Feminism, its development since the 18th century and how it affected Research Paper

Feminism, its development since the 18th century and how it affected society of today - Research Paper Example The feminists assert that there are very few inherent differences that are unchangeable between men and women. There are however many individual differences between men and women. These individual and inherent differences are however not to imply that one gender is more capable than the other. The equality that is advocated for by the movement refers to equality in accordance to the laws of the land as well as social, political, an economic equality. While most people assume that feminism is a single or unified school of thought, it can be seen that the movement has evolved in three major waves. Each wave of has had distinct features or characteristics and can be seen to have been advocating for different rights. While some have criticized the movement, it has led to some major achievement for the women. It is important for one to understand the situation that the women were living in before the rise of the feminist movement. Such an understanding will help one to understand the chan ges that were brought about by the feminist movement. At the beginning of the 18thcentury, women did not receive any recognition under law. They were pronounced as being civilly dead when they got married. They were therefore not allowed to sign any contracts and they could not control the wages that they received. Their wages were controlled by the men in their lives. They were not given an opportunity to get an education and their position was expected to be at home taking care of their homesteads. A comparison of this situation with the current situation in the society reveals that a lot of changes have taken place. Most of the changes and the rights that the women have been able to achieve are as a result of the feminist activities (O’Neil 32). The influence of the feminist movement is seen to be reflected in the different areas of life in the society. The movement influences the social lives of the people and their economic life as well. The impact of feminism can also b e seen in the literary world. Many female writers chose to address the various feminist issues that faced them in their lives through their writing. As the different waves of feminism changed, so did the content for the writers who are considered as feminists. Because each wave addressed different social and economic issues, and this was reflected in their writing. The ‘first wave of feminism’ can be traced back to the late 18th century period. This wave targeted the injustices that were officially mandated and that were directed at women. The first wave of this movement was interconnected with other movements that sought reforms in the society. Such movements included the abolition movement and the temperance movement. The highlight of the wave was marked by the publication of Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1972. The end of this wave can be seen to have been marked by the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Th is amendment gave the women voting rights and marked the beginning of the process of political empowerment for the women. The feminists during this period included Lucy Stone, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Helen Pitts among others. The movement also saw such achievements as educational opportunities for women. The first

Gay perspectives in Arab communities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Gay perspectives in Arab communities - Essay Example Gay perspectives in Arab communities This type of belief could lead a man to be uncomfortable with other men, because he is sexually attracted to men, which it is weird in Arab communities. The narrator Rickel in the story â€Å"pass† didn’t show directly that he is gay. He is unwilling to express it openly. A person has to think deeply to understand that the narrator is gay. A person can realize that the narrator is gay through phallic symbols and the situation in which he is trying to pass. The text reveals how the narrator was structured as a gay from his childhood; however he wants the audience to experience the difficulties he was trying to pass through the town he lived in, people that was the main affects, and challenging of hiding his homosexuality. There is an Arabic saying that from the black duck comes a white duck. This means that whatever was the color or the culture that a man is from, he can be just the opposite. For example, the narrator lives in a town called Tempe; it is a small town and all the people know each other. There is only one barbershop and one drug store. From their description, it is likely that the people in the city are close-minded, and they have their own culture and traditions. They don’t have tourists. The small community is like the black duck the somehow produces the strange, white duck, the narrator, he lived in a community where it was believed that no man would think of being gay, however, he did.

What Makes People Believe In Astrology?

What Makes People Believe In Astrology? This research paper is based on how horoscope is affecting people and what are the reasons that people believe on it. What is the behind force that made people to go for horoscope (motives). Research will be based on survey and will conclude it on statistical results. Horoscope is the guesses of daily activities in our every day life and a Birth map is a depiction of the wheel of our planets, houses and positions in that and the explanations of our plan wheel point out the potentials and weak points in our physical and emotional composition which gives us imminent on how to narrate and obtain along with others in order to create our life a better-off and valuable voyage and a scheme to observe if a match between us and another will present us a greater possibility at pleasure based on the mixture of our charts. A Birth Chart and Interpretation or either a Horoscope and compatibility statement cannot be precise for everyone born under a exact Zodiac sign unless the Astrologer has correct information about the moment of birth, date of birth and place of birth. Place of residence is important in the directing of daily Horoscopes. At times the moment is not known and an Astrologer will use 10:05 P.M. which, while not as correct as it should be, will p ut you as close to the target as possible. Without exact information everything we read about our sign anywhere will be generalized information. Astrology is not only influenced by transmissible factors and the surroundings, but also by the position of our solar system at the time of birth. The planets are regarded as central life-forces, the tools we live by as well as the basis of our very gist. These forces take on different forms, depending on their zodiacal arrangement and on the manner they relate to one another. The aspects formed between the planets depict their relationships, the placement of the planets in relation to the place of birth tells us about their appearance in the specialty of life represented by the astrological houses. BACKGROUND AND HISTORY Babylonian Empires In Babylonian Empires era people were trying to associate happenings like famine and war with other incidents they monitored in the skies. At one point it was considered by historian and archaeologists that all astrological arrangements invented in Babylon, but that conjecture was rejected because of the separate astrology which exists between the Mayans and Aztecs. Babylonian ministers were frequently called upon to use their associations with the gods to calculate the future, and their two rule ways of doing this were examine the liver of animal and analyzing signs in the sky. The aged known astrological manuscripts are written in the first half of the Hammurabi Dynasty, around in the middle of 18th century BCE. Attempts at analyzing the sky ultimately widen into astrology that we have today. Between 612 and 539 BCE, the sky was separated to twelve fractions, comprising the twelve symbols of the zodiac. Once numerical astronomy expanded under the Persians (539-331 BCE), it became feasible to determine some of the movement of diverse planets and the moon, permitting for the improvement of horoscopes related to what we observe today. The oldest known horoscope is a natural horoscope not different the type formed by astrologers in this century. There is not actually missing of the unique tablet, and all we can read of the forecast itself is fundamentally, things will be good for you. Even then, astrologers had started perfectly the art of non-false able statements. I am focusing on Horoscope in astrology that is why its important to give brief introduction about horoscope Houses of Horoscope These twelve houses of horoscope tell us about the different regions of our lives. The foundation of every house is called the cusp. Each house has natural symbol and natural ruling sign. Here is the chart of signs beginning with Aries and ending up at Pisces. Here are listed the twelve houses with the ruler ships, classification and a brief summary of the area of life depicted there: House: 1st Classification: Angular Natural sign: Aries Planet Ruler: Mars House Affairs: The Ascendant. Your projected behavior, temperament, health, how you react to those around you, and your appearance. House: 2nd Classification: Succedent Natural sign: Taurus Planet Ruler: Venus House Affairs: Your material side. Security, gains, losses, financial condition and your concern about these matters. House: 3rd Classification: Cadent Natural sign: Gemini Planet Ruler: Mercury House Affairs: Your mental aptitudes, early childhood, everyday communication, your siblings, and early education. House: 4th Classification: Angular Natural sign: Cancer Planet Ruler: Moon House Affairs: Domestic affairs and conditions, the nurturing parent, the home, and the family life. The end of life. House: 5th Classification: Succedent Natural sign: Leo Planet Ruler: Sun House Affairs: Love affairs, procreation, your children, creative expression, luck and speculation. House: 6th Classification: Cadent Natural sign: Virgo Planet Ruler: Mercury House Affairs: The work environment, the employer and employees, the routine, health issues, hygiene. House: 7th Classification: Angular Natural sign: Libra Planet Ruler: Venus House Affairs: Marriage partner, business partners, contracts, joint endeavors. House: 8th Classification: Succedent Natural sign: Scorpio Planet Ruler: Pluto House Affairs: Attitude toward life/death, possessions of others, wills and legacies; sex and regeneration. House: 9th Classification: Cadent Natural sign: Sagittarius Planet Ruler: Jupiter House Affairs: Religion, philosophy, publishing, higher learning, distant travel, foreign countries. House: 10th Classification: Angular Natural sign: Capricorn Planet Ruler: Saturn House Affairs: Reputation, social status, fame or the lack of it, worldly standing, the other parent. House: 11th Classification: Succedent Natural sign: Aquarius Planet Ruler: Uranus House Affairs: Friends, clubs, organizations, associations, goals, hopes, and wishes House: 12th Classification: Cadent Natural sign: Pisces Planet Ruler:Neptune House Affairs: The subconscious mind, hidden resources, hidden problems, social responsibility. Mentioned introduction, history and background of the astrology and horoscope because I think for any research you should have acknowledged about your topic. Horoscope is becoming popular. People read it may be just for fun or they have strong belief in it. Media is promoting horoscope through magazines, radio, television, and internet. So people have easy access to it. In newspapers and magazines there is a separate column for it. In television we can see people having laptops in their hands and they take live calls and ask for ones time and place of birth so they can tell them what their predicted future is, in radio we can hear our daily horoscope. Apart from newspaper, TV, radio we have an access of internet and on that we can subscribe our email address to specific website or astrologer and they can email us our daily horoscope. Basically this research paper is focusing on horoscope and why do people believe in that. PROBLEM STATEMENT What are the factors that are leading people to believe in astrology and what gender is more prone to believe in it? OBJECTIVES SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MOTIVES Hectic and tough routines of life have made people to believe in horoscopes. They find it easy to know about their future beforehand. So they spend their day according to that. Women used it for households and men in business matters. People are keen to know about their love life, career, luck etc. These things have been affecting our generations because we have started believing and relying on it so much and feel satisfied. High competition among people forced them to believe in superstitious possessions. Every body wishes for best and want to fulfil their needs. But the frenetic life of people made them to go for horoscope so they have better understanding of their forecast. DIFFERENCE IN INCLINATION TOWARDS HOROSCOPE AMONGST MALES AND FEMALES According to research females are more inclined towards horoscope. The reason may be they have enough time to think on these issues and they are more curious than men. Men leave their homes early morning and come back late. They spent most of their time outside and have busy schedule. When they back home their preference would be their family. But it doesnt mean that women are free all the time. Its just a natural phenomenon that women are more inquisitive about their family and enthusiastic to know what will come next in their lives. Females are more superstitious which makes them eager to compare their current lives with the horoscope that comes in newspaper, television, radio and magazines. Men, by nature are far more realistic. They believe in facts more rather than going for horoscopes. SIGNIFICANCE The purpose of this study is to evaluate why people read, view or listen about their horoscope, and what are the main motives that lead them to read horoscopes. MOTIVES Love life The interesting fact is that people read their horoscope because they are keen to know about their love life and if they are in relationship how long it will go. The attuned factor is also involved. They wanted to know that the temperament of both is similar with each other or not. And what personality features are different. Luck People are eager to know what color, number, or stone is lucky for them e.g. when they come to know about these specific things they try to wear that color or stone on special occasions of their lives and try to keep special things on dates that stand for their lucky number. Guidance People read horoscope and consider it as a guide. Many people are addicted to it and cant spend their day without reading it. They feel satisfied when they have an idea about their future and try to act accordingly whats written in their part. Entertainment Some or many people read astrology just for fun and take it as an entertainment. Its just because they dont believe in it and read it to pass time or may be to reduce their curiosity. And most of them read it because they believe every body else is reading. Relaxation People go for horoscope because they want to lighten up their selves. Life is like a test and they want to pass the test by knowing the future ahead. It gives them an opportunity to plan their daily lives according to the predictions provided in horoscopes so they can achieve the maximum success. Escape Horoscope is another way of escaping from reality. People are infuriated of their chaotic routine and want tension free time so they go for horoscope. Control People want control over their lives; have desire for reducing their worries so they read, view or listen about their horoscope. By horoscopes people believe that their future has been forecasted, this gives them an opportunity to make their decisions according to it. It gives them the satisfaction that they will never fail as they have taken all the precautionary measures. This way they actually try to control their lives and make everything impossible, possible. Affection Some people are not interested in knowing about their own horoscope. They are curious about whats going on in their beloveds life and how will be their future and will they be the part of their lives or not. Or the other thing is that they wanted to know what kind of personality they have, and what zodiac would be the best companion for them. Pass time Some people go for horoscope just because they have to pass time. They dont have anything else to do. So they pick up a piece of paper and start reading it or use other sources for example. Radio, internet, TV etc and sooner or later it will become their routine. Satisfaction Satisfaction is again one important motive. Who are habitual of reading it feel satisfied otherwise they have a feel that they have missed something important or incomplete. For the believers, it is important that you find two astrologers for yourself and observe who is telling you the right picture. And what other has missed. The one you find better stick with him/her. A good astrologer is like a good mechanic. An expert mechanic fix out the problem for so long whereas, a bad one may take more money but his work would not be reliable. Same is the case with good and bad astrologer, a fine astrologer see all aspects and tell you nearly accurate and qualitative portrayal about you, while a bad one does not focus on every aspect and gives his prediction over all. LITERATURE REVIEW This research paper is based on uses and gratifications of horoscope and what gender is more likely to believe in it. It is so clear in the paper that people feel satisfied when they read horoscope. Robert Lomas study showed that women are more into horoscope, it was highlighted that one of his friend believed in astrology although she was a working and educated woman, whenever she had to start some work shell go through her horoscope. The lady had knowledge about other zodiac signs and she could relate personalities with their signs. A survey in Britain showed that 70% women read their horoscopes regularly whether its for fun, love, luck etc. Many of them know their zodiac signs and 85% agreed that the sign depicts their personality. Another survey done by Jeanette Winterton in USA showed that 98% of the population knows their signs and 66% go through their horoscope weekly. The survey showed that many people are interested in their horoscopes. Kendrick Frazier research again demons trated that women are the strong believers than men and same is the case with new generation that youth is more into it than their elders. Durand and Martin study showed that group who scored well in scientific knowledge has less belief. But Dr. Thomas gray studied was the same and according to that university education hadnt done much in minimizing the believes. Professor Hans from London University found that every third one in Western countries is into astrology, though its for fun but they do it. Marcia Montenegros point of view is that you do not read horoscope because if you are reading it just for fun you would be habitual to it and more curious and fascinated about your future. All of us have different thinking and we cant change each others mind. The studies show that people are into astrology because they have almost same reasons. Fun part is one of the dominating reasons in every study. And other reasons are one and the same for example: love, money, curiosity, guidance etc. In every case women were seen more interested in horoscope. It was found in one of the study that during pregnancy astrology works as a stress management for women. RESEARCH QUESTIONS R Q 1) Are there any differences in men and women in frequencies of believing on horoscope? R Q2) Are there any differences in men and women in psychological and social motives in reading/viewing horoscope? For collecting data, the interpersonal motives were considered important that are: love, luck. Entertainment, escape, affection, pass time, relaxation etc to know why horoscope is being viewed and which gender is more corresponding to it. METHODOLOGY This research paper is conducted through survey and quantitative in nature. Questionnaire was based on close-ended questions. The purpose of research was to know which gender is more concerned in horoscope. Questionnaire was distributed to male and female and the idea of this was to know who more into horoscope is and what the factors behind it are. It was given in the age of 20-50 educated and less educated people but the ratio among male and female were same. Variables of the research were interpersonal motives that are discussed before love, fun, relaxation, affection etc. SURVEY ANALYSIS Age: 20 to 50 Gender Female 27 Male 23Survey was based on equal distribution of questionnaire as in 25 to male and 25 to female but this shows that the percentage of women is more Occupation: Students (11 males, 10 females) Teacher (4 males, 4 females) Housewives (9 females) Clerk (3 male, 2 females) Shopkeepers (7 males) Zodiac: 1) How much do you believe in astrology? Very much Not so much Slightly Not at all The graph shows that females are more who believes very much in horoscope and males marked more to not so much. In slightly both have almost same percentage whereas, in not at all the percentage of females are again more than males. 2) What is the frequent source you use for checking your horoscope? Newspaper Magazines Television Internet Other (specify) Most females get to know about their horoscope through newspapers, TV and magazines because its an easy source for women whereas the usage of internet to know about their horoscope is more from males. For males internet is an easy access and they are fond of electrical things specially spent most of their time on computer. Other options included radio and astrologer, and this showing that men are dominant in this portion of graph. 3) Do you relate astrology with religion? Yes Somehow Not at all Females are more who relate religion and astrology, and the percentage of men is high in not at all. Whereas in (somehow) its almost same. 4) Do you spend your day as predicted in your horoscope? Very much Not so much Slightly Not at all Females dominating very much part of the graph and not at all is dominated by men. Not so much and slightly are nearly same. This is because women have to stay home and they do not as practical and tough life as men have. So they like to spent their day according to their horoscope. 5) Is reading about your horoscope, in your daily routine? Very much Not so much Slightly Not at all Again females are dominating in very much section, whereas men in not at all. Women have time to read about their horoscope. After getting free from the house chores they take out time for horoscope. 6) If you read your horoscope, why would you do so? For fun For advice Habit Pass time Other (specify) Men do it for fun; females have a habit of it. Women also take a horoscope as an adviser. 7) Do you read out the signs of people that you are in relationship with? (Affection) Yes Slightly Not at all Women are more keen to know about what is going on and what will going to happened with their loved one. In slightly the percentage is almost same and not at is dominated by men. 8) Do you think your zodiac depicts your personality? Very much Not so much Slightly Not at all Females are again who thinks that their zodiac depicts their personality. The above graphs shows that the females are strong believers than men, that is why they act according to that what has written in their horoscope and this is the reason may be that they have a view that their zodiac portrays their personality. 9) Do you read horoscope when you are disturbed or conscious about something? Strongly agree Agree Feel neutral Strongly disagree Disagree Females are more who read out their horoscope in bad conditions, man are more in agree, men feel neutral in knowing about their future in stresses conditions. SURVEY CONCLUSION Survey questionnaire was equally distributed to males and females. And on the same ratio of education, working females were also the part of the survey but results that graphs are showing that females are more into astrology and this shows that women read do not read it just for fun, its kind of habit for them and they take it as an good adviser. The reason behind all this is because they are more curious, possessive, superstitious or eager to know about their and others future. DISCUSSION This research paper views that people are dependent on horoscope. It helps them in building up their confidence that what is going to happened in their future. Tensions and pressure of daily life made them to search the cure, so they go for reading horoscope. By knowing about their future they will be able to prepare themselves according to the coming situation. This need of people has increased the value of horoscope and made people reliant on it. The needs of poor and privileged, educated and illiterate but more or less they have a belief in astrology. The ratio of female is more than males. In every question females are more positive respondent than men. This is an extremely amazing situation that in this technological era astrology is still popular among people and they actually believe on that. CONCLUSION This whole research paper and the result show that females are more prone towards horoscope. And the factors behind reading horoscope are psychological, religious and social. Male female both go through their horoscope and consider it helpful for themselves to know about their forecast, so that they can manage in bad conditions and they would have idea what is coming next in their lives. Astrology is popular among people and they feel satisfied when read about horoscope. Our society is being admired by astrology and it became their habit to know about their horoscope. Females are more likely to visit horoscope section in newspaper, magazines and TV because these things are easily in range of them. People got the habit from their friends, colleagues or companions. Once they read it just for fun, other time again may be for fun but then it will become their desire to know what will be good for them and whats not. Females are more conscious about their and their beloveds lives so they u sed to follow daily horoscope more, males have busy tough routine and may be their responsibility is just to take care of outdoor activities so they dont get time for it. Females have the habit of inquiry and by considering horoscope it will give help to them.

One Students Observations of an Online Community Essay -- Sell Websit

One Student's Observations of an Online Community   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   An online community is a place where individual users with common interest come together to build relationships with similar people.   Recently I was looking through the Yahoo and MSN websites, searching for an interesting community to join.   Unfortunately, all of the message boards I was interested in had been inactive for over a year.   Online communities must involve growing relationships among active users.   Many people believe that online communities are a waste of time and are destroying our current society.   Howard Rheingold, an author, argues another point of view (92).   Ã‚  Ã‚   Rheingold states that a virtual community is an online group in which relationships are developed through interaction.   He also says that virtual communities are an advance in the uprising technological world.   Virtual communities bring people of different backgrounds and locations together through a common interest (Rheingold 93).   Rheingold shares with his audience stories of young parents rallying together while their infants are in critical condition. This exemplifies that online relationships are important to many people.   Rheingold argues that although we may not experience face to face interaction with fellow online users, it does not keep us from developing a sound and structured society.   It may not be traditional, but online communities are societies that are here to stay.   The relationships developed through online communities will remain only if users post frequently and take a genuine interest in other user's posts (Rheingold 9 2-97).   In an attempt to find a community to join and a group of people I could form growing relationships with I logged on to many diff... ...own at collegehumor.com, growing relationships are almost guaranteed.   This website has brought me to a group of people who I enjoy interacting with.   Although I have not been able to fully integrate into their community, I am hoping that with time, I will be considered a senior myself.   This message board community is a great place to sit back, relax, and let the laughter come.   Works Cited CollegeHumor.com.   Homepage. 28 Oct. 2002.  Ã‚   <http://www.collegehumor.com/bbs/> "God damn headaches."   1 Posting.   Online Posting. 30 Sept.   2002. 7 Oct. 2002 http://www.collegehumor.com/bbs/ "God damn headaches."   6 Posting.   Online Posting. 30 Sept.   2002. 7 Oct. 2002.  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.collegehumor.com/bbs/ Rheingold, Howard.   "The Virtual Community."   The Wired Society.   Ed.   Carol Lea Clark. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.   92-97.   

Marketing Anthropology Essay

Anthropology and marketing (together with consumer research) were once described as ‘linchpin disciplines in parallel intellectual domains’ (Sherry 1985a: 10). To judge from the prevalent literature, however, this view is not shared by many anthropologists, who tend to look at markets (for example, Carrier 1997) and exchange rather than at marketing per se (Lien 1997 is the obvious exception here). For their part, marketers, always open to new ideas, have over the decades made – albeit eclectic (de Groot 1980:131) – use of the work of anthropologists such as Claude Levi-Strauss and Mary Douglas whose aims in promulgating their ideas on binary oppositions, totemism and grid and group were at the time far removed from the endeavour of marketing both as a discipline and as practice. Can anthropology really be of use to marketing? Can the discipline in effect market itself as an effective potential contributor to solving the problems faced by marketers? There is no reason why not. After all, it is anthropologists who point out that there is more than one market and that these markets, like the Free Market beloved by economists, are all socio-cultural constructions. In this respect, what they have to say about the social costs of markets, as well as about the non-market social institutions upon which markets depends and the social contexts that shape them (cf. Carruthers and Babb 2000:219-222), is extremely pertinent to marketers anxious to come up with definitive answers as to why certain people buy certain products and how to persuade the rest of the world to do so. At the same time, however, there are reasons why anthropology probably cannot be of direct use to marketing. In particular, as we shall see in the following discussion of marketing practices in a Japanese advertising agency, anthropology suffers from the fact that its conclusions are based on long-term immersion in a socio-cultural ‘field’ and that its methodology is frequently unscientific, subjective and imprecise. As part of their persuasive strategy, on the other hand, proponents of marketing need to present their discipline as objective, scientific, speedy and producing the necessary results. How they actually go about obtaining such results, however, and whether they really are as objective and scientific as they claim to their clients, are moot points. This paper focuses, by means of a case study, on how marketing is actually practised in a large advertising agency in Japan and has four main aims. Firstly, it outlines the organisational structure of the agency to show how marketing acts as a social mechanism to back up inter-firm ties based primarily on tenuous personal relationships. Secondly, it reveals how these same interpersonal relations can affect the construction of apparently ‘objective’ marketing strategies. Thirdly, it focuses on the problem of how all marketing campaigns are obliged to shift from ‘scientific’ to ‘artistic’ criteria as statistical data, information and analysis are converted into 1 linguistic and visual images for public consumption. Finally, it will make a few tentative comments on the relations between anthropology and marketing, with a view to developing a comparative theory of advertising as a marketing system, based on the cultural relativity of a specific marketing practice in a Japanese advertising agency (cf. Arnould 1995:110). The Discipline, Organisation and Practice of Marketing The Marketing Division is the engine room of the Japanese advertising agency in which I conducted my research in 1990. At the time, this agency handled more than 600 accounts a year, their value varying from several million to a few thousand dollars. The Marketing Division was almost invariably involved in some way in the ad campaigns, cultural and sporting events, merchandising opportunities, special promotions, POP constructions, and various other activities that the agency carried out on behalf of its clients. Exceptions were those accounts involving media placement or certain kinds of work expressly requested by a client – like, for example, the organisation of a national sales force meeting for a car manufacturer. Even here, however, there was often information that could be usefully relayed back to the Marketing Division (the number and regional distribution of the manufacturer’s sales representatives, as well as possible advance information on new products and/or services to be offered in the coming year). Marketing Discipline As Marianne Lien (1997:11) points out, marketing is both a discipline and a practice. The main aims as a discipline of the Marketing Division were (and, of course, still are): firstly, to acquire as much information as possible from consumers about their clients’ products and services; secondly, to acquire as much information as possible, too, from clients about their own products and services; and, thirdly, to use strategically both kinds of information acquired to develop new accounts. Marketing thus provided those working in the Marketing Division with the dispassionate data that account executives needed in their personal networking with (potential) clients whom they cajoled, persuaded, impressed and pleaded with to part with (more) money. Marketing Organisation In order to achieve the three overall objectives outlined above, the agency established a certain set of organisational features to enable marketing practice to take place. Firstly, the Marketing Division, which consisted of almost 90 members, was structured into three separate, but interlocking, sub-divisions. These consisted of Computer Systems; Market Development and Merchandising; and Marketing. The last was itself sub-divided into three departments, each of which was broken down into three or four sections. 1 Each section consisted of from six to a dozen members, led by a Section Leader, under whom they worked in teams of two to three on an account. These teams were not fixed. Thus one member, A, might work with another, B, under the Section Leader (SL) on a contact lens advertising campaign, but find herself assigned to worked with C under SL on an airline company’s business class service account, and with D under SL on a computer manufacturer’s consumer survey. In this respect, the daily life of members of the Marketing Note that, unlike the Marketing department in Viking foods discussed by Lien. Department was similar to that of product managers described by Lien (1997:69), being characterised by ‘frequent shifts from one activity to another, a wide network of communications, and a considerable amount of time spent in meetings or talking on the telephone’. Secondly, tasks (or accounts) were allocated formally through the hierarchical divisional structure – by departments first, then by sections – according to their existing responsibilities and perceived suitability for the job in hand. Each SL then distributed these tasks to individual members on the basis of their current overall workloads. At the same time, however, there was an informal allocation of accounts involving individuals. Each SL or DL could take on a job directly from account executives handling particular accounts on behalf of their clients. Here, prior experiences and personal contacts were important influences on AEs’ decisions as to whether to go through formal or informal channels of recruitment. The account executive in charge of the NFC contact lens campaign described in my book (Moeran 1996), for example, went directly to a particular SL in the Marketing Department because of some smart work that the latter had done for the AE on a different account some months previously. Mutual respect had been established and the contact lens campaign provided both parties with an opportunity to assess and, in the event, positively validate their working relationship. There were certain organisational advantages to the ways in which accounts were distributed in the manner described here. Firstly, by freely permitting interpersonal relations between account executives and marketers, the Agency ensured that there was competitiveness at each structural level of department and section. Such competition was felt to be healthy for the Agency as a whole, and to encourage its continued growth. Secondly, by assigning individual members of each section in the Marketing Department to working in different combinations of people on different tasks, the Agency ensured that each member of the Marketing Department received training in a wide variety of marketing problems and was obliged to interact fully with fellow section members, thereby promoting a sense of cooperation, cohesion and mutual understanding. This in itself meant that each section developed the broadest possible shared knowledge of marketing issues, because of the knowledge gained by individual members and the interaction among them. Marketing Practice Accounts were won by the Agency primarily through the liaison work conducted with a (potential) client by an account executive (who might be a very senior manager or junior ‘salesman’ recruited only a few years earlier). Once an agreement was made between Agency and client – and such an agreement might be limited to the Agency’s participation in a competitive presentation, the outcome of which might lead to an account being established – the AE concerned would put together an account team. An account team consists of the AE in charge (possibly with assistants); the Marketing Team (generally of 2 persons under a Marketing Director [MD], but sometimes much larger, depending on the size of the account and the work to be done); the Creative Team (consisting of Creative Director [CD], Copywriter, and Art Director [AD] as a minimum, but usually including two ADs – one for print-, the other for TV-related work); and Media Planner/Buyer(s). The job of the account team is to carry out successfully the task set by the client, and to this end meets initially for an orientation meeting in which the issues and problems relayed by the client to the AE are explained and discussed to all members. 2 Prior to this, however, the AE provides the marketing team with all the information and data that he has been able to extract from the client (a lot of it highly confidential to the company concerned). The marketing team, therefore, tends to come prepared and to have certain quite specific questions regarding the nature of the statistics provided, the target market, retail outlets, and so on. If it has done its homework properly – which is not always the case, given the number of different accounts on which the team’s members are working and the pressure of work that they are under – the marketing team may well have several pertinent suggestions for further research. It is on the basis of these discussions that the AE then asks the MD to carry out such research as is thought necessary for the matter in hand. In the meantime, the creative team is asked to mull over the issues generally and to think of possible ways of coping ‘creatively’ (that is, linguistically and visually) with the client’s marketing problems. Back in the Marketing Department, the MD will tell his subordinates to carry out specific tasks, such as a consumer survey to find out who precisely makes use of a particular product and why. This kind of task is fairly mechanical in its general form, since the Agency does this sort of work for dozens of clients every year, but has to be tailored to the present client’s particular situation, needs and expectations. The MD will therefore discuss his subordinate’s proposal, make some suggestions to ensure that all points are overed (and that may well include some additional questions to elicit further information from the target audience that has taken on importance during their discussion), and then give them permission to have the work carried out. All surveys of this kind are subcontracted by the Agency to marketing firms and research organisations of one sort or another. This means that the marketing team’s members are rarely involved in direct face-to-face contact or interaction with the consumers of the products that they wish to advertise,3 except when small ‘focus group’ interviews take place (usually in one of the Agency’s buildings). The informal nature of such groups, the different kinds of insights that they can yield, and the need to spot and pursue particular comments mean that members of the marketing team should be present to listen to and, as warranted, direct the discussion so that the Agency’s particular objectives are achieved. In general, however, the only evidence of consumers in the Agency is indirect, through reports, statistics, figures, data analyses and other information that, paradoxically, are always seen to be insufficient or ‘incomplete’ (cf. Lien 1997:112). Once the results of the survey are returned, the marketers enter them into their computers (since all such information is stored and can be used to generate comparative data for other accounts as and when required). They can make use of particular programmes to sort and analyse such data, but ultimately they need to be able to present their results in readily comprehensible form to other members of the account team. Here again, the MD tends to ensure that the information presented at the next meeting is to the point and properly hierarchised in terms of importance. This leads to the marketing team’s putting forward things like: a positioning statement, slogan, purchasing decision The Media Planners do not usually participate in these early meetings since their task is primarily to provide information of suitable media, and slots therein, for the finished campaign to be placed in. 3 A similar point is made by Lien (1997. 11) in her study of Viking Foods. Focus Groups usually consist of about half a dozen people who represent by age, gender, socio-economic grouping and so on the type of target audience being addressed, and who have agreed to talk about (their attitudes towards) a particular product or product range – usually in exchange for some gift or money. Interviews are carried out in a small meeting room (that may have a one-way mirror to enable outside observation) and tend to last between one and two hours. 4 2 4 odel (high/low involvement; think/feel product relationship), product message concept, and creative frame. One of the main objectives of this initial – and, if properly done, only – round of research is to discover the balance between what are terms product, user and end benefits, since it is these factors that determine the way in which an ad campaign should be presented and, therefore, how the creative team should visualise the marketing problems analysed and ensuing suggestions from the marketing team. It is here that we come to the crux of marketing as practised in an advertising agency (whether in Japan or elsewhere). Creative people tend to be suspicious of marketing people and vice-versa. This is primarily because marketers believe that they work rationally and that the creative frames that they produce are founded on objective data and analyses. Creative people, on the other hand, believe that their work should be ‘inspired’, and that such inspiration can take the place at the expense of the data and analyses provided for their consideration. As a result, when it comes to producing creative work for an ad campaign, copywriters and creative directors tend not to pay strict attention to what the marketing team has told them. For example, attracted by the idea of a particular celebrity or filming location, they may come up with ideas that in no way meet the pragmatic demands of a particular ad campaign that may require emphasis on product benefits that are irrelevant to the chosen location or celebrity suggested for endorsement. This does not always happen, of course. A good and professional creative team – and such teams are not infrequent – will follow the marketing team’s instructions. In such cases, their success is based on a creative interpretation of the data and analyses provided. Agency-Client Interaction If there is some indecision and argument among different elements of the account team – and it is the presiding account executive’s job to ensure that marketers and creatives do not come to blows over their disagreements – they almost invariably band together when meeting and presenting their plans to the client. Such meetings can take place several, even more than a dozen, times during the course of an account team’s preparations for an ad campaign. At most of them the MD will be present, until such time as it is clear that the client has accepted the Agency’s campaign strategy and the creative team has to fine-tune the objectives outlined therein. Very often, therefore, the marketing team will not stay on a particular account long enough to learn of its finished result, although a good AE will keep his MD abreast of creative developments and show him the (near) finalised campaign prior to the client’s final approval. But marketers do not get involved in the production side of a campaign (studio photography, television commercial filming, and so on) – unless one of those concerned knows what is going on when, happens to be nearby at the time, and drops in to see how things are going. In other words, the marketing team’s job is to see a project through until accepted by the client. It will then dissolve and its members will be assigned to new accounts. Advertising Campaigns: A Case Study To illustrate in more detail particular examples of marketing practice in the Agency, let me cite as a case study the preparation of contact lens campaign in Japan. This example is illuminating because it reveals a number of typical problems faced by an advertising agency in the formulation and execution of campaigns on behalf of its clients. These include the interface between marketing and creative people within an agency and the interpretation of marketing analysis and data; the 5 transposition of marketing analysis into ‘creative’ (i. e. linguistic, visual and design) ideas; the interface between agency and client in the ‘selling’ of a campaign proposal; and the problems of having to appeal to more than one ‘consumer’ target. When the Nihon Fibre Corporation asked the Agency to prepare an advertising campaign for its new Ikon Breath O2 oxygen-passing GCL hard contact lenses in early 1990, it provided a considerable amount of product information with which to help and guide those concerned. This information included the following facts: firstly, with a differential coefficient (DK factor) of 150, Ikon Breath O2 had the highest rate of oxygen permeation of all lenses currently manufactured and marketed in Japan. As a result, secondly, Ikon Breath O2 was the first lens authorized for continuous wear by Japan’s Ministry of Health. Thirdly, the lens was particularly flexible, dirt and water resistant, durable, and of extremely high quality. The client asked the Agency to confirm that the targeted market consisted of young people and to create a campaign that would help NFC capture initially a minimum three per cent share of the market, rising to ten per cent over three years. The Agency immediately formed an account team, consisting of eight members all told. Their first step was to arrange for the marketing team to carry out its own consumer research before proceeding further. A detailed survey – of 500 men and women – was worked out in consultation with the account executive and the client, and was executed by a market research company subcontracted by the Agency. Results confirmed that the targeted audience for the Ikon Breath O2 advertising campaign should be young people, but particularly young women, between the ages of 18 and 27 years, since it was they who were most likely to wear contact lenses. At the same time, however, the survey also revealed that there was little brand loyalty among contact lens wearers so that, with effective advertising, it should be possible to persuade users to shift from their current brand to Ikon Breath O2 lenses. It also showed that young women were not overly concerned with price provided that lenses were safe and comfortable to wear, which meant that Ikon Breath O2’s comparatively high price in itself should not prove a major obstacle to brand switching or sales. On a less positive note, however, the account team also discovered that users were primarily concerned with comfort and were not interested in the technology that went into the manufacture of contact lenses (thereby obviating the apparent advantage of Ikon Breath O2’s high DK factor of which NFC was so proud); and that, because almost all contact lens users consulted medical specialists prior to purchase, the advertising campaign would have to address a second audience consisting mainly of middle-aged men. All in all, therefore, Ikon Breath O2 lenses had an advantage in being of superb quality, approved by medical experts and recognized, together with other GCL lenses, as being the safest for one’s eyes. Its disadvantages were that NFC had no ‘name’ in the contact lens market and that users knew very little about GCL lenses or contact lenses in general. This meant that the advertising campaign had to be backed up by point of purchase sales promotion (in the form of a brochure) to ensure that the product survived. Moreover, it was clear that Ikon Breath O2’s technical advantage (the DK 150 factor) would not last long because rival companies would soon be able to make lenses with a differential coefficient that surpassed that developed by NFC. 5 On this occasion, because the advertising budget was comparatively small, the media buyer was not brought in until later stages in the campaign’s preparations. The AE in charge of the NFC account interacted individually with the media buyer and presented the latter’s suggestions to the account team as a whole. 6 As a result of intense discussions following this survey, the account team moved slowly towards what it thought should be as the campaign’s overall ‘tone and manner’. Ideally, advertisements should be information-oriented: the campaign needed to put across a number of points about the special product benefits that differentiated it from similar lenses on the market (in particular, its flexibility and high rate of oxygen-permeation). Practically, however – as the marketing team had to emphasize time and time again – the campaign needed to stress the functional and emotional benefits that users would obtain from wearing Ikon Breath O2 lenses (for example, continuous wear, safety, release from anxiety and so on). This meant that the advertising itself should be emotional (and information left to the promotional brochure) and stress the end benefits to consumers, rather than the lenses’ product benefits. Because the marketing team had concluded that the product’s end benefits should be stressed, copywriter and art director opted for user imagery rather than product characteristics when thinking of ideas for copy and visuals. However, they were thwarted in their endeavours by a number of problems. Firstly, advertising industry self-policing regulations prohibited the use of certain words and images (for example, the notion of ‘safety’, plus a visual of someone asleep while wearing contact lenses), and insisted on the inclusion in all advertising of a warning that the Ikon Breath O2 lens was a medical product that should be purchased through a medical specialist. This constriction meant that the creative team’s could not use the idea of ‘continuous wear’ because, even though so certified by Japan’s Ministry of Health, opticians and doctors were generally of the opinion that Ikon Breath O2 lenses were bound to affect individual wearers in different ways. NFC was terrified of antagonizing the medical world which would often be recommending its product, so the product manager concerned refused to permit the use of any word or visual connected with ‘continuous wear’. Thus, to the account team’s collective dismay, the product’s end benefit to consumers could not be effectively advertised. Secondly, precisely because Ikon Breath O2 lenses had to be recommended by medical specialists, NFC’s advertising campaign needed to address the latter as well as young women users. In other words, the campaign’s tone and manner had to appeal to two totally different segments of the market, while at the same time satisfying those employed in the client company. This caused the creative team immense difficulties, especially because – thirdly – the product manager of NFC’s contact lens manufacturing division was convinced that the high differential coefficient set Ikon Breath O2 lenses apart from all other contact lenses on the market and would appeal to members of the medical profession. So he insisted on emphasizing what he saw as the unique technological qualities of the product. In other words, not only did he relegate young women who were expected to buy the product to secondary importance; he ignored the marketing team’s recommendation that user benefit be stressed. Instead, for a long time he insisted on the creative team’s focussing on product benefit, even though the DK factor was only a marginal and temporary advantage to NFC. As a result of these two sets of disagreements, the copywriter came up with two different key ideas. The first was based on the product’s characteristics, and thus supported the manufacturer’s (but went against his own marketing team’s) product benefit point of view, with the phrase ‘corneal physiology’ (kakumaku seiri). The second also stressed a feature of the product, but managed to emphasize the user benefits that young women could gain from wearing lenses that were both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ (yawarakai). The former headline was the only way to break brand parity and make Ikon Breath O2 temporarily distinct from all other lenses on the market (the product manager liked the distinction; the marketing team disliked the temporary nature of that distinction). At this stage in the negotiations, the account executive in charge felt obliged to tow an obsequious line, but needed to appease his marketing team and ensure that the creative team came up with something else if at all possible, since 7 corneal physiology gave Ikon Breath O2 lenses only a temporary advantage. As a result, the copywriter introduced the word ‘serious’ (majime) into discussions – on the grounds that NFC was a ‘serious’ (majime) manufacturer (it was, after all, a well-known and respected Japanese corporation) which had developed a product that, by a process of assimilation, could also be regarded as ‘serious’; moreover, by a further rubbing-off process, as the marketing team agreed, such ‘seriousness’ could be attributed to users who decided to buy and wear Ikon Breath O2 lenses. In this way, both the distinction between product benefit and user benefit might be overcome. The copywriter’s last idea was the one that broke the deadlock (and it was at certain moments an extremely tense deadlock) between the account team as a whole and members of NFC’s contact lens manufacturing division. After a series of meetings in which copywriter and designer desperately tried to convince the client that the idea of softness and hardness was not a product characteristic, but an image designed to support the benefits to consumers wearing Ikon Breath O2 lenses, the product manager accepted the account team’s proposals in principle, provided that ‘serious’ was used as a back-up selling point. Soft hard’ (yawaraka hard) was adopted as the key headline phrase for the campaign as a whole. It can be seen that the marketing team’s analysis of how NFC should successfully enter the contact lens market met two stumbling blocks during the early stages of preparation for the advertising campaign. The first was within the account team itself, where the copywriter in particular tended to opt for the manufacturer’s approach by emphasising the product benefit of Ikon Breath O2. The second was when the Agency’s account team had to persuade the client to accept its analysis and campaign proposal. But the next major problem facing the account team was how to convert this linguistic rendering of market analysis into visual terms. What sort of visual image would adequately fulfil the marketing aims of the campaign and make the campaign as a whole – including television commercial and promotional materials – readily recognizable to the targeted audience? It was almost immediately accepted by the account team that the safest way to achieve this important aim was to use a celebrity or personality (talent in Japanese) to endorse the product. Here there was little argument, because it is generally recognized in the advertising industry that celebrity endorsement is an excellent and readily appreciated linkage device in multi-media campaigns of the kind requested by NFC. Moreover, since television commercials in Japan are more often than not only fifteen seconds long and therefore cannot include any detailed product information, personalities have proved to be attention grabbers in an image-dominated medium and to have a useful, short-term effect on sales because of their popularity in other parts of the entertainment industry. At the same time, not all personalities come across equally well in the rather differing media of television and magazines or newspapers, so that the account team felt obliged to look for someone who was more than a mere pop idol and who could act. It was here that those concerned encountered the most difficulty. The presence of a famous personality was crucial since s/he would be able to attract public attention to a new product and hopefully draw people into retail outlets to buy Ikon Breath O2 lenses. It was agreed right from the start that the personality should be a young woman, in the same age group as the targeted audience, and Japanese. (After all, a ‘blue eyed foreigner’ endorsing Ikon Breath O2 contact lenses would hardly be appropriate for brown-eyed Japanese. ) Just who this woman should be, however, proved problematic. Tennis players (who could indulge in both ‘hard’ activities and ‘soft’ romance) were discarded early on because the professional season was already in full swing at the time the campaign was being prepared. Classical musicians, while romantic and thus ‘soft’, were not seen to be ‘hard’ enough, while the idea of using a Japanese ‘talent’, Miyazawa Rie (everyone on the account team’s favourite at the time), was reluctantly rejected because, even though photographs of her in the nude were at the time causing a 8 minor sensation among Japanese men interested in soft-porn, she was rather inappropriate for a medical product like a contact lens which was aimed at young women. Any personality chosen had to show certain distinct qualities. One of these was a ‘presence’ (sonzaikan) that would attract people’s attention on the page or screen. Another was ‘topicality’ (wadaisei) that stemmed from her professional activities. A third was ‘future potential’ (nobisei), meaning that the celebrity had not yet peaked in her career, but would attract further widespread media attention and so, it was hoped, indirectly promote Ikon Breath O2 lenses and NFC. Most importantly, however, she had to suit the product. In the early stages of the campaign’s preparations, the creative team found itself in a slight quandary. They wanted to choose a celebrity whose personality fitted the ‘soft-hard’ and ‘serious’ ideas and who would then anchor a particular image to Ikon Breath O2 lenses, although it proved difficult to find someone who would fit the product and appeal to all those concerned. Eventually, the woman chosen was an actress, Sekine Miho, who epitomized the kind of modern woman that the creative team was seeking, but who was also about to star in a national television (NHK) drama series that autumn – a series in which she played a starring role as a ‘soft’, romantic character. Although popularity in itself can act as a straightjacket when it comes to celebrity endorsement of a product, in this case it was judged – correctly, it transpired – that Sekine had enough ‘depth’ (fukasa) to bring a special image to Ikon Breath O2 lenses. Once the celebrity had been decided on, the creative team was able to fix the tone and manner, expression and style of the advertising campaign as a whole. Sekine was a ‘high class’ (or ‘one rank up’ in Japanese-English parlance) celebrity who matched NFC’s image of itself as a ‘high class’ (ichiryu) company and who was made to reflect that sense of eliteness in deportment and clothing. At the same time, NFC was a ‘serious’ manufacturer and wanted a serious, rather than frivolous, personality who could then be photographed in soft-focus, serious poses to suit the serious medical product being advertised. This seriousness was expressed further by means of ery slightly tinted black and white photographs which, to the art director’s – but, not initially, the product manager’s – eye made Sekine look even ‘softer’ in appearance and so match the campaign’s headline of yawaraka hard. This softness was further reinforced by the heart-shaped lens cut at the bottom of every print ad, and on the front of the brochure, which the art director m ade green rather than blue – partly to differentiate the Ikon Breath O2 campaign from all other contact lens campaigns run at that time, and partly to appeal to the fad for ‘ecological’ colours then-current among young women in particular. This case study shows that there is an extremely complex relationship linking marketing and creative aspects of any advertising campaign. In this case, market research showed that Ikon Breath O2 lenses were special because of the safety that derived from their technical quality, but that consumers themselves were not interested in technical matters since their major concern was with comfort. Hence the need to focus the advertising campaign on user benefit. Yet the client insisted on stressing product benefit – a stance made more difficult for the creative team because it could not legally use the only real consumer benefit available to it (continuous wear), and so had to find something that would appeal to both manufacturer and direct and indirect ‘consumers’ of the lens in question. In the end, the ideas of ‘soft hard’ and ‘serious’ were adopted as compromise positions for both client and agency, as well as for creative and marketing teams. Concluding Comments Let us in conclusion try to follow two separate lines of thought. One of these is, as promised, the relationship between marketing and anthropology; the other that between advertising and marketing. 9 Although convergence between anthropology, marketing and consumer research may be growing, the evidence suggested by the case study in this paper is that huge differences still exist. Marketing people in the advertising agency in which I studied may be interested in anthropology; they may even have dipped into the work of anthropologists here and there. But their view of the discipline tends to be rather old-fashioned, and they certainly do not have time to go in for the kind of intensive, detail ethnographic nquiry of consumers that anthropologists might encourage. If anthropologists are to make a useful contribution to marketing, therefore, they need to present their material and analyses succinctly and in readily digestible form, since marketing people hate things that are overcomplicated. It is, perhaps, for this rather than any other reason that someone like Mary Douglas (Douglas and Isherwood 1979) has been so favourably received. In the end, marketing people aim to be positivist, science-like (rather than scientific, as such), and rationalist in their ad campaigns. They aspire to measure and predict on the basis of observer categories, if only because this is the simplest way to sell a campaign to a client. In this respect, they are closer to the kind of sociology and anthropology advocated in the 1940s and 50s (which would explain their adoption of Talcott Parsons’s theory of action, for example), than to the present-day ‘interpretive’ trends in the discipline, and thus favour in their practices an outmoded – and among most anthropologists themselves, discredited – form of discourse. So, ‘if anthropologists are kings of the castle, it is a castle most other people have never heard of’ (Chapman and Buckley 1997: 234). As Malcolm Chapman and Peter Buckley wryly observe, we need perhaps to spend some time entirely outside social anthropology in order to be convinced of the truth of this fact. Secondly, as part of this positivist, science-like approach, marketers in the Japanese advertising agency tended to make clear-cut categories that would be easily understood by both their colleagues in other divisions in the Agency and by their clients. These categories tended to present the consumer world as a series of binary oppositions (between individual and group, modern and traditional, idealist and materialist, and so on [cf. Lien 1997: 202-8]) that they then presented as matrix or quadripartite structures (the Agency’s Purchase Decision Model, for example, was structured in terms of think/feel and high/low involvement axes). In this respect, their work could be said to exhibit a basic form of structuralism. One of these oppositions was that made between product benefit and user benefit (with its variant end benefit). As this case study has shown, this is a distinction that lies at the heart of all advertising and needs to be teased out if we are successfully to decode particular advertisements in a manner that goes beyond the work of Barthes (1977), Williamson (1978), Goffman (1979) and others. Thirdly, one of the factors anchoring marketing to the kind of structured thinking characteristic of modernist disciplines, perhaps, is that the creation of meaning in commodities is inextricably bound up with the establishment of a sense of difference between one object and all others of its class. After all, the three tasks of advertising are: to stand out from the surrounding competition to attract people’s attention; to communicate (both rationally and emotionally) what it is intended to communicate; and to predispose people to buy or keep on buying what is advertised. The sole preoccupation of those engaged in the Ikon Breath 02 campaign was to create what they referred to as the ‘parity break’: to set NFC’s contact lenses apart from all other contact lenses on sale in Japan, and from all other products on the market. At the same time, the idea of parity break extended to the style in which the campaign was to be presented (tinted monochrome photo, green logo, and so on). In this respect, the structure of meaning in advertising is akin to that found in the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes of structural linguistics where particular choices of words and phrases are influenced by the overall structure and availability of meanings in the language in which a speaker is communicating. That the work of LeviStrauss should be known to most marketers, therefore, is hardly surprising. Marketing practice is in many respects an application of the principles of structural anthropology to the selling of products. 10 Fourthly, although those working in marketing and consumer research take it as given that there is one-way flow of activity stemming from the manufacturer and targeted at the end consumer, in fact, as this case study shows, advertising – as well as the marketing that an advertising agency conducts on behalf of a client – always addresses at least two audiences. One of these is, of course, the group of targeted consumers (even though they are somewhat removed from the direct experience of marketers in their work). In this particular case, to complicate the issue further, there were two groups of consumers, since the campaign had to address both young women and middle-aged male opticians. Another audience is the client. As we have seen, the assumed or proven dis/likes of both consumers and advertising client affect the final meaning of the products advertised, and the client in particular had to be satisfied with the Agency’s campaign approach before consumer ‘needs’ could be addressed. At the same time, we should recognise that a third audience exists among different members of the account team within the Agency itself, since each of the three separate parties involved in account servicing, marketing and creative work needed to be satisfied by the arguments of the other two. In this respect, perhaps, we should note that marketing people have spent a lot of time over the decades making use of insights developed in learning behaviour, personality theory and psychoanalysis which they then apply to individual consumers. In the process, however, they have tended to overlook the forms of social organisation of which these individuals are a part (cf. de Groot 1980:44). Yet it is precisely the ways in which individual consumers interact that is crucial to an understanding of consumption and thus of how marketing should address its targeted audience: how networks function, for example, reveals a lot about the vital role of word-of-mouth in marketing successes and failures; how status groups operate and on what grounds can tell marketers a lot about the motivations and practices of their targeted audience. Anthropologists should be able to help by providing sociological analyses of these and other mechanisms pertinent to the marketing endeavour. In particular, their extensive work on ritual and symbolism should be of use in foreign, ‘third world’ markets. Fifthly, most products are made to be sold. As a result, different manufacturers have in mind different kinds of sales strategies, target audiences, and marketing methods that have somehow to be translated into persuasive linguistic and visual images – not only in advertising, but also in packaging and product design. For the most part, producers of the commodities in question find themselves obliged to call on the specialized services of copywriters and art designers who are seen to be more in tune with the consumers than are they themselves. This is how advertising agencies market themselves. But within any agency, the creation of advertising involves an ever-present tension between sales and marketing people, on the one hand, and creative staff, on the other; between the not necessarily compatible demands for the dissemination of product and other market information, on the one hand, and for linguistic and visual images that will attract consumers’ attention and push them into retail outlets to make purchases, on the other. This is not always taken into account by those currently writing about advertising. More interestingly, perhaps, the opposition that is perceived to exist between data and statistical analysis, on the one hand, and the creation of images, on the other, parallels that seen to pertain between a social science like economics or marketing and a more humanities-like discipline such as anthropology. Perhaps the role for an anthropology of marketing is to bridge this great divide.

Reflection on a clinical skill Essay

This essay will discuss a clinical experience in which I feel more competent in practicing. I will use a reflective model to discuss how I have achieved the necessary level of competence in my nurse training programme.The reflective model I have chosen to use is Gibbs model (Gibbs 1988). Gibbs model of reflection incorporates the following: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and an action plan (Gibbs 1988). The model will help facilitate critical thought process as it relates theory to practice. Discussion will include the knowledge underpinning practice and the evidence base for the clinical skill. A conclusion to the essay will then be given which will discuss my reflection skills, acknowledge my competence and show my personal and professional development. Trigger Event The clinical skill I have chosen to reflect on within this essay is my first IV start. I have chosen this as my first clinical placement is on a surgical unit, where Intravenous therapy is a widely used to administer medication. I was very happy to finally be able to start developing this skill as I have seen it done several time and was ever able to acquire the process in which is needed to start an intravenous. Appraisal The first stage of Gibbs (1988) model of reflection requires a description of events. As a transitioning Registered Practical Nurse to a Registered Nurse the expectation are that I will have develop this scope in my practice. I had observed this clinical skill on a variety of occasions and had previously administered IV medication and antibiotics under supervision. On this occasion I was being observed by my clinical educator. I had gathered all the necessary things I needed which included a bag of normal saline. My clinical educator was talk me through the procedure step by step and informed me that I should never place the tape on any surface as tit leads to cross contamination, and I should always clean blood from around the IV site. The facility also uses chlorhexadine instead of alcohol as eliminates stinging sensation. The second stage of Gibbs (1988) model of reflection, which is a discussion about my thoughts and feelings. I was aware of being under the supervision of my educator and other classmates this made me feel  very nervous and self- conscious. Once my professor said I am in do not advance I realize how truly nervous and under pressure I was feeling. I held my breath as I did not want this vain to blow and have to stink the patient again. This patient was an elderly gentlemen and I did not want the patient to feel that I did not know what I was doing. I thought that as I had been observed this clinical procedure on many other occasions it would be easy for me to do but it was very challenging, finding an appropriate vain, the right size of needle and wanting to get success on my first try made this a very trying experience. Exploration Evaluation is the third stage of Gibbs (1988) model of reflection and requires the reflector to with state what was good and bad about the event. This experience was filled with emotion because for many years I have been an rpn and I always wanted to be able to start an IV and I finally got to do just that. I think the best thing about this experience is I got it the first time and my instructor made it seem so effortless. So many times I had place tape on the hand rail of a bed in preparation of taping a dressing, I never thought of the fact that I was taking all the germs from that rail onto the patient. This one little thing has caused me to change my present practice. Integration Stage four of Gibbs (1988) is an analysis of the event, where Gibbs encourages the reflector to make sense of the situation. I will do this by exploring the skill and look for other opportunities to get more starts that I will feel more confident in my practice. In conclusion the use of this model of reflection has helped me to structure my thoughts and feelings appropriately. My level of awareness concerning evidence based practice, and its importance, has been enhanced with the use of critical reflection. My competence, within this clinical skill, has been further developed and I now feel that my personal and professional development is progressing. Using this reflective model has helped me to realise that my learning is something which I must be proactive in. Furthermore as a student nurse I have recognised that reflection is an important learning tool in practice.

Free Essays on Lending

Continuous Assessment Question Lending  ¡Ã‚ §Given the current economic downturn in the Irish Economy, it is inevitable that the book quality will be affected in the case of most Financial Institutions in the country. ¡Ã‚ ¨ What measures should lenders take to protect themselves from loan losses, under these circumstances? Table of Contents: Executive Summary Page 4 PART I  ¡V Protection Measures Page 5-15 Introduction Page 5 Section I  ¡V Credit Policy Page 6 Section 2  ¡V Credit Grading & Control Page 8 Section 3  ¡V Credit Review Page 12 Section 4  ¡V Training & Development of Staff Page 13 PART II  ¡V Social responsibility to Customers Page 14 Bibliography Page 16 Executive Summary The Lending banker ¡Ã‚ ¦s has a broad range of measures to adopt when protecting the bank from loan losses. This paper review these measures in Part I in terms of a  ¡Ã‚ ¥balanced scorecard ¡Ã‚ ¦ approach, focusing in turn on Credit Policy, Credit Grading & Control as well as training and development of staff. In Part I of this paper, I will argue that each of these aspects need to be addressed in order to mitigate the exposure of the bank to loan losses. Each section examines the specific measures that a bank may take and outlines the critical factors when contemplating such measures. The role of Credit Policy, will highlight a number of basic measures a bank must take to ensure it has the capability to minimise loan losses, while the role of Credit Control will focus on early detection and the using of action plans to mitigate such losses. A strong Credit Review function is essential in ensuring lenders have accurately identified and reported potential loan losses (bad and doubtful debts). And finally the part to be played by training and development of a range of staff in the credit management of loans is crucial to building the appropriate competence levels throughout the bank. All of these factors constitute a  ¡Ã¯ ¿ ½... Free Essays on Lending Free Essays on Lending Continuous Assessment Question Lending  ¡Ã‚ §Given the current economic downturn in the Irish Economy, it is inevitable that the book quality will be affected in the case of most Financial Institutions in the country. ¡Ã‚ ¨ What measures should lenders take to protect themselves from loan losses, under these circumstances? Table of Contents: Executive Summary Page 4 PART I  ¡V Protection Measures Page 5-15 Introduction Page 5 Section I  ¡V Credit Policy Page 6 Section 2  ¡V Credit Grading & Control Page 8 Section 3  ¡V Credit Review Page 12 Section 4  ¡V Training & Development of Staff Page 13 PART II  ¡V Social responsibility to Customers Page 14 Bibliography Page 16 Executive Summary The Lending banker ¡Ã‚ ¦s has a broad range of measures to adopt when protecting the bank from loan losses. This paper review these measures in Part I in terms of a  ¡Ã‚ ¥balanced scorecard ¡Ã‚ ¦ approach, focusing in turn on Credit Policy, Credit Grading & Control as well as training and development of staff. In Part I of this paper, I will argue that each of these aspects need to be addressed in order to mitigate the exposure of the bank to loan losses. Each section examines the specific measures that a bank may take and outlines the critical factors when contemplating such measures. The role of Credit Policy, will highlight a number of basic measures a bank must take to ensure it has the capability to minimise loan losses, while the role of Credit Control will focus on early detection and the using of action plans to mitigate such losses. A strong Credit Review function is essential in ensuring lenders have accurately identified and reported potential loan losses (bad and doubtful debts). And finally the part to be played by training and development of a range of staff in the credit management of loans is crucial to building the appropriate competence levels throughout the bank. All of these factors constitute a  ¡Ã¯ ¿ ½...

Autism Children Education Inclusion Policy in Private Schools Compulsory Enrollment Policy 2011

Autism Children Education Inclusion Policy in Private Schools Compulsory Enrollment Policy 2011 The inception of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has raised debates on the right method to provide quality, reliable, and talent nurturing/growth education. The United States of America has enacted free basic education to children with special needs; however, some parents have opted to have their children in private schools.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Autism Children Education Inclusion Policy in Private Schools: Compulsory Enrollment Policy 2011 specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Private schools are managed as individual or corporation businesses with the motive of earning profits; their motive discriminates against children with special needs as they need much attention that might be costly to the institution. The low enrollment of children with special needs the United States private schools have created a deficit in the facilities required (Hines, 2008). This report details a policy to c ompel private schools to have facilities that can accommodate children with autism, the policy will be called â€Å"Compulsory Enrollment Policy 2011†. Rationale for the policy identifying interests Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) or Pervasive Developmental Disorders or just Autism is the umbrella name given to range of neurodevelopment disorders; the condition affects children and can hardly be cured or reversed. According to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) autism can affects people of different races, social class, nationalities, and ethnicity however girls are at a higher risk to contract the disease than boys. Although the children might have some mental retardation, they have been blessed with some talents; skills, intellectual capacity, and intelligence that can be natured for to assist them earn a living. Although it is the decision of the parent to enroll his/her child in a private school, since the government has committed to look into the interests of the children, it should enact a policy that will facilitate reimbursement of tuition and special handling fees paid by the parent.Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More When private schools have been compelled to have modification and accommodation programs for children with autism, then the access to education will be improved. High enrollment of the child means that it can be accommodated in the community with ease can get quality education like any other child, and the rights of the child have been respected. Although the act will be compelling private schools to be offering the service, it will be sensitive in that a minimum number. The policy recommends that every facility should have facilities that can accommodate at-least five children with autism in every stage. When intellectually upright children interact with children with autism, they learn to accommodate them and understand their way of living; with the boosted understanding, the society becomes well integrated with mutual understandings among people. Students with disability have a low self esteem and believe that they are less important to their peers. When they are segregated, they are likely to hate themselves more and even blame their condition on situations. The increased/ enhanced self esteem will assist the child in later developments in life as well as to realize its potential and talents. On the part of ordinary students they will understand the condition of the disabled and change their perception towards them this is when they interact freely and won’t find them as societal outskirts. What the policy addresses The policy aims at increasing enrollment rate of children with autism in private schools it offers some guidelines on how the schools should handle children with autism. The following are the main areas will be addressed by the policy: Prohibited Private schools wil l be prohibited from ignoring the needs of children suffering from autism; they will be compelled by the act to have facilities that can accommodate at least five children with autism in every grade. To enforce the action, when registering a facility, the register of private schools in a district will visit the facility and ensure the facilities are intact.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Autism Children Education Inclusion Policy in Private Schools: Compulsory Enrollment Policy 2011 specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Discouraged The law/policy will discourage private school owners to take advantage of parents of children with autism by charging them high fees. The government will put a cap to the highest amount that can be charged as fees to a parent. With Supreme Court ruling in the Forest Grove School District v. T.A. case June 2009, parents will be able to get reimbursement from the government of private and speci al needs fees paid to private schools. Required The policy will make it a legal requirement that before licensing a private school, it has fulfilled the requirements under the law which will among other involve having facilities that can accommodate autism children. Encouraged To handle children with autism, private schools will be encouraged to liaise with their district education coordinators where they can get qualified teachers. In the event they get the teachers from the ministry, the teachers will be paid by the government if they are providing services solely to children with autism. Range of implications When the facility policy has been enacted, the government through the ministry of education will have the responsibility of ensuring that all private schools currently registered have the facilities. For newly registered schools, it will become a law that they need to have the facilities before getting the operating license. The policy will increase the accessibility of educ ation to children with disability; they will be accommodated by the education system prevailing in the county/district. Social interaction and breeding together of autism children and intellectually upright children boosts understanding and social interaction among them. The end is a society well blend and integrated. The United States government has the yearly license renewal of private schools as the weapon to enforce compliance with the policy. In the event that a certain private school has been found not to be complying with the policy, its operating license will not be renewed. Renewal will only be affected when the school has complied and a fine equal to the amount used on compliance charged as fine of non compliance. The ministry of education will have the responsibility of enforcing, evaluating, and revising the policy as required by the law.Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More How the policy will meet the needs of your constituencies Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) require that children with disability be accommodated in normal education system, the act makes to a right that the children should be educated and assisted to develop their intellectualism. With the new policy, there will be an increased access to education facilities to autism children; with high access, children will more likely get quality education. Other than the students, parent will have peace of mind as their children can be educated at the nearest school whether public or private; with the ruling of Supreme Court ruling in the Forest Grove School District v. T.A. case in June 2009, parents will have the chance to be reimbursed the expenses they incur with their autism children in private schools, this will boost their economic situation. Another group that is likely to benefit are intellectually up-right children, they will get a chance to interact and learn way of life of autism children. The learning is important for bonding and forming a well integrated community (Brownell, Sindelar, Kiely Danielson, 2010). Risk level of adopting and implementing your policy When enacting a new policy in any field, there are hick-ups and challenges that need to be addressed. The policy is likely to get high resistance from private schools operators who are likely to feel that their right to capitalism and free business has been interfered with by the government. The private schools association body is likely to offer counter statement and rules in the efforts to ensure the policy fails to be implemented. The costs that will be borne by the government are likely to affect the development in the country. There is the risk of shifting focus from intellectually up-right children who are likely to have more capacity than the autistic ones (Brownell, Sindelar, Kiely Danielson, 2010). How adopting this Policy will affect your leadership responsibilities When the policy has been adopted, it will call for the co-operation of the government, parents, and private schools administrations. School head when making decisions and strategies for their schools will consider the presence of autism children in their facilities; this will affect decisions like human resources planning and facility developments. Schools heads will need to have effective school-system accommodation and modification procedures to facilitate smooth learning of children with autism. References Brownell, M., Sindelar, P., Kiely, M., Danielson, L. (2010). Special Education Teacher Quality and Preparation: Exposing Foundations, Constructing a New Model. Exceptional Children, 76(3), 357. Hines, T. (2008). Making Collaboration Work in Inclusive High School Classrooms Recommendations for Principals. Intervention in School and Clinic 43 (5): 277–282.

Auebach Enterprises Essay Example for Free

Auebach Enterprises Essay These are not presented in scholarly discussion, but are simply the solutions. Student papers are expected to be written in scholarly discussion following APA formatting guidelines incorporating solutions and supported with scholarly research. Auerbach Enterprises manufactures air conditioners for automobiles and trucks manufactured throughout North America. The company designs its products with flexibility to accommodate many makes and models of automobiles and trucks. The company’s two main products are MaxiFlow and Alaska. MaxiFlow uses a few complex fabricated parts, but these have been found easy to assemble and test. On the other hand, Alaska uses many standard parts but has a complex assembly and testing process. MaxiFlow requires direct materials costs which total $135 per unit, while Alaska’s direct materials requirements total $110 per unit. Direct labor costs per unit are $75 for MaxiFlow and $95 for Alaska. Auerbach Enterprises uses machine hours as the cost driver to assign overhead costs to the air conditioners. The company has used a company-wide predetermined overhead rate in past years, but the new controller, Bennie Leon, is considering the use of departmental overhead rates beginning with the next year. The following planning information is available for the next year for each the four manufacturing departments within the company: Overhead Machine Costs Hours Radiator parts fabrication†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. $ 80,000 10,000 Radiator assembly, weld, and test†¦. 100,000 20,000 Compressor parts fabrication†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 120,000 5,000 Compressor assembly and test†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 180,000 45,000 Total $480,000 80,000 Normally, the air conditioners are produced in batch sizes of 20 at a time. A production batch of 20 units requires the following number of hours in each department: MaxiFlow Alaska Radiator parts fabrication†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 28 16 Radiator assembly, weld, and test†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 30 74 Compressor parts fabrication†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 32 8 Compressor assembly and test†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 26 66 Total 116 164 Required: 1. Compute the departmental overhead rates using machine hours as the cost driver. 2. Compute a company-wide overhead rate using machine hours as the cost driver. 3. Compute the overhead costs per batch of MaxiFlow and Alaska assuming: (a) The company-wide rate. (b) The departmental rates. 4. Compute the total costs per unit of MaxiFlow and Alaska assuming: (a) The company-wide rate.  (b) The departmental rates. 5. Is one product affected more than the other by use of departmental rates rather than a company-wide rate? Why or why not? Auebach Enterprises. (2016, Apr 21).

Epidemiological Principles and the Issue of Teen Pregnancy Personal Statement

Epidemiological Principles and the Issue of Teen Pregnancy - Personal Statement Example This legally mandated reporting system provides accurate data on the number of teens giving birth as well as specific demographic details such as race, legal residence, age, and the number of previous births (Martin et.al. 2006).     From this data changes, distribution patterns and trends over time can be monitored and areas for future research and causal relationships can be researched further.   This legally mandated reporting system provides accurate data on the number of teens giving birth as well as specific demographic details such as race, legal residence, age, and the number of previous births (Martin et.al. 2006).     From this data changes, distribution patterns and trends over time can be monitored and areas for future research and causal relationships can be researched further.  Ã‚   Additionally, based upon this ongoing monitoring, programs put into place to reduce or eliminate teenage pregnancy can be evaluated for effectiveness.   This is only possible t hrough this accurate data collection and just as importantly the publishing of results which allows researchers to evaluate and further investigate this serious issue.      The next area that shows the epidemiological principals are applied to the teen pregnancy problem can be found in the anonymity of data collection and studies performed.   Epidemiology focuses on groups of people as opposed to individual cases.   All the government agencies previously discussed as well as private agencies that present statistical data on teen pregnancy deal with teen pregnancy in terms of numbers, percentages and other statistics, which are further broken down into various categories such as race of mother, age, economic background, educational level, number of pregnancies and many other categories as opposed to individual case studies. Based on this ongoing data, researcher further applies principles of epidemiology by analyzing the data and through the scientific method make hypotheses based upon the data as to causal effects and contributing factors that increase the risk of teen pregnancy.   Also based on the data researchers can ascertain life-changing consequences teen mothers face.   These facts are determined by applying the epidemiological principle of studies performed by researchers.   There are according to the CDC two main types of studies observational and experimental.   In the case of teen pregnancy, various types of studies are conducted to evaluate relationships between teen pregnancy and various factors which contribute to it.   Additionally, studies are conducted to evaluate the effect of teenage mothers.  Ã‚  

Examples of Sadhu and Sisyphus Stories in Business Essay

Examples of Sadhu and Sisyphus Stories in Business - Essay Example The one of the New Zealanders carried the man down until he met the narrators and his companion. The narrator determined that the Sadhu was suffering from Hypothermia. Stephen, the narrator’s companion, and the guides donated warm clothing to the man. Although it was evident that the man needed care, the narrator chose to continue his journey he was unwilling to let the predicament of the Sadhu serve as a barrier to his journey. Stephen made the efforts of helping the man, but only managed to get the guys carry him down and give him food and water (McCoy 54). The myth of Sisyphus is a story published in 1942 in which the author depicted the contrast of happiness and of the absurd. The title of the myth reflects the name, Sisyphus, who was a hero struggling with the fate of performing a similar task in his entire life in the underworld. He was compelled to push a stone up the mountain watch it rolls back, but he had to push it again. The myth describes the thought process of Sisyphus as he performed this task. A close analysis reveals that his fate was a hopeless torture because he was well aware that he was compelled to that task to time indefinite. Although he had a desire for the earth and the joys experienced on the earth, he had no hope that he would be able to experience that again. However, the reader is expected to imagine that Sisyphus would at some point be happy if his thought process allowed such happiness (Manning and Curtis 158). The story of the Sadhu highlights the ethical dilemmas faced by people when making decisions in corporate organizations. Each of the individual presented in the story was well aware that the Sadhu needed a level of care and attention. However, none of them was willing to exhibit the level of commitment needed to deliver such care to the man.