Summary
Delve into the marketing phenomenon of the Stanley cup and its journey to viral stardom. This B2 lesson unpacks how a traditional brand reinvented itself, leveraging social media like TikTok and influencer marketing to capture a new, enthusiastic audience. Students will watch a video analyzing this success, learn key marketing vocabulary (e.g., sought-after, brand affinity), discuss brand strategies, and practice using past modals of speculation. Discover the power of community, clever marketing, and understanding cultural momentum in creating a modern consumer craze.
Activities
Warm-up discussion: Reflect on personal experiences with favorite brands, the concept of viral products, and the influence of social media on purchasing decisions to activate prior knowledge and set the stage for the lesson's core themes of marketing and trends.
Vocabulary introduction: Encounter and deduce the meaning of key marketing and trend-related vocabulary such as sought-after and cultural contagion from contextual sentences before engaging with the main video content.
Video comprehension (Part 1 & 2): Watch an engaging video in two segments, answering specific comprehension questions about the Stanley cup's rise to fame, key marketing figures, brand philosophy, strategic decisions, and challenges faced.
Vocabulary matching: Solidify understanding of core marketing concepts introduced in the video by matching terms like marketing savviness, content creator, and brand affinity to their precise definitions in a structured table.
Functional language practice: Learn and practice useful phrases for describing business strategies, such as 'the strategy was to...' and 'a key part of the playbook is...', by rephrasing and combining sentences related to Stanley's marketing approach.
Grammar practice: Focus on past modals of speculation (e.g., must have done, might have been, could have known) by completing sentences to make logical guesses about the reasons behind the Stanley cup phenomenon.
Consolidation and application: Use newly learned vocabulary in context by completing a gapped paragraph summarizing the Stanley cup's success story, and then apply all learned concepts by analyzing another viral product trend in a short writing task.
Vocabulary focus
Explore key terms essential for discussing marketing and viral trends, including sought-after, leverage cultural momentum, ethos, co-created, expand its appeal, limited-edition, and cultural contagion. Also covers concepts like marketing savviness, content creator, co-author the narrative, and brand affinity, vital for understanding modern brand strategies.
Grammar focus
This lesson focuses on past modals of speculation (e.g., must have, might have, could have, can't have + past participle). Students will learn to use these forms to make logical guesses and deductions about past events, particularly in the context of analyzing business strategies and outcomes.
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