Advertising promotion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Advertising promotion - Essay Example The business plan for the service is that the target market will hire Darla to perform weekly errands like picking up dry cleaning and grocery shopping, or do one-off errands, such as getting shoes or watches repaired or dropping off library books. The idea is that if Darla performs these tasks, these people will be able to relax and spend more time with friends and family, and enjoy other leisure activities. Issue with the Idea The main issue encountered for implementing this idea was to generate awareness about the service to the target people so that the idea could be implemented properly. Besides this, reaching out to the target customers efficiently was also major issue faced by Darla and her errand service. Solution To tackle this problem proper communication with the target market was essential and to actualise the same Darla had to spend a significant amount of money on advertising. In addition she had to take a call whether she would go for in-house advertising or hire an ag ency to do the job. The target market for â€Å"I’ll Run for You† comprised of a pretty large population in the area and mainly included the people who either led retired or busy lives. The elderly people who were too old for errands, and the professionals who had to travel because of work, had no time to do the errands. Before deciding on the type of advertising that Darla should have considered, it is important to analyse the pro and cons of both an in-house and an advertising agency services. In an in-house agency, the cost is relatively low and with improved technology actions ranging from direct mails to development of website, can be successfully executed by a marketer. Consistency and transparency can also be easily maintained by an in-house agency (Powers, 2012). The biggest benefit of an in-house agency is that it has total control over the provider’s time, quality and activity. Most of the organisations try to maintain the core operation in-house, whic h would differentiate the business (Traxler, 2012). However the in-house agency has a relatively low buying power of media, there are hardly any fresh views, lacks specialised knowledge, and also the stress related to work is more (Smith & Taylor, 2004, p.168). In other words, in-house agencies are less experienced, less flexible and less objective (Belch, Belch & Purani, 2010, p. 102). In case of advertising agency the biggest benefit is the expertise knowledge that the agency brings on board. The agencies work in groups, and so they are likely to pick the most innovative idea and act as per the requirements of the clients. Moreover, as the crucial part of advertising is handled by the agency, a lot of significant time gets saved for the organisation to involve in other related activities (Sharma, 2011). However advertising agency is a costly affair as they usually charge a high price for the variety of services and sometimes the clients end up paying for pretty trivial reasons. Th e money involved is relatively higher as compared to an in-house agency. Besides this less involvement with and understanding of overall marketing goals of the client, and longer response time taken by the external agencies also act as dampening factors of hiring an outside agency. Recommendation Analysing the pros and cons of both in-house and outside advertising agency, it is recommended to â€Å"I’ll Work for you† to hire an outside agency which would help it in generating awareness among the target customers. Although outside advertising agency has many disadvantages, but since the business is new, it will be beneficial

Mergers & Acquisitions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Mergers & Acquisitions - Essay Example â€Å"Mergers and acquisitions represent the ultimate in change for a business No other event is more difficult, challenging, or chaotic as a merger and acquisition. It is imperative that everyone involved in the process has a clear understanding of how the process works†. Since the past decade, the globalisation of the businesses across the globe has initiated a search for the competitive advantage, worldwide. With the increased competition to fetch the customer satisfaction in a cost effective way, the companies have responded to the pressure of attaining scale in a quickly consolidating global economy. In addition to some other trends, such as privatisation, deregulation and corporate restructuring, globalisation has encouraged an unparalleled surge in the cross-border merger and the acquisition activities.Cross-border consolidation activities are a significant component of global business operations.This report will look into the mergers and acquisitions of companies in th e light of current issues. For better understanding, the analysis would be done in the light of relevant theories and applications with the mention of specific examples in the arena of merger and acquisitions. Through ‘merger’, two companies would join together to create a new company.Acquisition refers to one company taking over the assets of another company. Merger and acquisition can be of three types: Horizontal, Vertical and Conglomerate. In horizontal mergers and acquisitions, two firms, involved, deal across similar products and services. This type of mergers and acquisitions is frequently used as the mean for an organisation to enhance the market share through getting into merger with a competing firm or by acquiring the same. For an instance, consolidation among Mobil and Exxon would allow these companies to attain a large chunk of share in the oil and gas market. Vertical mergers and acquisitions happen when two organisations are merged through the value-chain , such as any manufacturer firm merging with one supplier or a manufacturer acquiring its supplier firm. Vertical consolidation processes are mostly used as significant mean to gain the competitive advantage in the respective marketplace by leveraging on the value chain. For an instance, Merck, a leading pharmaceuticals manufacturer, merged with the leading pharmaceuticals distributor, Medco. This was done to fetch the benefits in products distribution. Consolidations are conglomerate when two firms from entirely dissimilar industries merge. For an instance, a gas pipeline organisation merging with high technology organisation or acquiring the same can be seemed as a conglomerate merger. Conglomerates are mostly used as significant mean to smooth out broad fluctuations in the revenue amount and offer more constancy in the growth in long-term. Typically, organisations in the mature industries which have poor growth prospects would seek to broaden their businesses horizons through mer gers and acquisitions. For an instance, General Electric has diversified its business through merger and acquisition activities. GE has got into new segments like television broadcasting and financial services through a number of mergers and acquisitions of the financial services and entertainment organisations. Mergers and Acquisitions in United Kingdom United Kingdom has been the host of a number of mergers and acquisitions. The value of UK domestic acquisitions in the third quarter, 2010, amounted to ?2.6 billion which is slightly up

Anti-feminism on Tv Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Anti-feminism on Tv - Essay Example Feminism on media (TV) can be viewed as a response to the anxiety of status brought about by social change. According to Callaway (2008), the struggle for women’s identity and place in society led to strong feminist movements that are being antagonized in anti-feminism campaigns spearheaded by what is portrayed on TV (women’s bodies as sex objects). Hammer, R and Kellner, D (2006) are keen to discuss the feminists who are not really for feminism but are anti-feminists in actual sense, for example Camille Paglia. According to, anti- Political According to Ray (2002), anti-feminism is high in the political arena which necessitates the need for â€Å"The New Political Compass.† Furthermore, Motta, Fominaya, Eschle, and Cox (2011), indicates that post feminism seems to have plunged the political feminist movement into a crisis with women leaders losing the fight against anti-feminism in the media (TV). According to Downes (2009), political satire in cartoons has enha nced anti-feminism in the media by depicting women running for office as lacking womanliness or femininity. According to Paglia (2008), systemic anti-feminism has become popular culture on TV which is a hindrance to political ambitions of women. Haase (2004), cultural shifts and post feminist discourse on TV as well anti-feminist backlash have distorted political ambition for young female viewers. Economic According to Olson and Worsham (2001), ultimate anti-feminism is epitomized on television in the laugh industry for economic gains but demeaning women. On her discussion of anti-feminism shows how women are prejudiced against economically because of failure to exercise control over their reproductive health. According to Delap and Heilmann (2006), critical feminist dialogue has often broken down due to the economic inferiority of women portrayed even on TV. According to Haraway (2006), the ironic political myth shown on television that claims faithfulness to feminism and women aff airs socially and economically is in actual sense anti-feminism. The urge to limit feminism by anti-feminists is taken to the extent of involving the media in portraying women as prostitutes due to economic oppression. Analysis of Anti-feminism Women see anti-feminism as an ideology that goes against the quest for equality of rights and representation. It is usually based on cultural beliefs or even religious teachings, which purport that women are inferior to men. According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), an anti-feminist is defined as a person (usually a man) opposed to feminism or to women; one who is hostile to the idea of sexual equality or to the advocacy of the rights of women. Feminism on the other hand is a collection of ideologies and movements with an aim to defend, define, and establish equal social, economic, and political rights for women. Therefore, a feminist is one who is in support of or advocates equality of women. Antifeminism is thus opposition to all th at feminism stands for in one way or another. The characteristics of anti-feminism are behaviors or ideas that portray disbelief in social, political, or economic equality of sexes. Anti-feminism started and was centered on opposition to suffrage by women in the 19th century. Some people opposed to women entering institutions of higher learning brought about the argument that

Video game and violent movies Essay Example for Free

Video game and violent movies Essay Patel 2 Many teenagers watch under age T. V. that is violent. These children are too young to be watching violent T. V. or the little kids are watching their parents watching violent T. V. Much of this violent T. V. affects the children by the way they act and the way they think. After watching violent T. V. shows most children develop terrible social skills, poor grades, and aggression towards others. The children that are allowed to watch these shows don’t view it as bad. By watching violent T. V. shows they forget what is right and wrong in the world and don’t know what is good for them or what is bad for them. These violent T. V. shows emerged with the new technology unknown to viewers, but the children take it as if it is good for them. Some of the positive effects are it helps kids learn by watching educational television programs. When the parents watching violent movies in front of their kids the parents don’t realize that this is affecting the children. â€Å" Media is the most ubiquitous source of violence encountered by the majority of children. (Erwin, Pg. 105). † The government had created a strengthen the reflexes of military personnel. The creators of video games base their games on the violent movies and TV shows. Many third party game inventors came out with poor quality games. In the 1990’s home video game use had increased and arcade play had decreased, the release of violent games had also begun. The professional teams trained coders who watch samples from the recorded television and they try to see if it is violent or not. All violence tends to be treated in the same way by a content analysis. (Gunter, Harrison Pg. 76)† More and more parents begin to see that these violent games aren’t just bad for their children, but are causing problems in the community. â€Å"Before young children even enter kindergarten they are exposed to over 4,000 hours of television viewing and by the time they Patel 3 leave elementary school children will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on just television alone. (Erwin, Levin Pg. 105). † By looking at these numbers the amount of violent the T. V. channels produce I think they need to make kids show a little less violent than they do. When the kids get older they will have gone through a lot more violence than anyone so there are chances that through out there life time they will do something violent. The kids learn to fight from violent video games or by watching violent T. V. shows. â€Å"In a study examining violence in over 2,700 television programs across 23 channels of broadcast networks, public broadcasting, and cable, Wilson et al found that nearly 7 out of 10 children’s shows contain some type of physical aggression. (Erwin Pg. 501)†. As Erwin said in the last research in 2002 nearly 2,700 T. V. programs have some sort of violent most of them were seen by kids and their family. The kids show have some violence as well and out of that 7 out of 10 children’s show contain physical aggression. Violent video games are a very large problem with many generations today. Children who see a lot of violence are more likely to view violence as an effective way to settling conflicts. By watching all the violent stuff not only will the children act differently but when they begin to see real violent actions they will appear emotionless and unfazed because of all the built up viewing time. The children that play teen rated video games see many things in these violent world of movie industries: Intense violence, Sexual Content, Use if drugs and illegal substances, and lots of blood. In many video games today violence is viewed from a first person point of view. â€Å"Courts have refused to hold media corporations liable for the violent content of child-entertainment products, but many legal commentators have argued for an expansion of the law. Patel 4 (Proman Pg. 427-28)† The decision taken by the court is not accurate because the violence that the children learn is from the T. V. shows so they should be charged or fined for making violent shows for little kids.

Jfk Conspiracy Essay -- essays research papers

The debate about Kennedy’s assassination has been mixed by emotional arguments array of conspiracy theories that try to explain why a popular president was shot. I believe that President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas was a conspiracy. The U.S. Government has admitted that the American people have not been told the truth about the assassination. The Committee on Assassinations believes that on the basis of evidence available to it, that President JFK was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee also stated that is was unable to identify "the other gunman" implying that the first gunman was Oswald, but they never verified him as one. One reason the extent of the conspiracy wasn’t determined is because the funding for the investigation was suddenly cut. The conspirators did not want the committee to find out. Someone that could cut of the funds to a government aided project most have some authority. Newly discovered documents reveal that George Bush was directly involved in the murder. The document places Bush working with a now famous CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez. He claims that he quit the CIA in 1976, just after being sent to prison for his role in the Watergate burglary. According to Rolling Stone however, Rodriguez still goes to the CIA headquarters monthly to receive assignments and have his blue 1987 bulletproof Cadillac service...

Building Trust and Security in Web Services :: Technology Computers Internet Essays

Building Trust and Security in Web Services The yearning to componentize software development, where software is "assembled" like an automobile, where each component interacts with the other components in an unambiguous and streamlined fashion is very old and deep rooted. For, the most significant challenges in software development are maintaining and changing software pieces which perform redundant functions and integrating such components with one another. As the industry started to mature, significant research has taken place to find ways of architecting software components as building blocks that are seamlessly integrated, irrespective of where those components reside or how they are implemented. CORBA and COM arrived on the scene addressing these issues and providing a sound architecture for distributed computing. While these very interesting developments were going on, the Internet revolution took place simultaneously as more and more businesses started to register their presence on the web. E-business and e-commerce have seen tremendous growth in the past 7 years where major business functions are taking place through the medium of internet and some businesses are run entirely on the Internet. As a result more and more business software processes had to interact with their business counterparts over the Internet. The eventual convergence of these two paradigm shifts in the software development resulted in the birth of Web Servic es. Web Services are fundamental building blocks of software that are deployed in heterogeneous software and hardware platforms, that describe and publish their behavior to potential consumers (UDDI), based on a software contract (WSDL) interact with consumers by receiving and sending (XML) messages through a common protocol (SOAP). The scenario where a software component can dynamically detect, contract and utilize services provides a strong semantic connection to the web and may truly revolutionize the web. But the prospect of unprecedented inter-connectivity comes with huge challenges of security and raises serious questions on ethics and legalities. Some of the challenges are Security: How to prevent unauthorized access to critical information, code or a business process? Moreover the pertinent question is how to prevent misuse of critical information, code or a business process, gained by authorized access. Trust and Verification: What should be the parameters that enables establishing trust between a potential consumer and a provider? Even if 'trust' is established how can the consumer 'verify' the trust? Ownership and Responsibility: How to enforce ownership rights and accountability? When there is a software failure who owns up for it ?

Dove: evolution of a brand Essay

The aim of this case study, written by John Deighton, is to highlight and explain the revolutionary brand evolution strategy at the basis of the extraordinary Unilever’s Dove results, achieved in 2007. Overview: Masterbrands as part of the â€Å"Path to Grow† strategy Unilever is a leading multinational company active in the food, home and personal care sectors. It has been developing globally during the years, creating several of the most successful brands of the world. Its expansion allowed a geographical diversification but also brought some problems of controls; especially the brand portfolio had grown in an unstructured way and required a change of course. Indeed, in February 2000 Unilever began the so called â€Å"Path to Growth†, a five-year strategic activity which included the reshaping and the reorganization of the brand portfolio. More precisely, the company planned to reduce its more than 1,600 brands to 400 and, among them, select a small number of â€Å"Masterbrands† responsible for creating a clear and global identity to be shared with the range of products, included under each Masterbrand name. In this broad strategy it is situated the outstanding evolution of one of the survived brands, Dove, which was selected to become the â€Å"Masterbrand† for Unilever personal care products, beyond the beauty bar category and including hair care products, deodorants, body lotions etc. Dove Masterbrand strategy development Dove, until February 2000, had always been orienting to meet its costumers’ needs, providing them products, with a scientifically proven functional superiority. As a logical consequence, its advertisements had always been centered in promoting the cited higher functionality, preferring natural-looking women rather than fashion model icon in order to communicate honesty and authenticity. But a marketing strategy to build a unique Masterbrand identity could no longer be based on functional superiority, as explained by Deighton; it should create a meaning for Dove, as a â€Å"Masterbrand†, to be applied to all its products. Pursuing the best way to develop the proper image, the management had to slightly change the approach to the promotion. Elements such as â€Å"client need†, â€Å"scientific research†, â€Å"the employment of natural-looking women† and â€Å"honesty and authenticity† survived as central aspects, but they were reassembled and combined differently to accomplish the mentioned goal. The scientific research was no longer used to prove product functionality; but, it was the starting point of the new strategy: a worldwide investigation led by the global brand director for Dove, Silvia Lagnado, and interpreted with the help of two experts, revealed that women generally perceived aesthetic canons, typically illustrated in the advertisements, as very distant and unreachable. It was found out that most of the women didn’t mirror themselves in the advertised concept of beauty and a further survey showed that only the 2% of the interviewed described themselves as beautiful. Dove experts recognized a cultural issue; the beauty-related belief of average women and the advertised beauty weren’t matching. The misalignment generated frustration in women and, as a relevant consequence for Dove, negatively affected the sales of health and care products. So, aware of women dissatisfaction, of their personality, of their need to feel beautiful and keeping in mind Dove internal goals, the management gave life to the revolutionary strategy and decided that Dove should have stood for a point of view. The management decided that natural-looking women would have had a key role in the campaign, but with a different responsibility: instead of promoting Dove’s products they would have promoted their â€Å"average† beauty, with honesty and authenticity. The campaign for Real Beauty was setup and ready to be implemented. The Aim(s) of the campaign Born from the simply idea of creating a common and clear image to be shared with the Dove Masterbrand products, â€Å"The campaign for Real Beauty† has been then developed and changed as it went forward, pursuing further goals and, at the end, revealing itself somewhat different. As a matter of fact and as declared by Kathy O’Brien, Dove marketing director for U.S, the company wanted to â€Å"change the way society views beauty† and â€Å"provoke discussion and debate about real beauty†. This aim was reflected in the Dove’s mission statement, elaborated for the campaign, and it was enhanced with a relevant aspect: the expected repayment for the company, which was keenly expressed. The statement said: â€Å"Dove’s mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by broadening the narrow definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves†. And here the real purpose of the whole initiative became clearer. With the declared aim to develop the common values for the Masterbrand and to overcome the beauty-related mismatch, emerged from the scientific research, Dove started the campaign. Then, inducing the community to a proactive involvement and to debate on such meaning, the company began in a certain sense the democratization process of the beauty. So, being recognized as the entity responsible of the birth of such a thorny process and as a provider of a clear and rule-breaker point of view, Dove started to be on everyone’s lips. It remarkably increased its popularity and most important, allowed it to captivate a huge number of potential clients: those women to be helped in perceiving themselves â€Å"beautiful every day by broadening the definition of beauty†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and to be inspired â€Å"to take great care of themselves†. Paraphrasing the meaning of the period â€Å"to inspire to take great care of themselves†, the commercial aim of Dove’s campaign for real beauty becomes apparent. What made the campaign effective? The combination of different elements made the design and the implementation of the campaign so successful. As a first element, the campaign has its roots in the setting of a clear brand’s mission, shared on a global level. The structure of the organization introduced by the Path to Growth strategy, which split the responsibility for each brand between two groups, the Brand Development, centralized and global in scope, and Brand Building, decentralized according to the regions in which Unilever was involved and responsible to bring the brand to life in each marketplace, substantially helped in defining a global mission. Once developed, the brand’s mission worked as a benchmark for each initiative; a cornerstone around which, the whole campaign moved and evolved. Furthermore, the settlement of a well-defined mission was crucial to maintain the control over the campaign, once it had been shared with the community and on purpose exposed to its assessment, starting what I called â€Å"the democratization process of the beauty concept†. And exactly this process is the feature that I consider the sharpest and the most effective of the whole strategy. Indeed Dove, proposing and supporting its unconventional point of view, with the aim to provoke discussion and debate, really made people feel part of revolution and, at the same time, outstandingly got the company closer to its potential clients. In order to increase women’s engagement, Dove, at a certain point of the campaign, directly asked them to film â€Å"their own daughters discussing their self-esteem challenges† and later on, â€Å"to create their own ads for Dove Cream Oil Body Wash† and to participate at the contest â€Å"the Real Ads by Real Women†. It extremely helped in creating a strong social interconnection between Dove’s supporters and the company; they were joint forces against stereotypes of beauty. Moreover, the involvement of the community, thought in a more general sense and which spontaneously commented and also criticized the campaign, was crucial to increasing Dove’s initiative range and for its goals fulfillment. This aspect was part of a further successful feature of the strategy, the so-called Media planning, which was revolutionary and tailored as well. Responsible of the strategy and the investments for the campaign diffusion, the Media planning unit, as said, relied on the engagement of the community and of Internet too and so, it centered the investments in creating and expanding the community of the â€Å"real beauty seekers†. It included the purchase of a Superbowl advertising space. Thanks to such investments and to Youtube, which played a key role in the divulgation of the ads, the phenomenon reached an extraordinary dimension and, as a consequence, the debate started to spread all over, acquiring more and more media hype, insomuch as 16 minutes of Today Show were dedicated to one of the campaign initiatives; even Oprah devoted a full show to self-esteem, built around a Dove’s advertisement. Critics, discussions and parodies rose in sequence, did nothing but increased the relevance of the campaign and amplified its range, exactly as planned by Dove. These are the reasons that made the revolutionary and unprecedented Dove’s campaign so successful and helpful for the company in becoming â€Å"one of 10 brands with the greatest percentage gain in brand health and business value in the past three years† and in its $1.2 billion of grow. References: John Deighton, (Rev: March 25, 2008), Dove: Evolution of a brand, 9-508-047 Harvard Business school