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Phrasal verbs in action: advertising

Check out these easy-to-use phrasal verbs related to ADVERTISING and try using them next time you have a conversation about your favourite TV advert or a recent ad that influenced your decision to buy something.


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EXPLANATION: When you’re flicking through a newspaper or magazine or browsing the internet you often COME ACROSS things that interest you, which means that you find out about them even though you weren’t particularly looking for them. In other words, you find them by chance.

EXAMPLE: I CAME ACROSS an advert for this new pizza restaurant when I was reading our local magazine.

QUESTION: Have you COME ACROSS any interesting adverts recently?


EXPLANATION: If something ‘stands out’ it means that it can easily be noticed or recognised because it includes something different. With adverts, the ones that STAND OUT from the rest are usually those which have an attractive image, a funny slogan or a powerful message; something which is impressive and easy to remember.

EXAMPLE: The thing that makes SpecSavers TV ads stand out from other optician ads is their humour and originality.

QUESTION: Can you think of the last online advert that you saw that STOOD OUT and why?


EXPLANATION: Giving people flyers or leaflets by hand is still a common way to advertise an event, a service or product. You might also see someone HANDING OUT free samples of a product to potential customers or even some salespeople HANDING OUT their business cards.

EXAMPLE: I love it when people HAND OUT free samples of new products in the supermarket. I don’t always like them but I always like to try them.

QUESTION: Do you take flyers that people HAND OUT in the street or do you find it annoying?



EXPLANATION: We often get flyers, leaflets or brochures DROPPED IN to our postboxes or dropped through our letterboxes, which we may or may not be interested in. This is a very typical way for companies to publicise their products or services to potential customers locally.

EXAMPLE: I don’t really mind all the publicity that gets DROPPED IN to my postbox because occasionally there might be something that is useful to me.

QUESTION: What do you do with publicity DROPPED IN your letterbox?


EXPLANATION: Have you heard of Ad Blockers? They stop you seeing lots of adverts on your computer. They BLOCK them OUT because they can be annoying. It is a good idea to have an ad blocker on a family computer so children don’t see bad or strange adverts.

EXAMPLE: I hate ads popping up all the time when I’m trying to read something online, so I always click to BLOCK them OUT straight away.

QUESTION: Do you use an ad blocker to BLOCK OUT annoying adverts?

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