Women in Culture in the 1930's-1940's VS Women in Culture Today Research Paper

Women in Culture in the 1930's-1940's VS Women in Culture Today - Research Paper Example The debates have hit the floor for some time regarding women in the past and women today. Moreover, social roles of women and girls are quite different from that of men. Workforce in early times was highly gender based which is somewhat contrary to today’s women. Today, women have much freedom and almost acquiring equal rights as men unlike in the early 1930’s. Women artist has been one of the outstanding and distinguishing activities between 1930’s – 1940’s and today. Female artists play central part in art industry, for instance textile arts and craft. In 1930’s, women artists encountered numerous challenges related to their success in art industry and these were gender based biases in the mainstream of fine art (Rosaldo, Lamphere & Bamberger, 1974). They faced challenges in training, travelling and trading of their work as well as recognition of their status in art industry. However late in 1940’s, feminist arts fought for their rig hts for them to be guaranteed the right to education and training in fine art. This impacted positively on women as they were allowed to train and acquire skills in fine industry. In the days of Great Depression (1930’s), a number of women made their own clothing. The time was so terrible that unemployment rate was very high. It was then that the fashion design made a step toward simpler lines reflecting the simpler lives of the people. Magazines displayed different kinds of clothing which customary middle women applauded (Loy, (2001). The fashions in the 1930’s were so appealing, attractive, feminine and absolutely gorgeous unlike today. The fashion took a stunning turn reflecting the austerity of the appalling economy. In the 1940’s, limited color highly characterized pictures and magazines unlike today as ink was expensive then (Rosaldo, Lamphere & Bamberger, 1974). Fashions illustrated in magazines revealed the clothing in sketch form instead of photographs. The gray outfit was a typical fashion design of 1932. Women empowerment and role assignment has taken a new picture today. This is mainly noted in factories and industries. For instance, Rosie the Riveter from the USA is highly recognized as a cultural icon. She represents the American women who worked in industries during the Second World War (Rosaldo, Lamphere & Bamberger, 1974). They took new jobs of men who were in the field of military. Rosie worked tirelessly to help the Americans who were taking part in war. During this time, women took over the male dominated trades though at the same they were required to return to their daily housework as soon as men in war came back home. Women were chiefly given the roles of housewives. They were asked to perform hard tasks which for them were hard to do. They opted to return to their traditional work basically to avoid such jobs and low payments (Loy, 2001). Rosie the Riveter finally died when her kidney failed to work after a plane ac cident. She had influenced American women to work in industries. It was evident that women proved it right that they could do and manage well the work that was mainly done by men. In 1942, the proportion of jobs acceptable to women increased tremendously. However, the payment terms of women were not favorable. Rosie had encouraged women to enter into workforce in large numbers, though women were discharged after the war to return to servicemen (Rosaldo, Lamphere & Bamberger, 1974). During the Second World War, women worked hard to take their positions. However after the wartime, they resumed domestic vocations and service work. Between 1930’

Term paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Term Paper Example poor moral ethics and this is further evidence in the fact that they had initially denied knowledge of the action which clearly means they were ashamed them. This paper will endeavor to analyses and critique the Shi Tao vs. Yahoo case study by applying several moral frameworks through which the ethicalness of Yahoos actions will be critiqued. These frameworks are; the Utilitarian, the publicity and Principle of Human Dignity and Infinite Worth with the intention of proving that yahoo acted in an unethical way and betrayed its users by compromising Tao’s safety for the sake of sustaining their business interest in China. Shi Tao, a journalist with China’s Business time news had posted information on how the government had intended to curtail the celebration of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protest by ordering journalists and media houses not to address the matter. He posted the information on an online forum based in New York, consequently the Chines State bureau sought Yahoos help in apprehending him and the latter provided information that led to the location of his IP address and then to his office computer, after which he was arrested and convicted. After the conviction, reporters without boarders exposed yahoos role in the matter and although the firm initially denied any knowledge as to why they were asked from the information they later admitted. In justification, yahoo claimed that they were obliged to conform to the laws of the country which required they share information with the state. The firm nonetheless came under fire from various critiques who challenged the legitim acy and morality for their actions accusing them of acting as police informers on Dissidents. Lui Xiabo, one China’s prominent Chinese dissidents accused Yahoo of failing to respect the rights of Shi in because they let their business interests dull their moral sensibility (Dickie). Other critics said that if the firm acknowledges their actions were not ethical, they

The criminal mind Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The criminal mind - Essay Example Three features distinguish crime science from criminology: it embraces the physical, computer and engineering sciences as well as the social; it focuses on crime rather than criminals, and it is single-minded about cutting crime, rather than studying it for its own sake. Crime science was conceived by the British broadcaster Nick Ross in the late 1990s in order to recruit scientific methods to crime prevention, with encouragement from the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens and Professor Ken Pease. Situations have not been entirely ignored in criminology. Birkbeck3 and LaFree (1993) and Sampson and Lauritsen (1994) have reviewed various situational approaches to crime, deviance, and violence, including the work of symbolic integrationists, opportunity and routine activity theorists, and those who advocate the study of criminal events. Most empirical research on situations, however, has involved the event as the unit of analysis, with no link to individual histories or individual patterns of behavior. To study the behavior situation relations advocated by Mischel and Shoda (1995)4, we would need to study the same individuals across multiple situations or contexts. To proceed with such an approach, we must define situations. From the various situational perspectives on crime there has not as yet emerged a consensus as to how situations should be conceptualized. Let us turn back to the summer camp study (Shoda et al., 1994) for a possible model. In that study the researchers observed behavior occurring within different levels, which they referred to as ecological settings, nominal situations, and interpersonal situations. Table 1 provides examples of these different levels. The ecological settings represented are camp, school, and home. Within each ecological setting are nominal situations, which they describe as â€Å"dictated by the structure of the particular ecology (the setting)† (Shoda et al., 1994: 675). Thus, at

Pro Abortion Essay Example for Free

Pro Abortion Essay INTRODUCTION Termination of fetus before death of the child can be defined as Pro-abortion. In the case of Roe Vs Wade, the Supreme Court had given its decision allowing the abortions in the first six months of pregnancy of period. Pro-abortion is a right of the women. The abortion is legalized from January 22, 1973 in all fifty states of Unites States. The Rose Vs Wade is foundation for pro-abortion in United States. The women rights groups and pro-abortion supporters welcomed the decision. But some of the opponents started the pro-life movement demanding abortion restrictions. Before 1973 abortion is not subject to United States constitution law. It was the matter for the individual states. So abortion was illegal if it is made after four months of pregnancy. Due to the efforts of American Medical Association anti-abortion laws have been come into force around 1900. Â  With the familiar case of Roe Vs Wade where a woman challenged the Texas laws, the U.S.Supreme Court made the following conclusions: 1. The abortion law not belongs to state issue and it is subject to Constitution of United States i.e. federal constitutional law. 2. The procurement of abortion was a constitutional right. Previous to the Roe Vs Wade, majority states in the United States of America prohibited the abortion with an exception when the life of women in threat. But the Supreme Court allowed in the case of Roe Vs Wade that woman has constitutional right for the pro abortion of first six of pregnancy. The pro-abortion would be safer and involve less complication. It is noticed that at about 89% abortions performed in the United States during 1995. All such abortions under taken in the early stage only i.e. with in the first 12-13 weeks after the last menstrual period. Since early days, the abortion was illegal and it is recommended only when life of mother is in danger. Later on the legislation developed as woman has constitutional right for the abortion of first six months of pregnancy. Accordingly the Supreme Court also given judgment stating that States could restrict the abortions of last 3 months of pregnancy. Here the last 3 months period is crucial stage, where the life fetus will be developed. REASONS The reasons for pro abortion for the woman may be various such as pregnancy without marriage, having already children, possibility of getting disabled children etc. whatever the reason, it is a legalized right to the woman to have abortion according to her choice and others should not influence on this issue. Sometimes mother’s health would be in danger due to the pregnancy. PRO-ABORTION VS PRO-CHOICE Pro-abortion is linked with pro-choice. Abortion itself indicates it is selection of choice; hence it can be termed as pro-choice. Though anti-abortion still it exists pro-choice. Pro-choice means the women would be in a position to allow or not to allow the child. So pro-choice can be termed as pro-abortion. Pro-abortion or pro-choice both linked with the women rights as it affects her own body. In the early days, the abortion became a crime for many reasons. Until 1800, there were no legislations and women themselves trained and gave training to other women for abortions. There will be no guarantee for the women to get the abortions though Roe Vs Wade gave the clear decision and legalizing the abortion within six months of the pregnancy. Illiterate women may not be able to access the necessary medical assistance. Even women who had access to legal abortion, yet they may face severe infections. Hence pro-abortion is unwanted by women though they desire. STATUS OF UNBORN CHILD DURING PRO-ABORTION Unborn child is not part of the body of mother. The unborn child lives in mother. The pro-abortion is killing of the human being with legal support for the reasons whether valid or invalid. But the unborn child is human. One way it is correct to save the mother’s life, and then it can be accepted. But for other reasons the pro-abortion is not correct. The unborn child is in the mother’s body but it is not part of the mother’s body. Hence the unborn child has separate independent status. The unborn child has right to life and this right should not be infringed by any right except the mother’s life in danger. Since unborn child is not part of the body, it has right to come outside. In case raped women also, the unborn child should not be killed. Killing of child is nothing. It is a punishment to the child for the sins of parent. Instead if birth is given to the child, it can be given for adoption since millions of couples waiting for adoption of babies. Such couples are bothered about the health of babies and nothing else. Hence pro-abortion should not be allowed or legalized for raped victims. Due to the following reasons the pro-abortion is not allowed in the rape cases. 1. It will be capital punishment to the unborn child who is innocent. 2. Allowing such abortion for other’s crime (i.e. father) 3. The right of life of the unborn child is infringed. 4. Rape is one wrong and giving punishment to the child is another wrong. PRO-LIFE SUPPORTERS VS PRO-LIFE ADVOCATES Though the Supreme Court given its decision that pro-abortion is legal, yet the American people believe that pro-abortion is wrong. The pro-abortion supporters argue that the baby is in the mother is not the child and it is not a human. The human can only be identified when they come outside. So it is not killing. They further argue that abortion should be legal at any stage that unborn child is not a human being and did not deserve any legal protection. In the United States the persons have limited rights only. Suppose if any person takes drugs beyond the limit are not acceptable though the drugs disturb her/his own body. Similarly prostitution also. In both the cases, it is their own body, yet they cannot go beyond the limit. Hence in the pregnant women also it is wrong to argue that women only should have complete control on her body with regard to abortion. The inside bay is not part of the women but it is separate identity. So keeping the pro-abortion will be invalid. It is true that women have the right to take own decision about her pregnancy and abortion and at the same time the women did not have any right to kill the child. The Pro-choice supporters argue with respect to the woman’s reproductive rights, which includes right to choose of abortion. Whereas the Pro-life advocates opposes and argue the abortion should not be accepted unless the mother’s life in threat. The pro-abortion groups express that abortion should be legal because the unborn baby is not really human being and hence no legal protection. When there is no legal protection, the unborn person cannot occupy the mother’s body without prior consent. CONCLUSION The era of legalized abortions in the country passed thirty-five years since the issue of Roe Vs Wade decision by Supreme Court. The media created false impression that everybody supported the abortion and finally abortion become a big industry in the United States. The pro-life supporters are encouraging the abortion whereas the Pro-life advocates are advocating with religious matters. The tradition and cultural make the women that their right over child should not be infringed. They thought that it is their own reproductive right about the abortion. Due to the abortion laws, many people in the U.S. are not able to adopt the children, as so many children being killed through abortions. The unexpected pregnancy leads to abortion, which gives the capital punishment to the unborn children. Â  Whether Fetus (unborn baby) has a right to be in the womb of woman? It can be yes as long as woman’s life is not in threat. But it is not right; it is permission to the Fetus to stay in the womb. The abortion is not violation of right. When the woman has a right to choose to have sexual relation with any other person, it is also right of woman to choose what and what cannot remain inside her body. Hence it is purely women’s decision. But fetus is human being as it has complete set of human DNA, however fetus did not have physiological independence. REFERENCE: 1. http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org/pro-abortion.htm 2. http://www.abortionisprolife.com/statistics.htm 3. http://riawibisono.wordpress.com/2007/03/25/abortion-pro-life-or-pro-choice/ 4. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/6221/debate.html 5. http://www.friesian.com/abortion.htm 6. http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/01/18/abortion/ 7. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761595572/Roe_v_Wade.html 8. http://www.capitalism.org/faq/abortion.htm 9. http://mindprod.com/politics/abortion.html 10. Author Jay Johansen, http://www.pregnantpause.org/abort/choice-abort.htm 11. Elizabeth Ross, Pro-Choice Editor http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art49318.asp

Book Review on Imagining India Essay Example for Free

Book Review on Imagining India Essay Monday morning, it is chaos. Despite its pristine new metro and expanding highways, the city can barely contain the morning hubbub, the swarm of people all trying to get somewhere. By the time I reach Kaushik Basus home—set a little apart from the highway, on a quiet street that is empty except for a single, lazy cow who stops in front of the car, in no hurry to move—I am very late, a little grimy, but exhilarated. Kaushik and I chat about how the crowds in the city look completely different compared to, say, two decades ago. Then, you would see people lounging near tea shops, reading the morning paper late into the afternoon, puffing languorously at their beedis and generally shooting the breeze. But as India has changed— bursting forth as one of the worlds fastest-growing countries—so has the scene on the street. And as Kaushik points out, it is this new restlessness, the hum and thrum of its people, that is the sound of Indias economic engine today. Kaushik is the author of a number of books on India and teaches economics at Cornell, and his take on Indias growth—of a country driven by human capital—is now well accepted. Indias position as the worlds go-to destination for talent is hardly surprising; we may have been short on various things at various times, but we have always had plenty of people. The crowded tumult of our cities is something I experience every day as I navigate my way to our Bangalore office through a dense crowd that overflows from the footpaths and on to the road—of software engineers waiting at bus stops, groups of women in colourful saris, on their way to their jobs 38 at the garment factories that line the road, men in construction hats heading towards the semi-completed highway. And then there are the people milling around the cars, hawking magaz ines and pirated versions of the latest best-sellers. * Looking around, I think that if people are the engine of Indias growth, our economy has only just begun to rev up. But to the demographic experts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Indias population made the country quite simply a disaster of epic proportions. Paul Ehlrichs visit to Delhi in 1966 forms the opening of his book The Population Bomb, and his shock as he describes Indias crowds is palpable: People eating, people washing, people sleeping . . . people visiting, arguing and screaming . . . people clinging to buses . . . people, people, people. But in the last two decades, this depressing vision of Indias population as an overwhelming burden has been turned on its head. With growth, our human capital has emerged as a vibrant source of workers and consumers not just for India, but also for the global economy. But this change in our attitudes has not come easily. Since independence, India struggled for decades with policies that tried to put the lid on its surging population. It is only recently that the country has been able to look its billion in the eye and consider its advantages. MILLIONS ON AN ANTHILL For most of the twentieth century, people both within and outside India viewed us through a lens that was distinctly Malthusian. As a poor and extremely crowded part of the world, we seemed to vindicate Thomas Malthuss uniquely despondent vision—that great population growth inevitably led to great famine and despair. The time that Thomas Malthus, writer, amateur economist and clergyman (the enduring term history gave him would be the gloomy parson), lived in may have greatly influenced his theory on population. Nineteenth-century England was seeing very high birth rates, with families having children by the bakers dozen. Malthus— who, as the second of eight children, was himself part of the population explosion he bemoaned—predicted in his An Essay on *Tbe Alchemist, Liars Poker and (Tom Friedman would be delighted) The World Is Flat have been perennial favourites for Indian pirates. the Principle of Population that the unprecedented increases in population would lead to a cycle of famines, of epidemics, and sickly seasons. India in particular seemed to be speedily bearing down the path that Malthus predicted. On our shores, famine was a regular visitor. We endured thirty hunger famines* between 1770 and 1950— plagues during which entire provinces saw a third of their population disappear, and the countryside was covered with the bleached bones of the millions dead.1 By the mid twentieth century, neo-Malthusian prophets were sounding the alarm on the disastrous population growth in India and China, and predicted that the impact of such growth would be felt around the world. Their apocalyptic scenarios helped justify draconian approaches to birth control. Policies recommending sterilization of the unfit and the disabled, and the killing of defective babies gained the air of respectable theory. 2 Indias increasing dependence on food aid from the developed world due to domestic shortages also fuelled the panic around its population growth—in 1960 India had consumed one-eighth of the United States total wheat production, and by 1966 this had grown to onefourth. Consequently, if you were an adult in the 1950s and 1960s and followed the news, it was entirely plausible to believe that the endgame for humanity was just round the corner; you may also have believed that this catastrophe was the making of some overly fecund Indians. Nehru, observing the hand-wringing, remarked that the Western world was getting frightened at the prospect of the masses of Asia becoming vaster and vaster, and swarming all over the place. And it is true that Indians of this generation had a cultural affinity for big families, even among the middle class—every long holiday during my childhood was spent at my grandparents house with my cousins, and a family photo from that time has a hundred people crammed into the frame. Indian families were big enough to be your *Amartya Sen and others have pointed out, however, that while these famines may have seemed to be the consequence of a country that was both poor and overpopulated, they were in fact triggered partly by trade policies and the lack of infrastructure. Lord Lytton exported wheat from India at the height of the 1876-78 famine, and the lack of connectivity across the country affected transportation of grain to affected areas. Main social circle—most people did not mingle extensively outside family weddings, celebrations and visits to each others homes. The growing global worries around our population growth created immense pressure on India to impose some sort of control on our birth rates, and we became the first developing country to initiate a family planning programme. But our early family planning policies had an unusual emphasis on self-control.3 In part this was influenced by leaders such as Gandhi, who preached abstinence; in an interesting departure from his usual policy of non-violence, he had said, Wives should fight off their husbands with force, if necessary. This focus on abstinence and self-restraint continued with independent Indias first health minister, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, who was in the odd position of being at the helm of a family planning programme while opposing family planning in principle.4 As a result Indian policy during this decade emphasized the rhythm method. Rural India was targeted for raising awareness of the method, and one villager remarked of its success, They talked of the rhythm method to people who didnt know the calendar. Then they gave us rosaries of coloured beads . . . at night, people couldnt tell the red bead for dont from the green for go ahead. 5 Not surprisingly, Indias population continued to grow through the 1950s and 1960s, as fertility remained stubbornly high even while infant mortality and death rates fell rapidly. This was despite the massive awareness-building efforts around family planning that the government undertook. I still remember the small family songs on the radio and the walls of our cities, the sides of buses and trucks were papered with posters that featured happy (and small) cartoon families, and slogans like Us Two, Ours Two. And yet, each census release made it clear that our population numbers continued to relentlessly soar, and we despaired over a graph that was climbing too high, too fast. SNIP, SNIP As the global panic around population growth surged, the Indian and Chinese governments began executing white-knuckle measures of family planning in the 1960s. Our house is on fire, Dr S. Chandrasekhar, minister of health and family planning, said in 1968. If we focused more on sterilization, he added, We can get the blaze under control. By the 1970s, programmes and targets for sterilization of citizens were set up for Indian states. There was even a vasectomy clinic set up at the Victoria Terminus rail station in Bombay, to cater to the passenger traffic flowing through. 7 But no matter how Indian governments tried to promote sterilization with incentives and sops, the number of people willing to undergo the procedure did not go up. Indias poor wanted children—and especially sons—as economic security. State efforts to persuade citizens into sterilization backfired in unexpected ways—as when many people across rural India refused to have the anti-tuberculosis BCG, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, injections because of a rumour that BCG stood for birth control government.8 In 1975, however, Indira Gandhi announced the Emergency, which suspended democratic rights and elections and endowed her with new powers of persuasion, so to speak. The Indian government morphed into a frighteningly sycophantic group, there to do the bidding of the prime minister and her son Sanjay—the same hotheaded young man who had described the Cabinet ministers as ignorant buffoons, thought his mother a ditherer and regarded the Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos his role model.9 In the winter of 1976, I, along with some of my fellow IIT Bombay students, had arrived on the festival circuit in Delhi to participate in the student debates and quizzes (yes, I was an inveterate nerd). It meant going from college to college for competitions, from Hindu to St Stephens to Miranda House to IIT Delhi. Most of us from the sylvan, secluded campus of IIT Bombay were not as politically aware as the Delhi students—the only elections we followed were those for the ITT hostels and student body. But in the Delhi of the Emergency years, sitting around campfires, one heard the whispered tales of Emergency-era atrocities, and of one particular outrage—nasbandi. Sanjay, who had discovered a taste and talent for authoritarianism with the Emergency, had made sterilization—specifically male sterilization or nasbandi— his pet project. The sterilization measures that were introduced came to be known as the Sanjay Effect—a combination, as the demographer Ashish Bose put it to me, of coercion, cruelty, corruption and cooked figures. Ashish notes that incentives to undergo the sterilization procedure included laws that required a sterilization certificate before government permits and rural credit could be granted. Children of parents with more than three children found that schools refused them admission, and prisoners did not get parole until they went under the knife. And some government departments persuaded their more reluctant employees to undergo the procedure by threatening them with charges of embezzlement.* The steep sterilization targets for state governments meant that people were often rounded up like sheep and take n to family planning clinics. For instance, one journalist witnessed municipal police in the small town of Barsi, Maharashtra, dragging several hundred peasants visiting Barsi on market day off the streets. They drove these men in two garbage trucks to the local family planning clinic, where beefy orderlies held them down while they were given vasectomies.10 This scene repeated itself time and again, across the country. It was difficult to trust the sterlization figures the government released since there was so much pressure on the states for results. Nevertheless, the Emergency-era sterilization programme, Ashish notes, may have achieved nearly two-thirds of its target—eight million sterilizations. But democracy soon hit back with a stunning blow. When Indira Gandhi called for elections in 1977—ignoring Sanjays protests, much to his ire11—the Congress was immediately tossed out of power. The nasbandi programme was the last gasp of coercive family planning in India on a large scale, and it became political suicide to implement similar policies. The Janata Party government that followed Indira even changed the label of the programme to avoid the stigma it carried, and family planning became family welfare. While sterilization programmes have occasionally reappeared across states, they have been mostly voluntary, with the focus on incentives to undergo the procedure, f *Asoka Bandarage describes the target fever in Indias sterilization programmes, which gave rise to speed doctors who competed against each other to perform the most number of operations every day, often under ghastly, unhygienic conditions. One celebrated figure was the Indian gynaecologist P.V. Mehta, who entered the Guinness Book of World Records for sterilizing more than 350,000 people in a decade—he claimed that he could perform forty sterilizations in an hour. tThese sweeteners for the procedure have at times been very strange and a little suspect, such as Uttar Pradeshs guns for sterilisation policy in 2004, under which scheme Indians purchasing firearms or seeking gun licences were told they would be fast-tracked if they could round up volunteers for sterilization. A district in Madhya Pradesh also made a similar guns for vasectomies offer to its residents in 2008.

Branding in the Automotive Industry

Branding in the Automotive Industry Marketing Branding Consumers Abstract This paper discusses what branding is; the key elements of branding; and the importance of branding in the automobile industry. As we all know, automobiles for some consumers are not just a mode of transport, but luxury status symbols. This paper considers the needs of consumers that must be taken into account while branding a brand. I have explored how branding if not done properly results in the failure of the brand and have discussed several failures of branding which helps in analyzing the mistakes committed by companies during branding. Along with this, I have also examined several success stories of automobile branding. Re-branding is another important issue in branding which I have considered in light of the automobile industry. This paper talks about re-branding and its importance in branding and in helping companies gain profit and increase their sales. Introduction Definition (quote from book) There is no concept as vital in the world of marketing and advertising today as â€Å"Branding†. Everyone uses the word in every conversation, there are countless self-proclaimed experts on the subject, executives want it, account managers plan it, strategies are formulated, money is spent, and advertising is done (Kapferer, 2000). However, in reality, very few people actually know and understand the meaning and context of the term â€Å"Branding†. The word brand, when used as a noun, can refer to a company name, a product name, or a unique identifier such as a logo or trademark. The concept of branding developed through the practices of craftsmen who wanted to place a mark or identifier on their work without detracting from the beauty of the piece. These craftsmen used their initials, a symbol, or another unique mark to identify their work and they usually put these marks in a low visibility place on the product. Not too long afterwards, high quality cattle and art became identifiable in consumers’ minds by particular symbols and marks (Aaker Joachimsthalaer, 2000). Consumers would actually seek out certain marks because they had associated those marks in their minds with tastier beef, higher quality pottery or furniture, sophisticated artwork, and overall better products. If the producer differentiated their product as superior in the mind of the consumer, then that producers mark or brand came to represent a superior product. The modern concept of branding grew out of the consumer packaged goods industry and today the process of branding has come t o include much more than just creating a way to identify a product or company. Branding today is used to create an emotional attachment on the part of the consumer to products and companies. Branding is the often subliminal process by which a business employs marketing strategies to get people to easily remember their products and services over competitors (DeChernatony, 1999). More so, it is applied psychology. Branding efforts create a feeling of involvement, a sense of higher quality, and an aura of intangible qualities that surround the brand name, mark, or symbol. Therefore a business, a product or any other service aimed at attracting customers can be successful if and only if it is branded properly; thus branding is an essential component of a business. A brand name holds a lot of importance for the consumers. Consumers purchase products by considering the brand name, quality associated with the brand as well as other brand affiliated perks. Branding is a process that is used by businesses to utilize marketing strategies to enhance their product or service image so that it is more readily recollected by the customer. Branding helps the product or service to make a favorable impact on the target customer while the branding concepts help in outlining the guidelines that should be followed during the branding process. Branding of any product and service should follow some constants that help in establishing a brand in the long run (Abratt, 1989). Branding helps an organization in attracting consumers and thereby increases its market share and hold. An organization should therefore, implement branding very carefully. Many a time organizations do not concentrate much on branding. In such cases, the brand can either become a success or fail miserably; but the probability of the brand being a failure is much higher. This success and failure of the brand depends on how the product is branded and how well the process is taken care of. Marketers engaged in brandi ng seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. The importance of Branding in Marketing is discussed in the following sections. Branding Brands result directly from the market strategy as a consequence: segmentation and product differentiation (Kapferer, 2000). A brand should have its own specific point of view on the product category. Branding is a complex process which deals with the creation and development of a specific identity for a company, product, commodity, group, or person. It is carefully designed to present qualities that its creators believe will be attractive to the public, and it is meant to be developed and perpetuated for the long haul. An advertising campaign launches a product. Branding, when it’s done right, creates an institution. Branding brings about so many benefits (Balmer Gray, 2002). A brand is an end result. Branding is the process by which a brand comes into existence. A brand is many, many things, but it is never an accident. Brands can act as assets in times of recession or reduced business and profits. Such assets have in the past sustained companies in adversity; and all the e vidence suggests that, if they are managed properly and efficiently, they can continue to do so, now and in the future. Branding helps in making a brand name for organizations. If Branding is the creation and development of a personality—an identity— for a product or company, it is the result of work by a number of different professionals, all aiming at the same goal. While the roles of advertising and marketing have been well documented, the third prong within the Branding process, public relations, has largely been overlooked. For the most part, Branding requires the following three key components for proper execution (Pilch, 2007): Advertising:It’s a wonderful thing to create a unique, user-friendly brand that the public is sure to embrace. However, if the public doesn’t find out about the brand—and much of the public will find out through advertising—all that effort, time, and money will go to waste. The look and attitude of the advertising also help define the brand in the public’s mind. Marketing: In devising the personality of the brand and determining how it will be presented to the public, marketing, which is usually done in-house and through consultants, helps to create the entity that the brand will become. To sell a product, an organization needs to be clear in what it wants to sell. For example, a person owns the recipe for Oreo cookies, but if that person decided to sell the recipe and not the cookies, he or she would be making a very large marketing mistake (Johansson Hirano, 1999). Marketing is not just selling; it is to know what exactly to sell and how to sell it as part of a larger well thought and well formed plan. Public-relations: If advertising is the juggernaut of public attention, public-relations is the stealth bomber. Public-Relations generates publicity for the brand, helps solidify the public’s opinion of the brand, and defines the brand—all without being perceived by the public. Advertising is obvious, marketing is invisible, but public-relations is the most difficult of all things to be: subtle. It is also arguably the most valuable, indispensable part of the Branding process. Without public relations, it would be impossible to create a truly world-class brand, no matter what the budget or how exciting the product. Public-relations is absolutely essential to Branding. For a new brand to be successful, all three of the Branding components must be firing on all cylinders. They must be working in tandem, but they also have to succeed individually. Advertising In today’s business climate, even the most secure brands need to advertise. For example, McDonald’s sells billions and billions of hamburgers. However, McDonald’s does not cut back on its advertisements. In fact McDonald’s increases the number of advertisements every year. Nike is a well known company which sells sports wear. It is known for spending millions on celebrity endorsements for advertising. Its advertisements are legendary, and its logo is well known the world over, with people recognizing the brand instantly from seeing the Nike logo. A good advertising account executive will be involved in the birth of a brand, even if others have already decided on a good portion of the brand identity. How to present that identity is advertising’s job, in conjunction with public relations. The look of a television or print advertisement is as important as the message being delivered in print or dialogue. Quick edits, bright colors, extreme close-ups, a nd changing landscapes may appeal more to younger viewers, and will convey a different personality than golden sunsets, slow camera pans, and traditional storytelling (Keller, 1999). Loud music might be fine for a soft drink ad, but won’t work for a feminine hygiene product. If the product is intended to have a feminine attitude, a female singer will more likely achieve the goal than a male singer. But advertising isn’t just about creating TV commercials. Advertisements are about delivering the message to the public which has to be attracted to buy the product. The medium is the message. The programs during which the ad can be seen will make a statement about the personality of the product, as will the choice of publications in which print advertisements will run. If a product is supposed to be irreverent, young, up-to-date, and unconventional, ad buyers will probably be more successful in advertising during the commercial breaks of T.V. series such as Friends rather t han during news programs or documentaries.Each media outlet has as clearly defined a personality as its advertisers. In fact, the advertising often helps define the media outlet’s personality, and vice versa. The advertisements are purchased with a very careful eye on which programs appeal to the target audience. When a brand is new, it’s important the target audience be able to identify the brand, and identify withthe brand, very quickly. So after it’s decided what kind of brand identity is being introduced, and the target audience to which the brand is being marketed, creative advertising executives begin deciding what message to convey and how to convey it. Advertising doesn’t create the identity, but it does choose how to present the identity, and it certainly helps define the identity of the product, and, by extension, its users (McEnally DeChernatony, 1999). With a clever choice like that made for the Mentos advertisements, it expresses the adverti ser’s message very well. Advertisements however cannot do the job alone and they cannot determine what the image should be. All advertisements can do is to show the target audience what product they should buy and why they should buy it. The part of the process where the target audience is helped in determining the image of the product is accomplished through marketing. Marketing Before there can be a brand, there has to be a product. The bridge between product and recognizable brand is marketing. It is sometimes difficult for people outside the business to understand marketing, because they confuse it with advertising even though the two are totally different processes. Their goals are not the same, and their methods are totally different. They are performed by separate groups of specialists, and can often be at odds with one another until a compromise or alternative solution can be reached that satisfies both disciplines. If advertising is the way the public usually discovers a product, marketing determines what the public will discover. If the look and sound of advertising are important, the decisions made by marketing executives will determine the tone of the advertisements (Aaker, 1996). In other words, a product is assigned its personality mostly because of marketing. Based on the target audience for the product, marketing will determine which traits th at segment of the population are likely to find appealing, and will do its best to ascribe them to the product being marketed. For example, when Apple Computers were experiencing some sales difficulties a number of years ago, and co-founder Steve Jobs returned to guide the company, the iMac computer was the first product to be released by the â€Å"new† company. The personality of the product was very important. Not only did it have to remind loyal Apple users why they liked the computer to begin with, but it had to convince new users to try something that required a large amount of money and was going to look different to anything they had seen before. In fact, the future of the entire company hinged on the acceptance of the iMac, and if it was seen as too similar to IBM based PCs, it would be rejected by the loyal Apple following. If it came across as too different or too strange, the product would fail to expand Apple’s market share—which was dwindling at the time—and the company would be in very dire straits indeed. What the company did was to analyze the strong points of Apple and the iMac. It marketed the iMac as something new, something fun, and something that younger users who were only just beginning to use the internet would appreciate. Marketing executives made sure the iMac was presented as a young, innovative, smart, and easy way to enter the online world, something that American consumers were just beginning to do in large numbers at the time. So, before the product came out, there was already great anticipation. But once the iMac, considered a wildly revolutionary design at its inception, was unveiled, the focus was all on the product. It helped that the iMac looked different: Its colorful, all-in-one bulbous design was certainly a change from the beige boxes that had dominated the computer industry for years. Certainly, the iMac turned the fortunes of Apple Computers around. Apple increased its market share and sold millions of iMacs, and a company that appeared to be on the brink of extinction not long before was assured a solid foothold, if not a dominant position, in the home computer market. If the computer hadn’t worked well, if it hadn’t delivered on its promises, no marketing campaign would have been able to achieve the success of the iMac. What marketing does is to determine the proper audience for a product, and then deliver to that audience what it wants. The target demographic can be as narrow as 15-year-old boys living in the suburbs, or it can be literally anybody (Riley DeChernatony, 1998). That will depend on the product. But once the demographic is identified, marketing professionals analyze it, make sure the characteristics of that demographic are compatible with the product, and then emphasize the strengths of the product. Through focus groups, surveys, and other tools, market research helps determine what people want. Marketing is more the art of taking what al ready exists and making it more attractive to the public through positioning and branding techniques. It is a natural and easy mistake to confuse marketing with advertising. Advertising is what happens when marketing has already been done. The next area under discussion is public relations which also works with what marketing professionals have already done, but does different, less obvious things with it. Public Relations Many clients do not understand the difference between branding, public relations, advertising and marketing. In order to understand the role of public relations in branding, first we have to understand how public relations works. It is a business unlike any other, and its rules are very specific. Public relations can help create a brand, establish it, promote it, develop it, and keep it healthy, all without being detected by the general public. Most Executives prefer public relations to advertising mainly for the reason that a lot of branding programs of the organizations are usually based on third-party endorsement. It is much more credible and fast-acting than when you pay for advertisements. People often confuse public relations with publicity and the reason could be pretty simple. Public relations in actual fact refers to the craft of attracting publicity, and not publicity itself (Dolak, 2003). What public relations does is attract attention to the product through different medi ums of the media giving the product a wider audience and generating more publicity than a person working in public relations could reach individually. One problem, however, is that some businesses are wary of the press overall, and do not fully appreciate the boost and recognition that public relations can provide. The role of public relations is to combine what marketing and advertising do, and then use the information in different ways. Marketing determines the personality, or brand identity, being publicized (Gelder, 2002). Public relations professionals are given that information and are asked to find an appropriate media outlet to relay the message. For example, in the case of the iMac, Apple made sure (quite often by donation) that school systems around the country had iMac computers as soon as they were available. This helped familiarize very young computer users—possibly those who had never used a computer before—with Apple’s product first. This brillian t public relations move demonstrated that Apple had strong interests in education and a history of helping children. This gave consumers a very positive image of Apple. The move into schools also made sure that iMacs were perceived as unusual and innovative. Brand identity is the most vital part of the branding concept. With the wrong identity, even a perfect product can fail to become a brand. With the proper identity, one that has been crafted carefully and thoughtfully, a product can launch a brand and eventually become what every branding practitioner hopes for—a household name. Word of mouth, local newspapers, radio programs, and television news programs are the targets at the very beginning of the quest of a person working in public relations.Generally the most widely viewed television channels, most read newspapers, magazines and journals, not just nationally but world over, are the target of public relations. Before news of the new product, service, or personality can reach the media however, the public relations professional has to analyze the brand identity. Public relations professionals do make things up about these products; they find the newsworthy aspect or unique selling proposition of a company and its products and try to attract attention to that. In other words, Public-Relations is the art of telling the truth in the most positive light possible. It is as central a component of Branding as any other, and its importance is immeasurable. Branding in Automobiles Designing an automobile is an extremely difficult task. Automobiles are built and manufactured after much market research and field work about the product being designed and manufactured, the region in which the product has to be released, and many other factors which go into determining the successful launch of the product and the success of the product (Bouchenoire, 2003). Branding plays a very important role in the automobile industry. Branding an automobile is essential in order to make the product a success. Brands become icons due to successful Branding. Customers value certain products which they recognize and feel help to define them as a person for whatever reason. It may be because the brand symbolizes wealth and a high status and the person wishes to align themselves with a brand with such appeal. Customers would generally like to resemble any product they purchase with themselves (Kavounis, 2002). In the automobile industry, the executives and the designers have to be car eful with the design of the product with respect to the needs of the customers. Thorough research has to be carried out as to what customers want from the automobile and what customers need from the automobile and these factors are then taken into account when designing the automobile. Customers may have different needs depending on the region where the product has to be launched. In some regions consumers might like to have a smooth and luxurious automobile whereas in a different location, speed might be given preference over luxury. Marketing has to be done carefully so that all these factors are taken into account. The organization should target prospective buyers with a strategy that turns them into loyal customers. Loyalty plays a huge role in the success of the brand. For example, the Harley-Davidson Company which manufactures motor-bikes has a strong and loyal pool of customers which makes it a very strong brand. The fact that the company manufactures what can be argued to be some of the best motor-bikes available could be one of the main reasons for the success of the brand. However, there are many other companies which produce good and perhaps even better motor-bikes than Harley-Davidson, but it is the fact that Harley-Davidson was successful in creating such a strong brand name that demanded loyalty from its customers that enabled it to create a large pool of returning customers. In August 2003, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (United States of America), celebrated the hundredth birthday of Harley-Davidson (Gunelius, 2007). The whole city was converted into a biker-party zone for three consecutive days. Over one hundred thousand people attended the party riding their Harley-Davidson bikes. Also Harle y-Davidson aficionados from over forty-seven different companies attended the party. This reflects the strength of the brand and goes on to point out how important it is to attract the loyalty of the customers in order to make a brand successful. It is widely known that brands have a remarkable ability to impact the way customers perceive a product. Customers and ordinary people do not just look at the product; they interconnect the brand and the product together. The way the customers perceive the product is totally shaped and determined by the brand itself. Therefore, it is a necessity that the brand projects itself in a way to attract consumers. The presence of a well recognized brand determines the way the target audience view the product. Here is a hypothetical example of Mercedes deciding to release a car: Since Mercedes is a highly recognized brand, the car being released will almost certainly automatically be viewed as a high quality, exclusive and expensive product. In order to make a brand, branding is compulsory. Many people unfamiliar with the long process of good branding may consider it to be easy however, for every successful brand, there are dozens of brands which have either come close to being a success or h ave been total failures. Brands such as Mercedes, General Motors (GM) and Toyota have been huge successes however; several big names like Daewoo Motors and ValuJet have failed in some areas or have disappeared altogether. Daewoo Motors, once a leading brand in the automobile industry, could not retain its customer base and customer loyalty as it had implemented some bad branding strategies which made it lose its brand value. As a result, Daewoo Motors had to close down several of its factories and offices due to the losses it sustained. Essentials of Branding Branding does not just involve identifying the needs of customers, but also certain factors which are useful in attracting customers. These essential factors are: Name: The name of the company can play an important role. A great name is like extra octane in a brand. A bad, boring, or sound-alike name will not necessarily kill a brands chances for success however in most cases it â€Å"dramatically dilutes the brand equity and potency† (Aaker, 1996). The naming of a brand also depends on the customers’ taste and liking as well as the region in which the product is going to be released along with the people living in that particular region. Naming can also be done by taking potential global consumers into consideration. Logo: The Logo of a company plays a huge role in determining the strength of the brand. Any customer relates a product to a brand through its logo. The logo creates a big impact on the way the products are perceived. When a customer sees the â€Å"four circles† of the Audi, the â€Å"horse† of the Ferrari, the â€Å"checkered flag† of the BMW, he or she associates the values of that brand with the logo. Logos along with the names, contribute largely in determining the strength of the brand. Branding Successes A critical element of predictive loyalty metrics is their ability to measure the direction and velocity of consumer values 12-18 months in advance (Stephan, 1997). With that in mind, here are the key trends that determine the difference between the success and failure of brands. An emphasis on â€Å"engagement†: Inserting itself between traditional marketing activities and an increasing demand for return on investment assessments, engagement is the Holy Grail for marketers and advertisers (Assael, 1995). Defined as the outcome of advertising and marketing activities that substantively increases a brands strength in the eyes of the consumers (and actually predicts sales and profitability), engagement is used more and more to allocate marketing budgets. The joint task forces from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), and the American Marketing Association (AMA) provide some degree of engagement meaning and metrics. Using technology to better meet consumer expectations: Consumer expectations in all categories will continue to grow if technology is used properly to attract the attention of the customers (King, 1989). Expectations have increased more than twenty six percent in the past five years while brands have kept up with these expectations by only eight percent. Marketers in general rely upon websites and high-tech capabilities to accommodate these values and differentiate themselves from the competition. More branded entertainment: Popular culture, with its rabid consumption of music and technology, has to be the main viewpoint of the brand leaders as a method for customizing entertainment and selling products. For instance, music-related paraphernalia such as T-shirts, posters, and artist-related merchandise infringe more on the dominance of bricks-and mortar retail. Harley-Davidson The iconic American motorcycle sustains a proud history, enduring product quality and a high price point. In the face of increased competition in 1987, Harley sent a management team to Japan to learn about superior production techniques. This is a branding technique used by the Harley-Davidson team to produce a super-quality bike which could appeal to a large number of customers across the world. Though today’s median customer is fifty five years old, many people recognize the brand and think it personifies the outlaw sensibilities, the romance of the open road, and the American Dream of unbridled freedom. However, numerous brand extensions and licenses, many of them down market, i.e. cigarettes and clocks, have kept Harley in the middle levels of the luxury category. Even though Harley is treated as a mid-luxury bike, many consumers rich or poor align the bike’s related attributes with their own character. Harley-Davidson was able to attract the custome rs in that aspect and hence, it went on to become one of the most renowned brand names in the history of motor-bike companies. Another such vehicle is the Hummer: a multi-terrain vehicle which gained popularity within a very short space of time. Hummer is a classic instance of brand hijacking, where consumers attach attributes to a product that its manufacturer never intended. The Humvee originated as a government contract vehicle, designed for the military. Survivalists, conservatives, and yuppies adopted it as their signature icon vehicle, with some cachet attached to its million dollar price tag. It has since become the car of choice for gangster rappers and generally a very popular status symbol. After unexpected market demand, Hummer – an Indiana-based division of GM- recently introduced two low-cost, downsized models in the hundred thousand dollars range, thus moving the brand below its prior designation as premium luxury. This led it to become a huge hit amongst youngsters. For a brand to be successful, it requires branding to be done in an effective manner. Initial surveys must be carried out to find how a product can be advertised. Surveys consist of finding out the expectations of the target market. The design requirements of the vehicle, with respect to the customers must be analysed thoroughly (Fourner Yao, 1977). Branding also requires an organization to learn from previous mistakes; mistakes of not just that organization, but also of the other organizations. Branding Failures Several brands have failed due to the implementation of improper branding strategies for certain automobiles. These strategies intended to improve the image held by customers of the brand failed despite many of the vehicles being arguably better than those of some of the most prominent brands. Cadillac Motors, which later became a division of General Motors, dates from the early days of mass-produced automobiles (Wreden, 2003). It is the oldest surviving American luxury car brand. Once a synonym for the highest quality in vehicles, by the 1950s the brand had become the favorite of Texan oil millionaires, Arab potentates and Elvis Presley, who habitually gave them away by the dozens to his entourage. Cadillac began to lose market share in the seventies with increased competition from Ford’s Lincoln division, and the introduction of other luxury vehicles –primarily of Japanese manufacture who marketed to a younger, newly-affluent demographic. Cadillac unsuccessfully respo nded by releasing a downsized model, the Cimarron, 1982-88, driving brand perception lower. Today, Cadillac is perceived as a retiree’s car, while it retains some small segment of the limousine business. The branding technique they adopted was to reduce the size of the vehicles. However, the price and the basic design did not change. Due to this, most people never opted for this kind of vehicle; the younger demographic especially never bought this type of a car. Many new vehicles had been released by other brands which were more stylish in design and looks thereby attracting more customers to buy their brands whereas Cadillac never concentrated on the marketing and branding strategies and continued with their traditional car designs. Even reducing the price ranges did not bring about any change in the fortunes of Cadillac. Therefore, Cadillac became the retiree’s brand. Branding Failures can occur from brand extensions. Extending a brand refers to adding the brand to o ther products. If an organization manufacturing cars starts selling T-Shirts and other stuff under its brand name, the organization is extending its brand (Broniarczyk Joseph, 1994). Extensions might involve changing the design structure, adding n

From Black and White to HDTV, TVs grip on our Young :: essays research papers fc

From Black and White, to HDTV, TV’s Grip on our Young   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  How many televisions do you have in your house? Do you watch those TV’s for more than an hour a day? How much is too much television? These questions are asked by people everyday, with each question comes a varied response depending on who is asked. Children are very impressionable. How does television affect the children that are between the ages of ten and sixteen? Could the affect be positive or is it negative. People who watch violent television as children behave more aggressively even 15 years later, according to one of the few TV violence studies to follow children into adulthood (Grossman 43). The effect appears in both sexes regardless even of how aggressive a person was as a child, researchers found (Kline 138). â€Å"Experts say the results are no surprise, but added that the study is important because it used a wide range of measures, included many participants and showed the effect in females as well as males† (Noble 113). â€Å"Huesmann said televised violence suggests to young children that aggression is appropriate in some situations, especially when it's used by   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Gleason 2 charismatic heroes. It also erodes a natural aversion to violence† (Comstock 14). The American Psychological Association has said that viewing violence on TV promotes aggressive behavior, particularly in children. Other mental-health and medical groups have taken similar stands (Nobel 178). Children who play actively will have more of an opportunity to develop their senses than children who are passively viewing (Grossman 192). The health aspects of watching TV can vary, almost entirely bad. While watching TV, the eyes are practically motionless and `defocused' in order to take in the whole screen. Constant movement is required for healthy eye development (parenthoodweb Oct 24). Viewing affects not only eye mechanics, but also the ability to focus and pay attention. Since TV is more visual than auditory, children's sense of hearing is not being used to its full extent. Active listening is a skill that needs to be developed. Children need practice in hearing different things to gain that needed stimulation. Also, when TV is constantly on, the sense of hearing may be dulled by the persistent background noise (apa Oct 30). Studies show that the consumption of alcohol is shown or mentioned in 80 percent of prime-time programs (Cook   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Gleason 3 32). Alcoholic beverages outnumber the other beverages consumed on TV, but the pattern of drinking is virtually the opposite of the pattern found in the real world.