单选题 The rough guide to marketing success used to be that you got what you paid for. No longer. While traditional "paid" media — such as television commercials and print advertisements — still play a major role, companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media. Consumers passionate about a product may create "earned" media by willingly promoting it to friends, and a company may leverage "owned" media by sending email alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its website. In fact, the way consumers now approach the process of making purchase decisions means that marketing's impact stems from a broad range of factors beyond conventional paid media.
Paid and owned media are controlled by marketers promoting their own products. For earned media, such marketers act as the initiator for users' responses. But in some cases, one marketer's owned media become another marketer's paid media — for instance, when an e-commerce retailer sells ad space on its website. We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-commerce engines within that environment. This trend, which we believe is still in its infancy, effectively began with retailers and travel providers such as airlines and hotels and will no doubt go further. Johnson ＆ Johnson, for example, has created BabyCenter, a stand-alone media property that promotes complementary and even competitive products. Besides generating income, the presence of other marketers makes the site seem objective, gives companies opportunities to learn valuable information about the appeal of other companies' marketing, and may help expand user traffic for all companies concerned.
The same dramatic technological changes that have provided marketers with more (and more diverse) communications choices have also increased the risk that passionate consumers will voice their opinions in quicker, more visible and much more damaging ways. Such hijacked media are the opposite of earned media: an asset or campaign becomes hostage to consumers, other stakeholders, or activists who make negative allegations about a brand or product. Members of social networks, for instance, are learning that they can hijack media to apply pressure on the businesses that originally created them.
If that happens, passionate consumers would try to persuade others to boycott products, putting the reputation of the target company at risk. In such a case, the company's response may not be sufficiently quick or thoughtful, and the learning curve has been steep. Toyota Motor, for example, alleviated some of the damage from its recall crisis earlier this year with a relatively quick and well-orchestrated social-media response campaign, which included efforts to engage with consumers directly on sites such as Twitter and the social-news site Digg.

单选题 Consumers may create "earned" media when they are ______.
A. obsessed with online shopping at certain websites
B. inspired by product-promoting emails sent to them
C. eager to help their friends promote quality products
D. enthusiastic about recommending their favorite products

单选题 According to Paragraph 2, sold media feature ______.
A. a safe business environment B. random competition
C. strong user traffic D. flexibility in organization

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】细节题。对应的信息位于第二段第四句：We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that...(我们将这种“销售”媒介定义为拥有巨大流量、以至于其他机构纷纷前来在其环境中投放内容或者电子商务引擎的自有媒介)，这是一个定义句，而提示这种媒介特点的就是句中的定语从句。对照选项，可知只有[C]项“拥有巨大的用户流量”与此处一致，故该项就是正确答案。其余各项在该段中都没有体现。

单选题 The author indicates in Paragraph 3 that earned media ______.
A. invite constant conflicts with passionate consumers
B. can be used to produce negative effects in marketing
C. may be responsible for fiercer competition
D. deserve all the negative comments about them

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】分析推理题。由第三段的第一句(段落主旨句)即可知该段的中心是论述risk(风险)。其中第二句指出：Such hijacked media...who make negative allegations about a brand or product(这就是与“白赚的”媒介相对的“劫持”媒介：某一资产或者活动变成了对某个品牌或产品不满的消费者、其他股东或积极分子的劫持物)。然后第三句又以社交网络为例进行说明。由此可以推知，“白赚的”媒介可以被人利用来对市场营销产生负面影响，从而变成“劫持”媒介，因此本题答案是[B]。

单选题 Toyota Motor's experience is cited as an example of ______.
A. responding effectively to hijacked media B. persuading customers into boycotting products
C. cooperating with supportive consumers D. taking advantage of hijacked media

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】分析推理题。由该例所在段的第一句可以看出，这一段仍然是在说明前一段所称的“劫持”媒介为企业所带来的风险。作者先说明了风险的具体表现：In such a case, the company's response may not be sufficiently quick or thoughtful，...(在这种情况下，企业的反应也许不够快、考虑不够成熟，于是悲剧就酿成了)，然后作者举例说：Toyota Motor...alleviated some of the damage...(丰田汽车公司……挽回了一些损失……)，显然是说明丰田对于“劫持”媒介的反应有效，因此本题答案是[A]。