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  3. March 17th is St Patrick’s day, a celebration of all things Irish — and of one thing in particular. Around Ireland and all over

March 17th is St Patrick’s day, a celebration of all things Irish — and of one thing in particular. Around Ireland and all over

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问题     March 17th is St Patrick’s day, a celebration of all things Irish — and of one thing in particular. Around Ireland and all over the world people will celebrate with a pint or two (or three, or four) of Guinness, Ireland’s unofficial national intoxicant (酒类饮料). Publicans love St Patrick’s day, so much so that it can sometimes feel like less a celebration of Irish culture than a marketing event for Guinness’s owner, Diageo. Now exported to more than 120 countries, the black stuff has become a powerful symbol of Ireland. But how Irish is it really?
    Arthur Guinness, who founded the brewery in Dublin in 1759, might have been surprised that his drink would one day become such a potent national symbol. He was a committed unionist and opponent of Irish nationalism, who before the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was even accused of spying for the British authorities. His descendants continued passionately to support unionism — one giving the Ulster Volunteer Force ￡10,000 in 1913 (about ￡lm, or $1.7m, in today’s money) to fund a paramilitary campaign to resist Ireland being given legislative independence. The company was alleged to have lent men and equipment to the British army to help crush Irish rebels during the Easter Rising of 1916, afterwards firing members of staff whom it believed to have Irish-nationalist sympathies.
    The beer the company has become most famous for — porter stout — was based on a London ale, a favorite of the street porters of Covent Garden [(科芬园) (伦敦中部一个蔬菜花卉市场)] and Billingsgate markets. Since 1886 the firm has floated on the London Stock Exchange, and the company moved its headquarters to London in 1932, where it has been based ever since (it merged with Grand Metropolitan and renamed itself Diageo in 1997). Even in terms of branding, the company was considering disassociating itself from its Irish reputation as recently as the 1980s.
    Worried about the impact on sales of the IRA’s terrorist campaign during the Troubles, Guinness came close in 1982 to re-launching the brand as an English beer brewed in west London. But as Northern Ireland’s situation improved in the 1990s, the company’s marketing strategy changed again towards marketing the beer as Irish, aiming its product at tourists in Ireland and the estimated 70m people of Irish descent living around the world. Now the Guinness Storehouse, part of the original Dublin factory which was reopened as a tourist attraction in 2000, promotes Guinness to tourists as an Irish beer once again.
    Guinness is not the only company to play up or hide its national origins to try and boost sales. Jacob’s biscuits have been marketed by some shops as being British, in spite of the company’s origins as an Irish company from Waterford. And Lipton now markets its black teas on the strength of the company’s British origins, in over 100 countries — except Britain, where it is not commonly sold. In a world where multinational companies control a large chunk of the global food supply chain, national identity — at least in branding — matters as much as ever.
What do Guinness and Lipton have in common?
选项 A、They both strengthen their British origins to increase sales.
B、They both produce and sell beers and teas in over 100 counties.
C、They both hide their national origins to develop overseas markets.
D、They both take national origins as their marketing strategy.
答案D
解析 末段首句指出，健力士公司不是唯一一个为了增加销量而夸大或隐瞒其原产国的公司，接着第三句举了立顿公司的例子，指出立顿公司在一百多个国家推广立顿红茶，称其产地为英国，而其红茶在英国却没有大量销售。因此健力士公司和立顿公司的共同点就在于，在推广产品时都利用了其产地。D)是对这两句内容的概括，故为答案。健力士的啤酒一直强调其产地是爱尔兰，故A)错误。健力士公司不生产茶叶，立顿公司不生产啤酒，故B错误。立顿公司在拓展海外市场时并没有隐瞒其产地，故C)错误。
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