Brand strategy: making comparisons and giving opinions

Summary

This 90-minute ESL lesson for B2 learners explores Brand strategy: making comparisons and giving opinions through a real article. Across 10 interactive exercises, you'll develop reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, practical communication, speaking skills — all built around authentic English content.

What you'll practise:

• 5 key vocabulary items with definitions and usage notes
• Grammar focus: modifying comparatives and superlatives with examples and practice
• Real-world phrases for discussing a new marketing strategy
• Gap-fill and cloze exercises to test vocabulary in context
• Matching exercise to connect terms with their meanings
• Error correction to sharpen grammar awareness

Lesson activities (10 exercises)

Each exercise builds on the previous one. Work through them in order for the best learning experience.

1. Warm-up — Discussion questions to activate what you already know about the topic.
2. Comprehension — Answer questions to check your understanding of the main ideas and supporting details.
3. Vocabulary — Learn key words and expressions from the article, with definitions and usage notes.
4. Matching — Connect words, phrases, or concepts to their correct counterparts.
5. Grammar — Study modifying comparatives and superlatives — explanation, examples, and key rules.
6. Error correction — Find and fix the mistake in each sentence — a great grammar workout.
7. Practical English — Learn phrases for discussing a new marketing strategy — ready to use in real conversations.
8. Cloze passage — Fill in blanks within a connected text to practise vocabulary in context.
9. Discussion — Reflect on the topic and share your opinions using the language you've learned.

Vocabulary

This lesson introduces 5 key terms drawn directly from the article:

• To resonate with (an audience) — to create a feeling of shared experience or understanding with a particular group of people.
• To stand out from the crowd — to be very different from and much better than other people or things.
• Brand loyalty — the tendency of consumers to continue buying the same brand of goods rather than competing brands.
• To tap into a market — to start using or taking advantage of a new group of potential customers or a new business opportunity.
• Word-of-mouth — information about a product that is passed from person to person in conversation, rather than through advertising.

Grammar

This lesson focuses on modifying comparatives and superlatives.

When discussing brand strategy, simple comparisons like 'better' or 'more expensive' are often not enough. We use adverbs and specific phrases to modify comparatives and superlatives. This allows us to express the degree of difference more precisely, making our points stronger and more professional.

Examples from the lesson:

• Our new branding is significantly more appealing to the target audience than the old one. — Use adverbs like 'significantly', 'considerably', 'a lot', or 'far' to show a large difference.
• Their latest product launch was by far the most successful in the company's history. — Use 'by far' or 'easily' before a superlative to add strong emphasis.
• The competitor's social media campaign is not nearly as engaging as ours. — Use 'not nearly as...' or 'nowhere near as...' to express a large negative difference between two things.

Key rules:

• To show a big difference, use: a lot, much, far, significantly, considerably.
• To show a small difference, use: a little, slightly, a bit.
• Avoid using 'very' with comparatives (e.g., say 'much better', not 'very better').

Practical English

Discussing a new marketing strategy

In any team meeting about strategy, you'll need to propose ideas, agree, disagree politely, and suggest next steps. These phrases will help you sound more natural and professional when discussing marketing plans with your colleagues.

Phrases you'll learn:

• "What if we shifted our focus towards [a specific channel/audience]?" — for proposing a new direction.
• "Could you walk me through the thinking behind that?" — for asking for more details politely.
• "I'm on board with that approach." — for showing strong agreement.
• "I see where you're coming from, but my main concern is..." — for disagreeing constructively.
• "Building on that idea, we could also..." — for adding to someone else's suggestion.