the stores that the sales could barely compensate it. Furthermore, the advertisement was in five years ago, inflation might rose the costs to produce and maintain fish much more than 15 percent. Therefore, we need to know the exact amount of profits to recognize this strategy as successful.

Secondly, even if the strategy stands in a good stead for the Fish Emporium, the author further assumes that it is only due to advertisement that such an increase of the sales happened. In all likelihood there are parallel strategies and factors that made the leap for the Fish Emporium gains. The Fish Emporium stores might decrease the selling prices of the fish. It might use offering free services for the buyers which resulted in an increased sales and so on.

Thirdly, even if the sales were good only because debuting the advertisements, the author assumes that same strategy would work for the Top Dog Pet stores. The situation of the compared stores might be incommensurable. The differences can be: the time of the advertising, the nature of the works, and possible unmentioned flaws in the marketing of Top Dog Pet Stores. First, the magazine might not have its readers anymore regarding the past five years, so the ad would not be seen so much and we cannot expect to see the same positive effects. Secondly, the nature of works is different, people might want fish as a pet, but not be as interested in having dogs in their house because they bark and produce sounds, for instance. Also the author assumes that only with advertising the sale would go back on track. It is possible that in managing part it has grave shortcomings defying any attempt, like advertising, to climb out the financial sinkhole of the Top pet stores.

In short, the author reaches the conclusion through making different assumptions. With each assumption being potentially unwarranted, the conclusion which is based on such a weak argument cannot be tenable.