Inception of Activity Based Costing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Inception of Activity Based Costing - Essay Example Activity-based costing enables reasonably accurate allocation of overheads. The activities in an organization are spread across the organizational processes and value chain. The traditional methods of costing faced severe criticism due to inaccuracies. While it is easy to apportion direct costs to individual products in a company with a wide product mix, it is difficult to apportion indirect costs to the products. Therefore traditional methods sought estimates to assign overhead costs. In the earlier paradigm, Labor costs constituted a substantial part of the total cost of manufacture. Therefore direct labour costs were used to assign the overhead costs to various jobs relating to the manufacture of products. But today there has been a paradigm shift with technology pervading the value chain replacing a large chunk of Labor by automated processes. The proportion of materials cost in many industries has augmented with the dwindling of labour costs. Similarly increasing automation and shrinking life span of machines have led to the increase in capital costs. T here has also been a concomitant increase in overhead costs pertaining to information technology and depreciation of expensive plant and machinery, maintenance and utilities in most industries. In the new paradigm, the companies found direct labour as the basis for apportionment of overheads inaccurate to capture the costs for the products. The companies, therefore, used machine hours instead of direct Labor for apportioning the overhead costs. With the growing complexity of manufacturing processes, neither direct Labor nor machine hour would suffice as bases for allocation of overhead costs to processes of products. Therefore the new circumstances demanded multiple bases for allocation of overhead costs. These factors paved the way for the evolution of activity-based costing, which uses multiple bases for overhead allocation.  Ã‚  

Investment policy statement Essay Example for Free

Investment policy statement Essay Return Requirements: * Tax minimization – a continuing collateral goal * Inflation adjustment enhancement of investments- real growth of capital with possible extra return if possible. Risk Tolerance: * Investment risk – very low risk 1. The Muellers have been managing their own investments and are familiar with risk but may not understand volotiliity completely due to their high portion of volatile stocks within the portfolio 2. Want to provide for their daughter’s college education 3. Very high tax bracket (30% on income and 20% on net realized gains) Constraints: Time Horizon: The Muellers are relatively young and have still a lot of time to work and likely saving for retirement is in their agenda. The main goal is to provide for their daughter’s education and expenses associated with it. This goal would be considered long-term but is relatively short in comparison to possible saving for retirement. Liquidity Requirement: There is an ongoing stream of income available. Their may still be some liquidity needs in order to provide for the expenses of the college education along with life expenses associated with both The Muller’s and their daughter. Taxes: The family is in the highest of brackets. Future investments should take that into account on an indefinite basis. Tax-sheltered investments should be considered and will likely benefit the family more than high yields that are taxable. Legal and Regulatory: The Muellers would like to monitor their own investments, so their investments are generally only governed by state law. Unique Circumstances: Past unsuccessful investments of $100,000 can be used to offset tax distributions on net realized gains. Most important aspect and is unique to the saturation, Incoming expenses of $90,000 for the first year of college and then consistent four more years of $40,000 of college expenses.

Fighting Pharmacists, Fulfilling the Prescription Essay -- Morning Aft

Fighting Pharmacists, Fulfilling the Prescription In recent years there has been an influx of women receiving prescriptions for the postcoital pill (PCP) also known as the morning-after pill, Plan B, and a form of emergency contraception. Some pharmacists, however, are exercising their right not to fulfill patient’s prescription, based primarily on their personal values and morals. Amidst the negative overtones, women continue to take the morning-after pill in an effort to maintain their rights. â€Å"Timely access to emergency contraception is critical therefore any delay the woman might experience before taking the medication is unacceptable and places an undue burden on the woman,† said Patricia Conner, Emergency Contraception Campaign Organizer for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. The morning-after pill is the most common type of emergency contraception,and has become very widely used since being made available over the counter inthe United States. PCP can be taken any time up to 72 hours after unprotected sex. There are two types of PCP. The older type of PCP, which is no longer available, contained a combination of estrogen and progesterone. In order to produce the desired results it had to be taken in two doses, 12 hours apart. In February of 2000, the new PCP called Levonelle-2 was introduced. Levonelle-2 contains progesterone, and has been proven to be more effective than the old type of PCP. The new PCP can be taken in two doses at the same time, and manages to decrease side effects that are associated with the older form of PCP. Common side effects associated with the PCP pill include nausea, vomiting, lower abdominal pain, fatigue, headache, breast tenderness, and menstrual changes. According ... ... nurse. The nurse counsels on long-term birth control options and STD testing. Stress is given that long-term birth control is more effective in preventing pregnancy than emergency contraceptive is, and that emergency contraceptive does not protect against STDs. For years many have debated abortions, and distribution of emergency contraception is steadily taken president. Many ask themselves if it is appropriate for pharmacists to allow their personal opinion to be inflicted upon their customers. While others are content to believe that pharmacists are wrong, and that much of their decision-making, concerning emergency contraception, is based entirely on a lack of knowledge and understanding. â€Å"The morning-after pill saved me from myself. Without it I don’t know where I would be. It will be interesting to see what will happen next in this debate,† says Reese.

Assimilation in the United States :: Melting Pot integration immigration

Assimilation Our country is acclaimed for its endless ability to integrate. Whether it occurred in the early 1900s when desegregation occurred in Topeka middle school, or how we have integrated every nationality to every ethnicity and have been renown as the melting pot. In every aspect of how our country has come to what we know as United States, there is a simple integration that occurred to create what we are today. Assimilation is a positive force when it is necessary, it is needed in our companies, to our marriages, and we alongside the media are the causes of these types of assimilation; Americans tendency for assimilation will remain a beneficiary factor so long as we do not loose our individuality in the process. Assimilation is a force that is unstoppable. Americans do it on a daily basis without the time to contemplate whether to assimilate or not. Assimilation also keeps our world turning; it is the basis of agreement and understanding. As we assimilate we understand that through conforming this will create a strong unit. When working with a company, conformation is needed. To move as a unit, and to be displayed as a unit is any company's desire. Why would any prestigious company want to be displayed as disorganized? Or have employees that cannot work or agree with one another? It is a characteristic that is needed in every person, the ability to work as a unit, and become a team player. Through assimilation, teamwork is established and is learned. Teamwork is the basis of any company, and through teamwork the company will thrive as one unit. Teamwork is the foundation of many different areas in our lives. Not only is it necessary in the workforce, but more than ever necessary in our marriages. Marriages should be based on assimilation through compromise and understanding. Through this compromise and understanding for one another, this leads to the peace that is needed in every household. To assimilate in marriage is to converge two different opinions and come to a midpoint agreement. This is a positive force, the force where both is letting go of their strong beliefs through their vows of love for one another, to come to the understanding that conforming as one unit will help them succeed through strenuous times. If the result of assimilation in a marriage is peace, then this is one characteristic that marriages today need more than ever.

Target Case Ananlysis

Target Corporation| Patrick Caine March 18, 2013| BUS428A Seminar in Financial Management| ————————————————- RECOMMENDATION After careful review and analysis of the five projects I would rank the projects in the following order of attractiveness: 1) The Barn 2) Whalen Court 3) Gopher Place 4) Stadium Remodel 5) Goldie’s Square. I came to this conclusion by taking into account the projects NPV and IRR given the size of the investment, opportunity market/growth, and with the overall goal of adding 100 new stores a year while maintaining.The Barn was my first choice because it had the highest IRR and second highest NPV given a not so large investment. Whalen Court has the highest NPV and offers favorable market share opportunities and demographics. These first two are considered good options to continue Targets growth. Gopher Place has attractive IRR and NPV comparable to the prototype, while giving Target market share. Also the population growth and median income demographics are favorable.The next opportunity is in the mediocre category, Stadium remodel, with the 3rd highest IRR and 4th NPV, but has higher risks as the store is deteriorating and has sales declines, which could hurt brand image. Also the stores have been remodeled twice already. This investment might be a good idea to keep the store afloat or it might have to be closed. Finally Goldie’s Square has the lowest NPV and IRR of the projects, declining market share, and the impact of the project won’t be seen till the third year. ————————————————- BACKGROUNDIt is November 2006, and CFO Doug Scovanner has to review five projects along with other members of the Capital Expenditure Committee, after five projects have already been accepted. Targets management has an overarching goal to create 100 new stores a year while maintaining their strong brand image and reputation. The investment decisions should be ranked according to their value to Target, 1-5. The analysis should include review of P/L, NPV, IRR, demographics, market share, sensitivity and variance to the prototype. ————————————————- ANALYSE Industry Analysis T. M. | Pricing Strategy| Buying Experience| Costs of Shopping| Target| Educated / savvy shopper| Expect more pay less| Just the right shopping| Slightly more| Wal-mart| Bargain hunter| Everyday low price| Barebones| Low-pricing| Costco| Bulk buyer| Discounts on bulk buying| Warehouse| Membership fee + low prices| As the case states, the intense competition in the retail market and has led to prices being driven down to almost cost, resulting in very small margins. This causes the companies to focus on every part of the ir business, including how they want to brand themselves to consumers.This chart above gives a brief look at that picture. Sales growth stem from creation of new stores and organic growth through existing stores. Though new stores are expensive to build, they are needed to access new markets and represent profit potential. Walmart Operates store formats similar to Target, and most Target stores operate in areas where one of more Walmart store is located. Also, the merchandising assortment overlaps on many of the same items, such as food, commodities, electronics, toys and sporting goods.The success of Walmart is attributed to the â€Å"every day low price† pricing strategy, which also drove local independent retailers out of business. Costco Costco attracts a customer base that overlaps with Target’s core customer. However, there is less overlap with respect to trade area and merchandising between Costco and Target than Walmart and Target. Costco also requires a member ship to shop in the store, where Target and Walmart do not. Costco provides discount pricing for its members who all buy in bulk for membership fees in return. In 2005 the fees equaled 2% of total revenue and 72. % of operating income. This shows how important those fees can be in a high competition and low margin market. Target Target emphasizes the customer experience and has the slogan â€Å"Expect more. Pay less. † They have been promoting their brand awareness through large advertising campaigns. The advertising expenses in 2005 were 2% of sales of 26. 6% of operating profits. Brand and store/product quality play a larger role for Target than Walmart. Target also offers a credit card, which accounted for 14. 8% of targets operating earnings and is important in the evaluation of each project. ———————————————— PROJECT ANALYSIS AND SUMMARY The Barn The project has the highest IRR, 16. 4% and the second highest NPV of $20,500. The NPV on this project is not highly sensitive. The location offers the incentive of have no nearby stores, creating a new market for Target. Additionally it requires the smallest investment amount out of the five projects. However, the market doesn’t have the ideal target demographics with only 17% of adults have earned a college degree, slow general population growth and lower income individuals Whalen CourtThe project gives target the opportunity to move into an urban center, where it will not have to compete directly with other Target stores, coinciding with managements goals . The project has the highest NPV at $25,900. The project has the second lowest IRR, of 9. 8% and needs 1. 9% more sales in order to reach the total store prototype. On the other hand this project requires the largest investment of $119M (which would need board approval). This cost would be offset by the brand image to an urban area wit h a lot of people. Finally the building would be leased instead of owned, which might have long tern consequences.Gopher Place The project has the second highest IRR of 12. 3% relative to all of the capital project requests. The NPV of the project is above the prototype and represents an investment of $23M. The demographics in this area are attractive with 27% population growth and a median household income of $56,000. Transfer sales or cannibalization is estimated at 19% of sales from the proposed area, as there are other Target stores in the areas. There are also two new Walmart Super Stores in the area, which could pose as threat to competition and prices.Additionally the effects of the project wouldn’t be felt until the third year, where incremental sales would increase significantly. Stadium Remodel The store has been in place since 1972 and has a very affluent market, where the median income is $65,921. About 42% of the market have taken 4+ years of college, which is th e second highest of the projects. The $17m investment would lift the lagging sales about 17% and potentially increase the brand image. On the other hand, the store has been remodel twice since 1972. The NPV is also very sensitive to sales decline, as can be seen in the sensitivity analysis graph.Goldie’s Square The area is considered a key strategic location for many retailers. Population growth is moderate at 16% with a median income of $56,000 and a quarter of the people holding a college degree. The project also has a low NPV sensitivity. However, a 45. 1% increase in forecasted sales is required to meet the prototype. The project also has the lowest NPV and IRR of all the projects being considered. Additionally, there are 12 existing Target stores operating in the market, which could potentially lead to high cannibalization.Transfer sales or cannibalization is estimated at 19% of sales from the proposed area. As a result of this competition, low sales forecasts are projec ted. ————————————————- SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS Gopher Place with initial investment $23m | IRR| NPV| Total| 12. 3%| $16,755| 10% Sales Decline| 10. 5%| $12,033| 10% Sales Increase| 13. 5%| $21,376| Whalen Court with initial investment $119. 3m | IRR| NPV| Total| 9. 8%| $25,875| 10% Sales Decline| 8. 8%| $9,264| 10% Sales Increase| 10. 8%| $42,522| The Barn with initial investment $13m IRR| NPV| Total| 16. 4%| $20,527| 10% Sales Decline| 14. 5%| $16,461| 10% Sales Increase| 18. 3%| $24,623| Goldie’s Square with initial investment $23. 9m | IRR| NPV| Total| 8. 1%| $317| 10% Sales Decline| 7%| $-3,765| 10% Sales Increase| 9. 2%| $4,325| Stadium Remodel with initial investment $17m | IRR| NPV| Total| 10. 8%| $15,739| 10% Sales Decline| 9%| $7,854| 10% Sales Increase| 12. 3%| $9,523| Given the table above for IRR and NPV sensitivity to changes in sales, Whalen Court seems t o be the most affected with large upside potential.Other than that, the projects seem to have to same negative and positive implications given a change in sales. ————————————————- QUESTIONS 1) If all else equal, and you have to decide between two projects one with a higher IRR and the other with a higher NPV, which would you favor? 2) How have population growth, income, and college degrees impacted your analysis of the projects? 3) How would different discount rates for store and credit card CF affect your recommendations? ——————————————– [ 1 ]. Target Corp. Case 19 [ 2 ]. Target Case

Respone to Say Anything essays

Respone to Say Anything essays Say Anything is a film that seems not to have enough meaningful content at the first glance. To the contrary, the film is full of meaningful insights; and disillusionment is one of the most obvious themes that are illustrated clearly by the director in parts of the film. Dianes father, Jim Court, has always been pushing her daughter to even higher academic achievements all her life; he would do whatever it took to provide his daughter with the best things. Diane trusted her dad and had a very intimate relationship with him. Like most children, Diane had the image of her dad being a hero all her life; she could not imagine her dad being a criminal. Unfortunately, nobodys perfect, including Jim Court. One night, two investigators knocked on the door of Dianes house and informed Jim Court that he was illegally using money of seniors who died in senior homes. Diane was standing right beside her father when the two investigators talked, but she did not take the conversation seriously because she has always trusted her dad. Several days later, Diane started to recall what the investigators have said about her dads criminal records; she decided to find out the truth by herself. One afternoon, Diane was at home alone; so she started her search for evidence of her fathers crime. To her surprise, Diane saw four stacks of money neatly put in a wooden box. She could not believe her eyes! Most people believe what they have been told or how they have felt. They seldom think questions in multi-ways. Say Anything deliberately shows us the disillusionment between Diane and her father through one simple event. (however, dont stop admiring your father after watching the film...at least, not until when you see the investigators!!) ...

Australian Welfare System Essays - Social Inequality, Social Work

Australian Welfare System Essays - Social Inequality, Social Work Australian Welfare System PART 1 -INTRODUCTION Review Process On 29 September 1999, the Minister for Family and Community Services announced the Government's intention to review the Australian welfare system. The Minister appointed this Reference Group to consult with the community and provide advice to the Government on welfare reform. The Group's terms of reference and membership are at Attachment A to this report. In March this year the Reference Group released an Interim Report that outlined a new framework for a fundamental re-orientation of Australia's social support system and sought feedback from the Australian community. After the Interim Report was released, the Reference Group received over 300 written responses as well as verbal feedback from income support recipients, business and community representatives. This Final Report presents our medium to long term recommendations. In addition, we set out some initial steps, which could be taken in the development of a new Participation Support System. The Reference Group believes the full implementation of the new system may take a decade. Nevertheless, much can be done in the short term to improve the current system to encourage and facilitate participation. The Need for Fundamental Reform Trends Australia is in the midst of a profound economic and social transformation. The consequences of this transformation require us to re-think and re-configure our approach to social support. Disappointingly, the current social support system may be failing many of those it was designed to help. Australia is in its eighth year of strong economic growth, yet joblessness, underemployment and reliance on income support remain unacceptably high. Disadvantage is also concentrated increasingly in particular segments of the population and in particular localities. These are not problems being faced by Australia alone; they are being experienced in many comparable countries. Over recent decades a variety of economic and demographic factors have combined to create the new and disturbing phenomena of jobless families and job poor communities. These unequal outcomes have generated the unacceptable prospect that significant concentrations of economic and social disadvantage might become entrenched. In its analysis, the Reference Group focused on four trends (discussed more fully at Attachment B) that underpin the need for a bold change to our social support system: A growing divide between 'job rich' and 'job poor' households. There is strong employment growth in some areas, but high rates of joblessness persist in many regions and localities. In addition, too many children live in families with no parent in paid work. Labour market trends have brought changes in the balance between permanent full-time jobs and part-time and casual work, between male and female employment, between jobs in manufacturing and primary industry and jobs in service industries. Many of the new part-time jobs have been taken in households where there is someone already in employment, which contributes to the widening gap in the distribution of jobs. More people receive income support. Over the past thirty years, there has been a steady upward trend in the proportion of the workforce-age population receiving income support and other publicly provided assistance. Of special concern is the proportion of the population that depends on income support for the majority of their income. Job opportunities for less skilled workers have stagnated or declined, while technological change and the globalisation of industry and trade has increased the demand for highly skilled workers. This has been associated with a widening distribution of earnings. Entrenched economic and social disadvantage Without appropriate action now, Australia may be consigning large numbers of people to an intergenerational cycle of significant joblessness. Australia already has one of the highest levels of joblessness among families with children in OECD countries (OECD 1998). In June 1999, about 860,000 children lived in a jobless household. The available evidence suggests that children in families experiencing long term joblessness are more likely to rely heavily on income support as they grow up (Pech & McCoull, 1999). Long term economic and social disadvantage has negative consequences for individuals, their families and the broader community. Lack of paid employment during the prime working years, and consequent reliance on income support, reduce current and lifetime incomes. Participation in paid employment is a major source of self-esteem. Without it, people can fail to develop, or become disengaged from, employment, family and community networks. This can lead to physical and psychological ill health and

Evaluation of types of business communications with examples from Bernard Matthews, Vodaphone and Primark Essay Example

Evaluation of types of business communications with examples from Bernard Matthews, Vodaphone and Primark Essay Example Evaluation of types of business communications with examples from Bernard Matthews, Vodaphone and Primark Paper Evaluation of types of business communications with examples from Bernard Matthews, Vodaphone and Primark Paper A good business needs to be able to communicate with all different departments of their organisation to be successful. This is because communication is vital when making business decisions, especially if you have more than one outlet as you would need to be able to clearly understand where the business is doing well and what needs to improved. Bernard Mathews is one business which does communicate effectively, and benefited from doing this to become the UKs largest turkey producer. To communicate effectively with external stakeholders they aimed to to improve perceptions of the company and brand and to increase public awareness of turkey as a tasty, versatile and healthy meat. Bernard Mathews must be clear and presence in the way the send and receive messages to all stakeholders of the business. To do this, they need to make sure that they understand who their target audience is for each piece of information that needs to be communicated, so that they can tailor it to be as effective as it could be. To do this, they first decided to concentrate on their core strengths and expertise, which is British Turkey farming and providing great tasting Turkey. They also sold all other parts of the business which did not concentrate on this core part of the business. This was done to give out a clear message about their business. This is a great way to communicate with retailers and customers, as they will know exactly where to go if they want Turkeys. They also wanted to change the perception of turkey as being mainly processed food, and to change buying patterns of customers to make Turkey their main source of protein. To do this, they needed to promote Turkey as being a tasty and healthy option. They advertise in the press along with advertising on TV to get their message about their business across. In previous Bernard Mathews would advertise around Christmas time mainly as this is when most people buy Turkeys. However last year in 2011, they put their focus more on the healthy benefits from turkeys, and focused about the fact that their Turkeys are 100% British. Deciding to do this is very beneficial for the business as it is very clear what they are about, and knowing this means that people are more likely to go to Bernard Mathews to business with them. This is a great way of communicating with existing customer and also potential customers. People who do not understand that turkey is a great healthy alternative to other meats such as chicken would benefit from this clear message sent by Bernard Mathews, and is likely to result in Bernard Mathews receiving more revenue and more profits. In recent years Bernard Mathews has received some bad press which resulted in quite a substantial drop in their sales. This could have been down to bad communication between the media and this business, as certain information might have been misinterpreted by them, which is why they are now making their core aims and strategies a lot more focused, so that people understand exactly what they are about. They now hold regular meetings with journalists to make sure that their aim is clear and tell them about how much they are aware about animal rights and their belief in having only the best healthy turkeys on sale. They also created an advertising campaign called Change your meat. Not your menu in which they tried to communicate with customers through the use of celebrity chef Marco-Pierre White and Olympian Rebecca Romero. The aim of this advertising campaign was to communicate with people who are familiar with these celebrities and try to change their views into positive beliefs about Turkey. Bernard Mathews also need to communicate with their internal stakeholders which they are also very successful with. These internal stakeholders include managers, employees and shareholders. After the business received the bad press, it is very likely that it affected employees massively. This is because reputation is one of the main factors which decide the success of a business, and if the businesses reputation goes down, like it did due to the bad press, then the company could be at risk of making losses and eventually going bankrupt. This would decrease motivation a lot within the business as it would have done in Bernard Mathews. To combat this, Bernard Mathews explains to all if their employees that there is no cause for concern through explaining the strategies that they would be putting in place to turnaround their reputation. One of the main ways in which they do this is through their weekly newsletter for their employees which explains all achievements and developments that are being made within the business, which a very effective way of communicating with their employees as it allows for employees to read to read the information at their own pace and understand it better. However there could be problems if the language used is not easy to understand which would result in employees being confused about how well they company is doing. But they do have the opportunity to ask managers about how well the business is doing or what the leaflet is trying to say, so it is still an effective way of communication with their staff. They also hold regular meetings with their shareholders and owners so that everybody knows exactly how well they are doing in terms of revenue and profits. This is also an effective way of communicating as it is likely that actual reports are shown to owners as well as them being given verbal dialogue at the same time. Thy can also ask any questions they may have there and then which makes it very effective as there is no reason for any of them to not understand anything. All these strategies and techniques are great way for this business to communicate with both internal and external stakeholders. The way in which they communicate with these stakeholders is very clear and precise making sure that all people understand everything about the business accurately. There are no risk about any misinterpretations due to the clarity and effectiveness of the ways in which they communicate with these stakeholders. Another Company which has excelled in the way they communicate with their stakeholders is Vodafone. Vodafone is a huge multinational company who specialise in telecommunications. Vodafone currently has over 15million customers across 27 countries which means that there are a lot of stakeholders in the company who need effective ways of communicating with the business. The two main ways of communication are verbal and non-verbal. For communication to be successful it must be sent to people who receive that communication and understand it. Communication will not be successful if the recipient is unable to understand due to the information not being clear. Vodafone takes certain steps to make sure that their communication is clear so that they are successful in getting their message across. To help achieve this, they have come up with a set of 10 business principles. One of these principles directly relates to communication, which says: We will communicate openly and transparently with all of our stakeholders within the bounds of commercial confidentiality. The fact that one of their ten business principles is all about communication tells us how much Vodafone consider communication an important aspect of business. As Vodafone has over 15million customers, they need to make sure that they can communicate effectively with them and try to solve any iss ues that their customers may have, as not doing so could result in them losing their customers. Vodafone currently has over 200 stores in the UK alone in which there are trained customers service employees available for customers to go in store and deal with any issues or ask any questions about the company, services or products that they are selling. They also have a large number of employees in call centers available for customers to call in ad communicate with staff, which has all the benefits that the inn store customer services provide. As this is a verbal way of customers communicating with Vodafone, it is likely to be very effective. This is because customers will be able to find out exactly what they want from Vodafone employees, and anything that they dont understand can be explained. It is a lot more likely that they will get what they need if they are commutating face to face as it is very likely that all queries they may have will be effectively dealt with. If could only get information such as this through writing, such as asking questions through e-mail then it would be a lot more likely that they will not understand the information as sometimes complex language can be hard to read and process. Vodafone are also constantly advertising through various types of media such as TV, newspapers, radio and on the internet which are all non-verbal types of communication. All the ways in which they advertise their promotions are checked to make sure that they are clear and understandable to make sure that their efforts are effective in communicating with their stakeholder, which shows that they do follow their business principles. The fact that they advertise through various forms of media shows that they try to reach a wide audience when trying to communicate with their external stakeholders. If Vodafone only advertised through the internet, the those people who are not confident with computer use or those people who do not use the internet frequently wouldnt be reached with their advertisements, which would be a fail I communication. It is likely that their huge customer base of over 15million people in the UK will frequently use at least one of the types of media that Vodafone advertise In, which makes their communication successful. They also have other stakeholders who must be effectively and successfully communicated with to ensure the success of Vodafone. The best form of communication is a two way process, in that people can voice their opinions, which will be replied to by the other parties, and so on. Vodafone maintains a constant form of communication with all their main stakeholders so that they can other communicate quickly and effectively. This could be through emails, through phone or in meetings. This is god for Vodafone as it means that they have the opportunity to communicate with their stakeholders whenever they need to, and whenever stakeholders have problem, they also have the chance to communicate with Vodafone which is likely to make the business more successful. Vodafone also effectively communicate with their internal stakeholders, the main one being their employees. The main way in which they communicate with their employees is through their hierarchy. Junior staff report to line managers, who report to managers, who report to directors, who may report to the owners. However this depends on the type and content of the information. The more important the information, the higher up the hierarchy it is likely to go. It also works the other way round, in which owners would send down information through their directors, and so on. This type of communication can be effective as it allows all employees to communicate with their higher authorities, and allows owners to communicate with all their employees easily. However sometime this information could get distorted down the line, and the best way to communicate with employees at the bottom of the hierarchy would probably be through direct communication, which would eliminate the possibly of infomration beocme unclear and also allows for those employees to ask further questions to uderstadn the infomration more clear, and as mentioned above, for communication to be succsessful, the recipient must understad it. All these types of communication allow the Vodafone group to successfully communicate with their stakeholders and comply with one of their main business principles. One business which has been badly portrayed in the media in recent years in Primark, the likely cause of which is bad communication. Primark is a clothes retail group which has over 230 stores across the UK, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Germany. The BBCs Panorama recently exposed Primarks involvement in child labour. They exposed the fact that Primark clothes were being made for very cheap labour in less economically developed countries, They proves this though video recordings of children and women being paid a very small amount for a long hard days work. This obviously had a very negative effect on their reputation and profit figures. The bad communication came after this exposure. Primark claimed that they did not know about any child or slave labour occurring in the manufacturing of their goods which is very unlikely. They basically lied to the public and to their customers, trying to put the blame on external manufactures. This was a very big issue for many people, especially for Primark customers. Not only were they being sold products made by children, but Primark was very unclear I their statements in response to the claims made by Panorama, and were also denying those claims. This was a very bad way of communication from Primark. If they had nothing to hide, they would have done a full investigation and proves to their customers and to the world that they are not involved in such operations. Instead, they basically brushed it under the carpet. This resulted in many people boycotting Primark as their morals went against the way in which Primark operate in, which obviously had a negative effect on their revenue and profit figures. Primark did claim that they will investigate the situation and penalize any manufacturer taking part I such activities, but there was no evidence shown to customers that this actually happened, as they were being very dismissive about the situation. This way of communicating with customers, the public and the media is not very effective at all, and can be more damaging than saying anything at all. If people are unclear as to what Primarks response was to the allegations, then they are not communicating with their customers effectively. Instead, they are making things worse for themselves, as not producing effective information about the whole matter is likely to raise suspicions, which it did. Instead of communicating the way they did, they should have carried out a full investigation as to what was going on in their manufacturing sector, and clearly reported their findings, along with their solutions to the public and to their customers, to try and gain customers back. Another way in which this business fails in communication is through their website. Most clothes outlets now have an online store, or at least show through images what they are selling in stores. Primark fails to do both of these, so it is unclear what types of clothes Primark actually sells, especially to those who have ever been into one of their stores. The more effective approach would be to sell clothes online, or at least shows images of their rages so people can clearly understand what Primark sells.

The Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations - Essay Example They both had developed their own writing system and their wealth and sovereign as they expanded to the East, as evidences of their culture were found by means of archeological digs. It is important to note that the Minoan Civilization came first. The civilization took root in Crete at around 7000 BC. Minoans were fishermen, as they were island people. At around 2700 BC, the Bronze Age started in Crete. This brought upon a surge of development, from the arts to commerce. By 1700 BC, the Minoan civilization and culture showed a lot of sophistication and organization. Because of newly-found power, the upper class practiced their leadership abilities but this was later thwarted with monarchy in later times, as evidenced by the presence of palaces in Crete. The Early Bronze Age showed a certain degree of greatness, a promise of success for the Minoan Civilization. The Minoans were merchants. Their economy thrived on trading. Most historians believe that the Minoans traded tin, the most i mportant commodity that time, along with copper. Tin with copper (which came from Cyprus) are the major components of Bronze. Other important objects that the Minoans traded were saffron, ceramics, gold and silver. ... Their religion even focused on females, as they had female deities and female priests. It was thought that Minoan religion was matriarchal and the same goes for their society. Minoan religion has several goddesses and the major god that they revere is also a female goddess. They had their own language. Archeologists have found at least 3000 tablets with filled with Cretan scripts. Historians believe that Cretans had their own hieroglyphic system. There were also cups that were recovered and they were thought to be inkwells, as they have ink residue in it. The Minoans also had their art. Best examples of Minoan art are preserved through pottery and architecture. Their palaces also had frescoes that are also evidences that Minoan culture was indeed urbane. Their pottery designs, as well as the style and design in their other artifacts can be largely described as having a strong geometrical aesthetic. Some of the designs tend to be naturalistic too, as the pieces tend to have animals in it. Most Minoan art has bulls in it. Bulls had a special place in Minoan culture. Minoan architecture was quite defining, especially for their culture. Minoan architecture was believed to be heavily influenced by geography. The architecture must have been influenced by the earthquakes that were frequent around the area. That explains why the buildings in Minoan architecture are big but they had little stories, or they are not as multi-leveled as other palaces at the time. The palaces had small rooms and had a lot of divisions, partitions; they also had little windows and the buildings were constructed in blocks. Other techniques also indicate that they were preparing for some seismic activity. One of the most striking contributions of the Minoan

An exegetical study of Genesis 32 verses 22-32 Essay

An exegetical study of Genesis 32 verses 22-32 - Essay Example and have prevailed.† 29Then Jacob asked him and said, â€Å"Please tell me your name.† But he said, â€Å"Why is it that you ask my name?† And he blessed him there. 31Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh. 32Therefore to this day, the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip. (New American Standard Bible) The account of Jacob’s wrestling match at the ford of Jabbok is, admittedly, a rather difficult passage to interpret because of the surrealism of the occurrence: In the middle of the night, Jacob decides to send his wives and children and their possessions over the ford (vv. 22-23); from out of nowhere, a man appears and wrestles with Jacob who, for some reason, is left behind or stays behind on the other side of the ford (v. 24); the match goes on for an extended period, that is, until daybreak (v. 24), and Jacob demands for a blessing when the man tries to disengage (v. 26); right there, Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, and the place is named Peniel as well (vv. 28, 30). On the surface, the meaning of the passage is not made immediately clear, for as one goes through it initially, it reads as though it is a dream sequence. However, there seems to be no concrete reason to suppose such. It seems fairly clear that there was an actual crossing that occurred (v. 22), an d that Jacob was physically hurt by the encounter (v. 31b â€Å"†¦and he was limping on his thigh.†). Hence, the passage indicates rather clearly a turning point not only in Jacob’s life, but in the consequent Israelite history, as evidenced by the effects of the nocturnal encounter (v. 32). At any rate, this particular analysis of the narrative focuses on the name changes that are apparent in the text, specifically the change of Jacob’s name to Israel, and the place of the struggle being named Peniel. Such name-changing has

Stage 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Stage 1 - Essay Example It is from this perspective that adolescent girls become an important subject of discussion due to the fact that adolescent girls have been found to be easily influenced by socialization, social influences, peer pressure, and social acceptability (Koplan, Liverman and Kraak, 2005). In effect, adolescent girls are more likely to make purchases of particularly food and nutrition products not necessarily because of the personal experience or education they have with the food, cosmetic or drug but because of the influences they receive from peers to purchase. It has even been established in research that due to the physical and biological changes that these girls experience at adolescence, they become more concerned about their bodies at teen ages and thus look for every means possible to appear as they find pleasing in their own eyes (Lackey and Kaczynski, 2009). Because of some of the key variables discussed about teen girls and for that matter female adolescents on their physical and biological changes and the quest for most of them to achieve a perceived perfect body appearance, this group has often become the target group for most advertisers in the food and nutrition industry. Due to the existing delight from the girls themselves, the advertisers often portray their food, cosmetic and drugs to have the potential of making these girls achieve the perfect bodies that they require or desire for themselves. As reflected in the second research question that seeks to answer the question of ways that advertisements influence the perception of girls on food products and services, Hindin, Contento & Gussow (2004) note that food products and services advertisements do not always represent the holistic truth about what they seek to portray. Rather, they target the intuitions of their audience such that what only things that when audience hear that will draw them to making purchases are represented in advertisements. This means that the case is not always holistic or tru e in what the girls are told in advertisements. Where there is lack of holistic presentation of information, the advertisers have been accused of keeping key information on products that has to do with side effects and risk effects of their food, cosmetic and drugs (Luder, Melnik and DiMaio, 2008). Based on the review above, the second research question will be particularly important in answering because it will open the understanding of girls on the purpose for advertisements and the need for more holistic approach to be taken towards the making of purchases rather than basing sorely on what is presented in advertisements. Once this is done, the aim for the first research question will be achieved because girls are going to be offered more and more options and bases for taking decisions on purchases. Where the accusation is also with false advertisement, the reports have been that what advertisements present is not what the products or services can really offer. In some other cases , advertisers have resorted to over emphasis of the true potency of what products and services being advertised can do, thereby portraying perfect body images that are not really as they are in the real world. But most of these girls take

Poverty As a Social Evil and its Various Aspects Essay

Poverty As a Social Evil and its Various Aspects - Essay Example This essay stresses that poverty is a social evil and root cause of a number of problems caused to man, two of which have been greatly dealt with in the paper. Most people that are poor or living below the poverty line are not even able to afford square meals and provide their family with the same. They have many mouths to feed and an unstable source of income which forces many of them to even resort to actions like begging for food. Most of them do not have a house or a roof to live under and thus are subject to the worst kind of diseases. They are not able to help their situation because of the perpetual state of poverty that they lie within. Even food and shelter becomes a distant dream for such people and they become socially excluded from a lifestyle of being able to achieve these basic resources from society. This paper makes a conclusion that the question lies in whether or not such people should be provided with external assistance by others in order for them to be able to gain basic food supplies and a place to live in with their families. Governments in many countries provide the socially backward classes and poor people of the society with these basic amenities. There are a number of food programs taken up in such developing and under developed countries where poor people are given food grains so that they can sustain their lifestyle and be able to feed their families.

Product description and feature benefit Analysis Essay

Product description and feature benefit Analysis - Essay Example Interchanging the pendants is easy and quick for the users. The jewels contain the ornamental caps that are designed with uncomplicated functional shapes that allow possible attachments of different designs of less expensive pieces of ornaments. In all the interchangeable jewels, the original ornament contains a cover piece used to protect the attached portion used as a decorative material (Kameleon, 2013). This gives the user a taste of different jewels everyday with minimal modifications. The accessories used for the interchangeable jewels are easy and cheap to produce. Therefore, they are readily available in jewel shops with customer-friendly prices. The key design elements found in the interchangeable jewels are the decorative caps, the protective cover and the magnetic piece used to secure the accessory ornament. The inclusion of these aspects ensures that the jewels are in line with fashion and provides jewel lovers with cheap alternatives for variety. This design also makes the jewels unique because of the interchangeability that creates a new look (Kameleon, 2013). Therefore, an individual can also add to the collection of the interchangeable pendants and increase the jewels selection. As a result, the customer can stay in fashion by wearing different jewels everyday and save money. This is done through buying a single necklace or earring and interchanging the pendants to create

Poverty As a Social Evil and its Various Aspects Essay

Poverty As a Social Evil and its Various Aspects - Essay Example This essay stresses that poverty is a social evil and root cause of a number of problems caused to man, two of which have been greatly dealt with in the paper. Most people that are poor or living below the poverty line are not even able to afford square meals and provide their family with the same. They have many mouths to feed and an unstable source of income which forces many of them to even resort to actions like begging for food. Most of them do not have a house or a roof to live under and thus are subject to the worst kind of diseases. They are not able to help their situation because of the perpetual state of poverty that they lie within. Even food and shelter becomes a distant dream for such people and they become socially excluded from a lifestyle of being able to achieve these basic resources from society. This paper makes a conclusion that the question lies in whether or not such people should be provided with external assistance by others in order for them to be able to gain basic food supplies and a place to live in with their families. Governments in many countries provide the socially backward classes and poor people of the society with these basic amenities. There are a number of food programs taken up in such developing and under developed countries where poor people are given food grains so that they can sustain their lifestyle and be able to feed their families.

The buying back of shares by companies is a dangerous financial Essay

The buying back of shares by companies is a dangerous financial strategy as it increases the company's gearing ratio - Essay Example Besides increasing the gearing ratio of the company it impacts important ratios. The impact of leveraged buyback of shares on Vodafone Plc has been explained with the help of qualitative and numerical analysis. The EPS graph of the company has been shown for a five year period to highlight the rise in the earnings per share due to a stock repurchase program. The deterioration in the important financial ratios like interest coverage, return etc has also been shown with the help of suitable graphs. Introduction An announcement of a share repurchase by a company is valued highly by the market participants interpreting it as a ‘buy signal’ for its stock. So the company has good reasons to buy-back its stocks but sometimes these share buyback programs go awry. Despite the popularity of such programs as evident from the recent buyback deals there are concerns whether the firm or the shareholders derive any gains from it. One reason favouring the buyback deal is that at any poi nt of time the surplus cash lying with the management can be used for buyback of shares thereby returning the funds to the shareholders. It has been seen that idle cash makes the managers complacent so buying back of shares can be one way of instilling confidence among the investors. From the view-point of the company stock buyback results in increased Earnings per share (EPS), share price and increases the value of â€Å"executive stock options† (Ogilvie, 2006, p.51). However, the share buyback strategy can be dangerous if the company finances the buyback of equities using borrowed funds. Financing buyback using loan stock may look tempting in the short term but some years down the line the company has to pay back the loan. In the event of an economic recession the company will have to struggle with fund shortage. A rise in the share price, increase in company EPS are all good signs but not at the cost of endangering the position of the company in the future. The board of di rectors must keep the interests of the shareholders in mind while considering share buyback programs. Evidence behind share repurchases A significant research has been conducted especially in the area of share repurchases. The evidences from this research indicate that there is a strong market response on the announcement of share repurchase program. In the studies conducted by Asquith & Mullins (1983) and Damn et al (1981) it has been shown that the market responds positively to stock repurchase announcements, be it in the form of an â€Å"open market repurchase† or â€Å"a self tender offer†. There have been abnormal returns in the case of share repurchase offers. A study on long term market returns, by C.J. Loomis analysed the repurchase offers during the period 1974 to 1983. His studies revealed that the shareholders of the companies that undertook stock repurchase programs earned a compounded yearly return of 22.6% with the S&P 500 reporting a return of 14.1% duri ng the same period. Though the above evidences support a positive response to the share repurchase offers some papers some papers have highlighted the negativity associated with such programs. As per the papers against share repurchase, the stock repurchase decisions by the company manifest signs of poor financial and operating performance, in fact it signals that the

Pocahontas Analysis Essay Example for Free

Pocahontas Analysis Essay Pocahontas Analysis I believe that the disney movie Pocahontas is very inaccurate because of all the details that dont match up with the actual story. Parts involving Pocahontas age, the relationship between John smith and Pocahontas, John Smiths capture and the method of communication between Pocahontas and John Smith are told differently in the movie than in the sources Ive read from. The purpose of this analysis is to inform the reader of all the mistruths in the movie that some people may have perceived as true. Some of the only accurate parts in the movie are that John Smith was indeed about to be executed by the Powhatan and that Jamestown was founded in 1607. Besides these two facts, I believe that the rest of the movie is too warped from the real version. In the movie, John Smith first meets Pocahontas, falls in love with her and is then captured by the Powhatan, but according to the article, he meets Pocahontas after he is captured leading an expedition in search of food on December of 1607. In the movie, Kocoum is shot dead by Thomas after Kocoum attacks John Smith, but in actuality, Kocoum went on to marry Pocahontas. Also in the movie, John Smith is about to be executed because he supposedly killed Kocoum, but the the article says that the execution was just a ritual performed by the Powhatan. The Pocahontas article talks about how John Smith was injured by a gunpowder explosion, whereas in the movie, the Governor shoots John Smith while aiming for the Powhatan chief. The movie ends when John Smith must go back to England to be treated for his wound inflicted upon him by the Governor. This first source already unveils many of the inaccuracies in the movie. The Pocahontas letter, which is from John Smiths point of view, greatly favors Pocahontas. John Smith even calls her an instrument of God. In the letter though, John Smith describes his execution as real and that Pocahontas hazarded the beating out of her own body to save his own. In the article, Smith was first welcomed by the great chief and offered a feast. Then he was grabbed and forced to stretch out on two large, flat stones, but in the letter, John Smith says that he was ordered to be executed by the chief after eating with the savages for six weeks. Both of these situations were said to be told by John Smith himself, but we may never know the truth. The three portraits of Pocahontas that I saw, were very different from what Pocahontas looked like in the movie. In the engraving portrait, Pocahontas almost looked like a man. In the other two portraits, she at least looked like a woman, but it was nothing close to how she was portrayed in the Disney Movie. As you can see, there are many more inaccurate events in the movie than accurate ones. Many kids may grow up believing that the Disney story of Pocahontas is the true story of Pocahontas. What they dont know is that although Pocahontas is based on a true story, barely anything about the movie is true. Overall, the Disney version of Pocahontas seems like a work of fiction to me, whose sole purpose is to entertain young audiences.

Treaty Of Versailles Dbq History Essay

Treaty Of Versailles Dbq History Essay The Treaty of Versailles was a controversial treaty, not only because of what it embodied, but what it took to get the Treaty in motion. The Great War, or World War I, lasted between 1914 and 1918. This war occurred over a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, political alliances between nations, ethnic tensions in Europe, and most of all, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Austria-Hungary. With the bloody stalemate continuing without any end, the United States still held its position as a neutral world power, but events, such as the sinking of the Lusitania, caused the United States to recant its neutral position to a position in fighting against Germany. The end of World War I officially ended by the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, but wasnt signed by the U.S. Whether this was President Wilsons fault or the Senates fault, has been questioned over the last decade. There were a variety of reasons that the United States did not sign the Treaty of Versailles with the biggest reasons being that the Senate felt that the Treaty embodied ideals and practices, such as joining the League of Nations, which directly contradicted American foreign policy. As seen in Document A, William Borah stated that the League is essentially creating more problems to solve problems. He said that shouldnt we want a League run by Americans who have the same values and ideals rather than delegates from foreign countries? In Document B, it is stated that, â€Å"The Treaty of Versailles†¦it does much to intensify and nothing to heal the old and ugly dissensions.† It was common knowledge and a wide held belief that the United States should remain neutral in foreign matters. The American citizens knew about Washingtons Farewell Address and how it stated that we would stay out of the business of foreign countries. The Treaty of Versailles only created bigger rifts in American society with its controversial policies. Woodrow Wilson, the President at the time, also included that, along with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the American public should accept his Fourteen Points. Also seen in Document F, John Maynard Keynes spoke about a certain aspect of the Treaty of Versailles that many people were afraid to talk about; maybe it was because he wrote a book dedicated to his cause. Keynes stated that simply forcing a country to accept a set of reparations and servitudes isnt really creating progress. Document E shows how if any country shows just cause for their actions, that they can then be truly forgiven. These are just the views of the American public and the Legislative Branch (mainly the Senate). But what about the views of Woodrow Wilson, a man who recanted his views of neutrality to that of an active role in war matters? Woodrow Wilson had a lot going for himself when he first took office as the President of the United States. Wilsons postwar plans detailed his Fourteen Points, which were imbued with the ideals of Progressivism, and a permanent League of Nations, which he planned on making the United States join. In an address to Woodrow Wilson, former President Herbert Hoover stated how it would be beneficial to have a League of Nations, even how much better it would be if it got an early ratification (Document D). In a speech by Woodrow Wilson on September 5, 1919, he stated, â€Å"When you read Article X, therefore, you will see that it is nothing but the inevitable, logical center of the whole system of the Covenant of the League of Nations, and I stand for it absolutely† (Document C). Woodrow Wilson wanted a â€Å"real† end to the War; an end that could only come by United States joining the League of Nations in order to fight international problems. In his â€Å"Appeal to the Co untry† on October 3, 1920, Wilson stated, â€Å"The Founders of the Government thought of America as the light of the world as created to lead the world in the assertion of the rights of peoples and the rights of free nations†¦This light the opponents of the League would quench† (Document G). Woodrow Wilson is interpreting certain aspects of historical events to his liking and is attempting to persuade the public to support him in the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. It was also a known fact that Wilson suffered from a variety of illnesses, which many people believed altered his mind, so he eventually lost all support from the public as well as his colleagues in government. With the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson came an era of Progressivism; an era that would be defined by many of his successful and failed attempts in gaining public support for his actions. His most failed attempt was getting the public and government to support his views on passing the Treaty of Versailles, supporting his Fourteen Points, and joining the League of Nations. Many believed that joining the League of Nations would destroy all that this nation stood for, as detailed by George Washington in his Farewell Address. Although the Treaty of Versailles was not passed, which was a fault on both the Senate and Wilsons part, Wilson eventually tried hard to concentrate on problems back at home through certain social programs and his ideology of the â€Å"New Freedom.†

raccoon report Essays -- essays research papers

Raccoon Report GENERAL OVERVIEW   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Raccoons (Procyon lotor) belong to the Procyonidae (those who came before the dogs’ family). This highly intelligent mammal has a rounded head with a short nose, small ears, and a sturdy body with minimum-length, thick, grayish brown fur. Raccoons are easily identified by a distinctive pattern of alternating black and yellowish white rings around a large bushy tail. They are also identified by a unique narrow black face mask with two white patches above the eyes. The average length is 2 to 3 feet long (including the tail) and 12 inches high, weigh 8 to 22 pounds (heaviest in autumn), and live for 10 to 13 years. Females produce one litter per year, numbering from one to six kilts and averaging four to five. SPECIAL FEATURES AND ADAPTATIONS Raccoons have had a long time to adjust and adapt to different surroundings. Raccoons have keen senses of smell and hearing. (Blashfield, 2004) They are strong and agile, hence good tree and fence climbers. Each foot has five long and slender digits, which operate with remarkable dexterity. This was an adaptation developed for living in dense forests and heavy tree populated areas. In the wild, they use their front feet for finding food in water, opening shellfish, and conveying food to the mouth. In urban areas the raccoon has learned to dig through human garbage as a significant food source. In adapting to human habitat, they often apply this dexterity to opening garba...

Self-Made Misery in Blake’s London Essay -- Blakes London Essays

Self-Made Misery in Blake’s London  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The poet William Blake paints a picture of the dirty, miserable streets of London in his poem, "London". He describes the wretched people at the bottom of the society, the chimney-sweeps, soldiers, and harlots. These people cry out from their pain and the injustices done to them. The entire poem centers around the wails of these people and what they have become due to wrongs done to them by the rest of society, primarily institutions such as the church and government. Are these people really wronged, however? The poem seems to suggest that the injustices they have been subjected to are of their own making. In Blake's poem he says that as he passes through London he sees a "mark in every face [he] meet[s]/ Marks of weakness, marks of woe." (3-4) He talks about how everywhere he hears cries of fear and suppression. The church seems to be ignoring the cry of the poor chimney-sweep in lines nine and ten. The soldier dies on the palace walls with a sigh. These are examples of the wretchedness of the lives that people lead. The central ide...

Confusion at the Busy Airport

There I was at the world's largest and most hectic airport. It felt like a whole new world around me but it was all to come to an abrupt end shortly. As the thousands of people around me went on with their lives so did I. Then it all started, as I approached the counter I overheard some police officers stating that a terror alert had been sounded and that all officers should be on high alert. My heart started pumping faster and faster, I started sweating and my adrenaline levels shot up. Everywhere nook I looked at I saw flashing red lights hooked up to countdown timers that seemed as though they were going to blow up any second and to mention the eerie sounds I kept hearing. As fast as I could I checked in my baggage and headed straight to my boarding gate. As I ran up the stairs I caught a glimpse of what looked like a flashing light wired up to a small box. Instinctively I shouted ‘BOMB' but within seconds I realised that it was a camera not a bomb. What have I done I thought, I had caused a stamped in the world's busiest airport. Everybody scampered to grab their belongings and headed towards any possible path to escape. All officers immediately reacted and within a matter of minutes everything was under control. However it was too late alone I was responsible for the deaths of what seemed to at least a hundred people. There, in front of me lay a child who seemed to be just 3 years old but his life had already come to an end. Nevertheless this was not the time to break down yet more a time to be happy that it really wasn't a bomb. On this sudden turn of mood each person started clearing the place and getting the injured to the hospital. But luck wasn't on our side and our happiness was short lived as this time the cry for safety was real. There was a deafening, explosive ‘BANG'. The entire building started shaking; all windows cracked and huge pieces of supporting beams fell to the ground. No one expected what was going to happen next. All flights to and from the airport were cancelled, all passengers were in a total state of panic. Fires raged throughout the building in turn blocking all possible exits. I thought to myself ‘So this is the end. I brought this upon myself,' I thought. Just that very moment a sudden turn of events occurred, which meant I could escape the death trap I was in currently. Due to the harmful gas build up in the airport many were barely managing to breath and some already on the ground unconscious. I took the deepest breath I could and ran for a small hole that blew open in the wall due to the raging fire. I leaped and went right through the fire and just barely made it sustaining very little injuries. Within another 30 minutes the fire was brought under control. This was the worst disaster that London had seen in years. Only 157 people escaped with minimal injuries, with another 276 in the hospital and a devastating 698 dead. Yet to think that majority of these people died only because of me!

English Literature Coursework Essay

Compare and contrast at least two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, paying particular attention to setting, atmosphere, characterisation, theme and language. Throughout this essay I will be comparing and contrasting Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ and ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. Edgar Allen Poe had a particular preference to what though was good writing he believed that a story should build suspense and tension and all techniques should be used to build this tension for a big finish, his ‘unity of effects’. Many of Poe’s stories are very gothic and sinister, this can be seen to have been influenced by the long chain of very traumatic events in his life such as losing both parents, losing his wife, alcoholism and hallucinations. He should never be called crazy himself but his stories often involve ‘crazy’ narrators and characters. I will firstly start of with the setting in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, this is a story set in old Italy in which our main character ‘Montressor’ has been gravely insulted by ‘Fortunato’ and to find his revenge he buries him alive deep underneath his mansion. The setting in the Cask is sinister and also ironic. Its set in a mansion during the carnival, the mansion itself is very gothic and creepy which gives us the gothic element, but the fact that its set during carnival is very ironic as carnival is supposed to be a time of joy and gaiety not a time for evil murders such as this. The reason this murder actually takes place is also due to the carnival, as during it a lot of social boundaries are dropped and laws are less firmly enforced which gives him this chance to ‘get away with murder’. The deed itself is set deep in Montressors cellar, his catacombs, which provides is with a very gothic atmosphere. The deeper they descend into the cellar can also been seen as irony for descending into hell which gives us another layer to the setting of this tale. ‘The Black Cat’ is a story set all at home in which a very strange series of events take place and the narrator who was once a very fond animal lover becomes their enemy and ends up killing one cat and attempting to kill his second but instead kills his wife, who he walls up in his cellar and accidently walls up the cat alive with her. During this time we witness his slow decent into utter madness. The setting as I said is all at the narrator home, this is ironic as the home is where we are supposed to feel most secure and most safe but it this tale its where these crazy and rather disturbing events take place, this affects the reader in a way which makes them think that the home is maybe not so secure as they once thought and challenges their views of safety and security. The safety of home is a total contrast to the sinister events that take place. This is similar to the Cask as all deaths in both stories take place in the narrators home, but is contrasted as in the Cask he was more in control of where the death could have taken place as he was more ‘sane’, but it in ‘The Black Cat’ he is less in control and the death of his wife was more spur of the moment. The murder in the cask was very much thought out and everything was planned to the last detail but in the black cat he is often drunk or not in a safe state of mind when the murders are committed. I will now compare and contrast the atmosphere in both stories. In the Cask Poe creates a gothic atmosphere by describing the scenery very vivid and in a hugely gothic detail. Such as ‘upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the montressors’ which gives up a vivid image of a huge damp cellar lined with cob-webs and rats. Also the ‘madness’ of the carnival is ironic for the madness of the deeds that’s going to take place. In the black cat the gothic atmosphere is created by the huge range of gothic literature and very dramatic writing. During the story there are series of very perverse doings such as the pair of deaths one being a cat and the other his wife. There are also lots of hints towards to supernatural elements starting off with the connection between black cats and witches by the narrator’s wife, which we can assume played on his mind throughout the story and may have lead to part of his downfall. Both stories have a huge intensity and a great build up of tension. Both stories create terror and a gothic atmosphere. Now I will discuss the largest of all subjects from the two stories, the narrators. The narrator in the Cask is a very proud man and not easily annoyed as Poe says that he say bared most of Forunato’s but once he is gravely insulted he believes he has to go to the extremity of murder to gain his revenge and regain his dignity. I’d say the character is actually rather reliable as he doesn’t seem to be ‘insane’, just getting revenge the only way he thinks he can, and he often mentions that what he’s doing is just part of human nature and everyone does it just maybe not on this scale. His state of mind is pretty secure, he seems to know exactly what he’s doing and just how he’s going to do it and everything seems very much planned out to the utter last detail. His only slip would seem to be right at the end when he starts to call out Fortunato’s name where it would seem that he’s starting to feel regret already for wha t he’s doing. He’s very manipulative as he knows exactly what things to say to make Fortunato come with him, such as mentioning ‘Luchresi’ as he knows that Fortunato would be in competition with him and would be jealous to see him take it to Luchresi instead of him, he basically uses him as a lure, even though that is all we hear about Luchresi its enough to sway Fortunato into the montressors deep vaults. Now for the narrator in the black cat, at the beginning of the story he is made out to be a very respectful and animal loving character. In the case of this particular character I can easily say that he is unreliable as he is clearly insane. Unlike the narrator in the cask, during his mental disintegration he starts to hallucinate. Such as the ‘enormous, flat’ cat he imagines in house after the death of his first cat, and secondly the gallows appearing in the tuft of white hair on the second cat. The gallows are used as foreshadowing, maybe his death, or another death in his household or his impending capture. Throughout the story the narrators state of mind deteriates slowly, one reason for this could be his alcoholism that had taken control of him. He calls the alcohol ‘fiend intemperance’ which he says had altered his for the worse, this shows that the narrator can see what’s slowly happening to himself but blames it on the alcohol as he calls it a fiend. This adds another layer to the alcohol and leads up to believe that the narrator’s state of mind is not totally secure. So unlike the narrator in the cask we feel that he is rather out of control of his actions and his state of mind. The third subject comparison I will make is in the language of the two stories. In the cask Poe uses a huge array of linguistic devices. There is extensive vocabulary throughout the prose which gives it depth and great vivid detail such as ‘deep dark crypt’; this has two descriptive adjectives and alliteration in a tiny space. This gives the tale imagery of this evil crypt and mysterious vaults. He also uses several instances of repetition to describe and give the story yet another layer or depth and emphasis in particular important events in the prose; ‘a succession of loud and shrill screams’. He also has a wide range of sentence structure, simple, compound and complex. The complex sentences in this prose build tension and then a compound or simple on for impact. All of these techniques create and build tension and intensity. There is also irony, for example the use of appearance versus reality where the narrator presents himself as one way when infact in reality it is clearly obvious they are not. Foreshadowing is also used, this is when a particular event is mentioned or hinted at will become later in the story. Such as when Fortunato is suffering from a cough and upon entering the vaults has a sudden coughing fit after which montressor requests that they leave but fortunate insists that; ‘the cough’s a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough’. This is seen as foreshadowing his future, true he will not die of a cough, but he will die in these vaults. In the black cat Poe uses irony in his very first paragraph, ‘mere household events’ when we know that they are clearly far from mere household events. Poe also uses personification; the most rhetorical is when he personifies the alcohol to give it another layer and it would also give ‘someone’ to blame his irrational behaviour on. The use of irony is noticeable when the narrator reveals that his first cats name was Pluto, who, in Greek mythology, is the lord of the underworld. This could also tap into the supernatural element of the tale which could be the reason for the narrator’s physiological downfall. Poe uses the technique of rhetorical questions to probe at the reader and leave an unanswered question in the readers head. Such as; ‘who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason that because he knows he should not?’. This particular rhetorical question is basically talking about this perverse side in everyone and about basic human nature, which is something that we can all relate to as readers and could also, be the narrator trying to justify his actions as part of everyday human nature. Poe’s vocabulary is very vicious, emotive and demonic, such as ‘demons’, ‘exhault’, ‘damned’ and ‘agony’. These emotive words play on the emotions and are much better than just normal descriptive words. Once again, like the Cask, intensity is created and built throughout the story, and both have foreshadowing, symbolism and good diction. An example of foreshadowing in the black cat could be the narrator’s hallucination of the gallows appearing in his second cat’s fur, this could be foreshadowing a death that he could be related to including himself. The last category I will be comparing and contrasting is themes in the tale. In the cask Poe explores several themes, such as the dropping of moral boundaries at the time of carnivals and their consequences, such as crime. Poe is just using this extremity to show this. Revenge is also another theme explored in this tale and once again this is an extremity to show that. It is also to explore the narrator’s state of mind and to entertain the reader. In the black cat Poe explores the idea that everyone has a perverse side and uses this extremity to show that. Like the cask, it also explores the narrator’s state of mind and to entertain the reader.

Media Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Media Management - Essay Example This essay stresses that rdio and television managers must share the same basic principles of responsible journalism as the people they hire in running their newsrooms. Regardless of how enthusiastic, well trained and forward thinking journalists may be, public affairs and news programming stand little chance of growth unless the motivation and expertise of airing something, with the exception of music, is nurtured at the management level. This paper makes a conclusion that inexperienced station managers may view maintenance of news as capital intensive and very risky politically and decide not to venture into it. Such managers must familiarize themselves with the numerous examples from other media houses in recent years where the risks have paid off well in terms of loyal audiences, favorable public perception and increased revenue. Managers should evaluate the skills of their newsroom in order to understand the qualities of good news and public affairs programs and also how to maximize advertisement sales due to the effect of local news programming. Media managers must also familiarize themselves with the basics of journalistic ethics because it is them who will the final arbiters and not journalists whenever there are accusations, disputes or ethical calls to be addressed. Media house management should acquaint themselves with key functions of media management such as ethics and law in broadcasting, technology and e ngineering, station promotion and identification and production and creativity. Others include sales principles, advertising and pricing, structure of a radio or TV station, and broadcast programming. Hierarchy of organizational communications needs Just like Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, there is also a hierarchy of organizational communications. The basic level of communication is the customer service that involves being available to execute communications on a responsive and professional basis, but not ordering anything more. This involves the media personnel just doing their job and has been compared to Maslow's physiological needs for food, shelter and water. From customer service, the level of communication goes up to 'media' where an appropriate range of media resources where the work is well produced and receives a high audience rating. This is a very secure and safe way of meeting the needs of the customers but does not add anything more. It is very much like Maslow's human safety need. Achieving the third level of communication requires a little more effort since media development becomes more goal-oriented because it defines the audience and the message and sets priorities to reach its communication objectives. This is the stage where communications becomes more proactive and the level of the work must be scaled down to the level of the

North Korean Collection Capabilities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

North Korean Collection Capabilities - Essay Example Special operations are North Korea’s powerful tool. Being one of the world’s largest units of its kind, special operations amount to between 60,000 and 100,000 persons. 3 Moreover, forces are organized into agent operations, reconnaissance, and light infantry and sniper.4 To achieve success in distracting an enemy during a conflict, at least one special operations force is allocated to every regular army corp. 5Almost 12,000 and 6,000 persons can be lifted and deployed at once by sea and air respectively. 6 Under the 2009 reforms only structures changed: special operations became a part of RGB, as did all its parts. Previous institutional deficiencies have been improving. The Reconnaissance Bureau (REBU) was in 2009 merged into the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB). 7 This office was created after the Korean Worker’s Party’s Operations Bureau and Office No. 35 with the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces’ Reconnaissance Bureau were combined. 8 RGB is composed of: operations, reconnaissance, foreign intelligence, inter-Korean dialogue, rear services and technical matters. 9 It is expected that operations and reconnaissance will merge, thus further improve efficiency of RGB in terms of coordination and access to resources. 10 RGB has become self sustainable. This department has engaged in illegal activities through trading companies, which have brought profits to the North Korean regime.11This department can withstand international embargos on North Korea and serve at any time as a source of funding to agents located domestically and abroad. Whereas operations are in charge of training, REBU is in charge of implementation. REBU is in charge of gathering â€Å"strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence.†12 REBU infiltrates its intelligence personnel into South Korea through tunnels under the demilitarized zone as well as through seaborne insertion. 13 South Korea located four such tunnels by 1990.14 It

Assignment (Economics) Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 6

(Economics) - Assignment Example Also the mortgage fallout over the real estate crash, has skewered the flow of FDI in the US, though recent acquisitions of American firms by overseas companies does indicate some level of foreign investment. But it is also the rise in popularity of a strong Euro amongst global banking giants, that the has resulted in fall of demand for the dollar . In economic terms, it is simply a case of the supply of dollars outstripping the demand for it, thereby decreasing its value. The fallout of this within the US is the rise in prices of commodities like oil and gasoline, and a lower purchasing power. Traditionally, price of gold is inversely related to the value of the US dollar, and on 20th April 2011, gold prices breached $1,500 for an ounce for the first time due the week dollar. Mexico, China, India, Russia have made large additions to their gold reserves recently, which reiterates the fact that emerging economies are diversifying from their dollar dominated assets to lower their risks. China with a forex kitty of a staggering $3.05 trillion said ".. we are pushing forward with a strategy of diversifying our investments of foreign reserves." The Turkish lira- the worlds least valuable currency which after years of severe inflation and devaluations traded at 1.65 million per US $ till 2004 was phased out, when the new Turkish Lira- which trades at averagely 1.5 to the US dollar- was introduced on January 1st

Shakespeare's Othello Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Shakespeare's Othello - Essay Example Desdemona’s father’s assumption that she will marry a handsome man of his choice proves wring. He never imagined that his daughter is an individual of independent opinions. She tells Brabantio how she loves Othello and gives perfect logic for her action. Desdemona is proud of her beauty and believes that she can influence men easily, and this is an indication that she is not a mature woman. Lovers who are easily won over are also easily lost and as such that type of love is not true love but infatuation. Even though Desdemona is an attractive young woman, she is stubborn when it comes to her own interest and she will cross any loyalty to go by her inclinations. Her talk with her father is intelligently presented, she is respectful to him, she feels obliged to him on many counts, but makes it clear that her loyalties have changed with the time. She understands the reason for her father’s wrath and yet her decision to leave him is final. Reason is enemy number one of love and love will ambush reason at the most unexpected time. When Desdemona’s father was thinking that his daughter is absolutely loyal to him, she had perfected her alternative plans tactfully but boldly. She had fallen for Othello and would not like to lose time in cementing the relationship. In this context she devises a plan in pursuit of love which would not have occurred in a woman’s mind belonging to the 21st century. Desdemona pleads with Othello to find a friend to woo her by telling the stories related to his valor. This means that she was encouraging Othello to court her directly. Iago blows hot and cold into the relationships of her father and Othello. His intentions are not sincere and he wears the mask of a well-wisher and counselor of Desdemona. Just for loving Othello, Desdemona cannot be condemned. In the conventional societal norms of the

What are the ethical responsibilities of American consumers Term Paper

What are the ethical responsibilities of American consumers - Term Paper Example Today's American economy stretches to every corner of the globe. It is the responsibility of the Senate to offer Enlightened Humanitarian conditions to the economic periphery. I am here today to remind the Senate committee about African human rights abuses which are unwittingly funded by American consumers through the trade of conflict minerals. The Senate first inspected the Congolese mineral trade in columbite-tantalite, cassiterite and wolframite in 2009. Senator Brownback sponsored S.891, titled â€Å"Congo Conflict Minerals Act.† This bill cites experts at humanitarian organizations, public health officials, economists and the United Nations. The consensus opinion condemns the Congolese mineral trade and the violence which it funds. The bill called for tighter economic control of conflict minerals in America. In the Congo, violent military forces are profiting from the trade in conflict minerals. These forces â€Å"continue to commit widespread human rights abuses† including â€Å"sexual violence and rape† (S.891, Sec. 2 (2), (4)). Sadly, the bill died in committee and American consumers have continued to unknowingly fund the violence in Africa. The Senate should do everything in its power to diminish the trade in conflict minerals. These actions should not be limited to economic sanctions, tariffs, political declarations or consumer education. This serious situation requires a broad approach based in the same Senate mandate that spurred humanitarian regulations of slaves, diamonds, child laborers and even green house gas emissions. Africa has long been the a source of raw materials for colonial nations. The Belgian King Leopold II first founded the Congo in the 19th century as a colonial asset. While Leopold's brutal regime was based in extracting rubber, the current crisis comes from military leaders funded by conflict minerals. (Polgreen). America consumes these materials as finished goods. Consumers must be made cognizant of the ec ological and human costs of this neo-Colonial relationship. New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen described conflict minerals as â€Å"Africa's resource curse: The wealth is unearthed by the poor, controlled by the strong, then sold to a world largely oblivious of its origins† (Polgreen). Ethical consumers must be made aware of these origins. What can the Senate do to regulate American trade in conflict minerals? Two years ago, Senator Brownback would have required manufacturers which use conflict minerals to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (S. 891). In 2009, the primary concern was the identification of conflict minerals. Today we need to also educate American citizens about the humanitarian cost of consumption. Hopefully this knowledge will allow consumers to regulate their purchase of conflict minerals within the free market. While American consumers are often ethical, sometimes policymakers need to help define the nations economic scope, humanitari an obligations and ecological impact. America is an Enlightened nation with many trading partners. We are all responsible for the well being of the individuals who live on the periphery of our economic influence. We are quick to give philanthropic aid to African nations through the IMF and World Bank. On December 1 of this year, President Obama and this congress guaranteed $48 billion to Africa as part of the â€Å"President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.† This money will be spent over the next five years (Freeman). Our ethical consumption can mirror our humanitarian aid. Conflict minerals fund sexual violence in the Congo, here American consumption needs to be regulated in order line up with our

Why Do You Want to Become a Child Development Associate Credential Essay Example for Free

Why Do You Want to Become a Child Development Associate Credential Essay My educational goal is to complete a Child Development Associate Credential, an Associates of Arts Degree, and a Bachelors’ of Arts Degree in Early Childhood Education. With a CDA I will be a lead teacher in the classroom; I will be able to plan developmentally appropriate activities for the children in my care. I will also have the basic fundamental understanding of Child Grow and Development, how to support children’s social and emotional development, how to plan a safe healthy environment, steps to advance children’s physical and intellectual development, strategies to establish a positive relationship with families, how to manage an effective program operation and most of all maintaining a commitment to professionalism. The Associates of Arts Degree with an emphasis in Early Childhood Education, will increase my level of expertise in the fundamentals of the CDA Credential, and provide me with a broad knowledge, the skills and training required to teach children from age zero to five year old. The practicum courses will provide opportunities to apply theoretical knowledge to planning and presenting curriculum. A Bachelor’s Degree will strengthen my education skills, while enhancing my understanding of the many aspects of children’s development and education. With the professionalism, expertise and communication skill needed, I will be able to take on a job as a director at a center, or teach up to the third grade in a public school. Education is very important in order to have a successful life. Without a proper education it is very difficult to reach your maximum potential. My career goal is to be a qualified early childhood education teacher. I chose this career path because I have always had an interest in children, and the way they develop: physically, intellectually, socially and emotionally, while being in an intimate multicultural environment. The abundance of knowledge children gain in the first five years of life is remarkable; it is amazing to watch them adapt to the environment both physically and socially. I delight in their curiosity, imagination, sense of adventure and playfulness. The emotional traits children’s develop at this tender age will be shape by the people they come into immediate contact with. I am privilege to have an influence on the development of children during their most impressionable years. I believe that the Early Education Studies will affect my future as a teacher a parent and as a member of my community.

Effect of Branding on the Consumer

Effect of Branding on the Consumer Branding: How It Inspires People To Purchase A Particular Brand Abstract This research is done with the suitable research methods to describe how the people attempt to match their characteristics with a particular brand. A firm or company’s primary target is to make and preserve customers. They use various plans which include several research methods in order to discover the best way to make profits. For the companies, the saying, consumer is god, is crucial for a successful their business. Observing the customer’s purchasing behaviour is the initial step in the direction of successful understanding of customers. Branding is a crucial marketing strategy which inspires customer’s viewpoint and purchasing behaviour every time. Understanding customer buying behaviours will give marketers a close look into how significance for the marketers is to know the basic association the consumer has with the brand. So, for this reason, the research splits these issues into number of dimensions to consider that there is any connection between consum er purchasing behaviour. In other words, it permits one to see if branding can actually inspire consumer purchasing process. The research concentrates on the individual purchasing behaviour and branding associations. The sample is collected from the United Kingdom to overlook the culture impact and moreover to get rid of racial, religion and geographic issue for suitable sampling. The importance of this research is to explain how branding have an effect on different buyers behaviours build upon four kinds of complicated purchasing behaviour, conflict-reducing purchasing behaviour, habitual purchasing behaviour, and variety-seeking purchasing behaviour that are further talked about in this paper. By assessing commodity products, investigation of different approaches from these different consumer purchasing behaviour groups towards brand effects is done. The findings showed in the end reveals a strong positive association that can guide companies to concentrate more on strategies of branding according to the customers purchasing attitude towards branding. Introduction Today, in this fast moving environment, marketing depends upon the consumer’s behaviour and response to the product, price, promotion, place, physical layout, process and people (Gronroos, 1997; Kotler and et al., 1999; Egan, 2002) because today marketing is more consumers oriented than never before and due to the increasing value of service sector. For the development and survival of a firm, it requires exact facts about customers like their approach of buying, what they purchase, from which place they purchase and most essentially quantity they buy. Marketing has accepted the behavioural sciences basically sociology and social psychology to study and understand the process of consumer behaviour and decision making. While doing this, marketers are able to get explanations and forecasts build on these disciplines to figure their market offerings. To the extent that marketers are investigating the consumers psychological background in order to their establish factors that affect consumer choice in terms of cognition, perception, learning and attitude – all of which affect his buyer behaviour. A current day market trend has been the increasing similarity of products with little real functional difference between competing products. This is primarily due to intensive competitive rivalry and the existence of efficient production, transport, communication and financial systems. Under such circumstances technological innovations are quite quickly imitated by competitors and can no longer offer previous levels of sustainable competitive advantage and product differentiation (Levitt, 1983; Gronroos, 1997; Kotler, 2000). Therefore a significant feature of contemporary marketing research and practice concerns the emergence of brands as key organisational assets and a major issue in product strategy (Kotler, 2000). Firms have pla ced a heavy emphasis on adding symbolic values associated with brand names as the basis for product differentiation. The winner will eventually be the one whose strategy entails a mix conducive to the customers purchase behaviour, while doing so more effectively than its competitors. Objective Of The Study The primary goal of this research is to display branding value, functions and most important thing, its part in the consumer buying decision. This research examines the process and attributes that direct towards the customers’ evaluation of brands. This research will concentrate on the assessment of questionnaires filled by the public. Other objectives are like explanation of how the present customers attempts to match the individual identity with the identity that they relate to the brand, to prove that is there any correlation between individual purchasing behaviour and branding, and to evaluate how branding have an effect on different purchaser behaviours. Literature Review This study provides a foundation for the value and uses of branding as a vital marketing activity having an important impact on the consumer purchase decision. This research relates to a basic theory which has yet to be verified which says that as the difference among similar available products in the market is reducing, the chances that customers will buy through extrinsic signals, i.e. brand name associations is rising (Murphy, 1992). So, as customers’ ability to distinguish same kind of product declines, it is likely that the awareness of familiarity of a particular brand will push them to buy their particular choice of brand. Branding Let us define a ‘product’ before defining a brand, according to Baker (2000) a product is like anything that meets the needs of consumers. He says that it is the ability of the product to meet these needs that gives it value. The needs or problems can be psychological, economic or functional. In a competitive environment there are several companies offering opponent products that meet the customer’s needs. It is important to consider the fact that the brand can also allow companies to overcome the need to compete at a functional level, and can be used to help a company to compete on any level it is by applying its main capabilities (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994). It is the brand that distinguishes and identifies their offerings (Levitt, 1983). Like, most valuable possession is its brand name. They may be referred to as invisible assets of a lot of corporations around the world. Branding at present is increasingly concerned with bringing together and maintaining a mix of values, both tangible as well as intangible, which are relevant to the consumers and which properly differentiate one’s brand from that of another (Muehling and Laczniak, 1991; Hankinson and Cowking, 1993; Kapferer, 1995; Kotler et al., 1999). There are many tools other then the brand name to distinguish products and invest them with personality. Leading among them are advertising, promotion and packaging, other ways to differentiate from the competition may be product formulation, delivery systems, sizes, colour, smell, shape and so on. On the other hand, all these elements are put together with an appropriate and protected name with which the primary attributes of the product or service ultimately reside give the product its brand identity. This combination of messages within the structure of a brand name is a foundation to the development of brand personality (Graham, 2001; Holt, 2002). From the consumers point of view, brand names are as important as the product itsel f in the sense they make purchasing process easier, guarantee quality and at times form as a basis of self-expression. As said by Kotler (1997), any company can produce cold drinks, but only Pepsi Co. can produce 7UP. Talking about branding purpose and benefits, branding facilitates and makes the customers selection process more effective, people are loaded with lots of decisions in their day to day lives, and they are flooded with limitless products and messages contesting for attention. People look for shortcuts to make the decisions easier, a shorter way is to depend on habit, this shows of purchasing products that have shown good results in the past. This is in particular a case of less involvement purchases. This is further shown by a model of habitual buying behaviour (Assael, 1993), stating that reasonable past consumption behaviour leads to benefit association, which is a idea means the tendency of the consumer to relate the positive rewards to a particular brand, this relation between positive rewards towards a certain brand restricts the customers need for looking information and strengthen the likelihood that the identification of a need will lead the customer to straight buy a particul ar brand. And from the retailer’s point of view, branding can help differentiation. According to (Adcock. et al., 1998), differentiation is an action of modelling a set of meaningful differences to differentiate the companys offering from the opponent’s offerings. Competition with fast pace can follow development in technology and product formulation. An opponent will quickly able to make a replica, example, a cigarette brand, though they will not be able to copy the personality that use the brand name, like Marlboro. Porter (1980) says that differentiation is a source of competitive advantage. Using a differential advantage companies are in a position to distinguish their offer from competitors in the same segment. According to Porter (1980), the main need for gaining a competitive advantage is by creating such differentiation. Differentiation, in this case, refers to a company’s ability to be exclusive in its product sold and service offered. This individuality must be of a value to the consumer and can thus be sold at a premium over its competitor’s price. The more valuable this exclusivity is, the higher the differentiation, leading to the higher premium. Differentiation however comes with a cost, so for differentiation to have a competitive advantage, the cost of differentiating must be significantly lower than the premium earned. Therefore, in the perfect market with perfect competition, this premium allows the company to make a higher profit margin than its competitors. In a market segment with no differential advantage held by anyone, consumers might opt purely on the basis of price, and perfect competition which confirms that profits are pushed to zero (Porter, 1980; Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994; Baker, 2000). The differential advantage above can be gained by obtaining any element of the marketing mix. But studies have shown that the best possible plan is to focus on brand differentiation, rather than cost and price as a way of building profitability and growth (East, 1997; Diaz de Rada, 1998; Fankel, 2002). The Significance of Brand Loyalty According to (Meenaghan, 1995; Quester and Smart, 1998), branding can be related to the increasing value of brand loyalty. Loyalty can be termed as a total commitment towards a particular brand. Building loyalty depends on satisfying the needs of the consumers better than other opponents (Oliver, 1999) and the stage of loyalty that can be reached depends on the aimed consumers. According to (Quester and Smart, 1998), people all over the globe develop irrational connection with different products. Though (Levitt, 1983), came with the structure to understand how booming brands are made and claimed that consumers are not irrational to select them. The core of all brands consists of key product attributes, which allow the consumers to distinguish the product, as an answer to their needs; the attributes describe the products performance and usefulness. Adjoining this main product there is a group of attributes that enable the consumer to distinguish the product from other products of different brands. These characteristics take the shape of the products appearance, design, packaging, and identification. If these attributes would not been there, the only differentiation would be based on its reasonable pricing. According to Doyle, the brand name permits for a sustainable differential advantage. In the end, it is the external shell of the product that has been described by Doyle as, whatever thing that possibly can be done to create customer inclination and loyalty (cited Baker, 2000). According to (Alreck and Settle, 1999,) marketer’s basic aim is to make good relationship with buyers, rather just selling. The core of a relationship is a powerful bond between the brand and the buyer. If successful there will be present a loyalty that keeps out the opponents. A strong brand name should have a consumer franchise that will develop when enough number of customers wants that brand and reject other alternatives, still if the price is less. A brand with a powerful consumer franchise is protected from competitors (Kotler and Cox, 1980; Cheratony, 1993; Cowley, 1996). The brand loyal customers, whether they purchase same brand every time which can be an act of trust, habit or outcome of less participation and product availability, the clear assumption is that they push high profits for the company. Thakor and Kohli (1996) says that it costs six times more to succeed over new buyers then to hold present ones, because of the fact that it results in more expenditure li nked to adverts, promotions and sales. So loyal consumers make brand equity the main asset underlying brand equity is buyers’ equity (Machleit, 1993; Kotler, 1999). It is vital to make loyalty and settled base of customers who are fixed and loyal purchasers of a brand, which negates change and churn from the company’s’ products. For every business it is costly to increase new customers and cheaper to keep present one. Therefore, a settled customer base has the customer acquisition investment mainly in its past (Gwinner and Eaton, 1999). Contemporary marketing recommends obtaining data about customers as much as possible, anywhere it is to widen the understanding of customer wants, standard of living, attitude and purchasing behaviour (Chisnall, 1995; Davis et al., 1996; Dun, 1997; Chevron, 1998). This allows a company to modify the brand offering, to shift from the usual to an unexpected level of service actually delighting the customer, make sure the future loyalty and commitment. Generally, a brand’s value to a company is mainly created by the customer loyalty it controls (Aaker, 1996). Brand Equity Brands might differ in terms of the amount of dominance they have in the market. Many brands are unfamiliar whereas others have great consumer awareness, and moreover some brands have a great amount of consumer brand inclination. A strong brand can be said to have great brand equity. This can be explained as a brand which enjoys great brand loyalty, awareness, powerful brand associations, perceive quality and other benefits like trademarks, exclusive rights and channel relationships (Chay, 1991). The idea behind brand equity relates to the importance of a brand, value to the marketer as well as the buyer. With the marketers’ viewpoint, brand equity is a big market share therefore better cash flows and profit. From the consumer viewpoint, brand equity relates to a powerful positive brand attitude through a promising assessment of the brand, which is build upon consistent meanings and values that are simply accessible in the buyers’ memory (Lewis, 1993; Keller, 1998). With substantial effort has been put in measuring and defining the concept of brand equity there has been limited empirical research aimed at understanding the importance of the brand name associations in product differentiation (Aaker, 1991). One of the main objectives of Marketing is to get the products offered in a particular category to be distinct. Muehling, Stoltman and Mishra (1989), have found consumers to be less brand loyal, more price sensitive and less receptive to marketplace information in the absence of perceived differences between the alternatives. Brand Image Marketers understand that brands summon up symbolic pictures which are more significant to success of a product than its real natural characteristics (Meenaghan, 1995; Feltham, 1998). For products which are recognized with a brand, Davis (1995) has performed a research by splitting the customer assessment in two factors. Assessment which is linked to product characteristics (tangible) and assessment linked to the brand name (intangible). The consumers power to assess the performance abilities of the product and view about its value for money, usage effectiveness, reliability and availability develops the inherent advantage of the product, matching to product’s characteristics. The external benefits are at the emotional stage where, the symbolic assessment of the brand is taken into account. Here consumers make use of their personal reasons normally matching the brand name related attributes. With the growing variety of standardized products, consumers give more importance to t he image of products to make the assessment of different options easier. Meenaghan (1995) tells that consumers display an inclination towards symbolic rather than purely functional features of products. Therefore, they usually ask for social reliability and loyalty from firms and, in general, symbolic associations have their origin mostly in brand name perception instead of product perception (Meenaghan, 1995). Marketers have tried to employ behavioural theories to clarify and recognize useful relations involving consumer’s personality and their buying behaviour. Kamakura and Russell (1993) have spotted such theory stating that individuals have a definite self-image build on who they believe they are ideal self-concept build on who they believe they would like to be. Howard and Sheth (1969) have explained self-image as an individual thoughts and feelings about their own selves in relation to other objects in a socially determined frame of reference. By self-concept or self-image model, individuals will perform in a way that sustain and improve thei r self-image. One way is through the products they buy and use. The Effect of Branding on Consumer Purchase Behaviour The function of brand values is highlighted in the literature above, and in particular the significance of the brand to get distinctive benefit has been documented in depth. The reason behind the study to understand the consumer purchasing behaviour in light of the literature discussed so far. In order to do this consumer decision-making models will be organized. The hypothesis will be assumed as the derivation of the tests that will be conducted in the primary research. Marketing and ecological stimuli penetrate the buyer’s perception, the definition of consumer buying behaviour can be comprehended as buyer’s purchasing decision process. Four types of consumer buying behaviours, based on the degree of buyer contribution and the degree of differences among brands (Kotler, 2000). These four types are complex buying behaviour, habitual buying behaviour, variety-seeking buying behaviour, and dissonance-reducing buying behaviour. In complex buying behaviour the consumer is aware of the brands and gets too involved in the buying by analysing the product thoroughly. The customer is highly involved in buying the product in dissonance-reducing behaviour but doesn’t get too involved in the brands. Some buying situations are characterised by low involvement but significant brand differences. Consumer’s often do a lot of brand switching for variety-seekers. They are only according to the information in advertisement and television. The buying process begins with brand beliefs in habitual buying behaviour. The brand plays most important role in consumers’ purchase decision to purchase a particular product from another. Various attributes that merge to make the consumer behaviour in particular fashion during his purchase decision but also inducing any pre-purchase and post purchase activities. As (Engle et al., 1995) has defined consumer behaviour as consisting all those acts of individuals which are directly involved in obtaining, using and disposing of economic goods and services, including the decision process that precede and determine these acts. It is important factor to consider that influence the consumers’ buyer behaviour and study wishes to incorporate the Howard-sheth model of decision making. The theory of the model is that buyer behaviour is in general component firm by how consumer thinks and develops in order. (Howard and Sheth, 1969). It supports the fact that cognitive decision making which eventually determine the choice of brand and purchasing decision. The brand impact motivate the buyer and changes the behaviour , perception, learning and attitude are examined in terms of how each is affected by this impact on branding. Perception Here brand perception is based on individual personal experience of their own beliefs, needs and values. People receive and understand the sensory from their five senses they are sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) in their own ways. Engel at el have defined perception as â€Å" the process whereby stimuli are received and interpreted by the individual and translated into a response† (Foxall, 1980,p.29). Primarily the social and psychological meaning of a product gets conveyed by two factors which determine the idea of stimuli, also known as stimulus discrimination and stimulus generalisation. Stimulus discrimination the question that hits in mind is whether the consumer can actually discriminate between differences in stimuli. Consumers become conscious of brands through packages, advertisements, promotions, and word of mouth they may be involved at some point in decision making process. Once customers became aware of brands through learning their purchase decision are then guided by their perceptions of their brands formed from the information they get about the brands characteristics (Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994). The marketers will first provide the similar brands and provide same information about the product and they position better way and discriminate between characteristics of the brands. The marketing information which will discriminate based on the brand name information provided with and it will be derived from brand name or the perception of the brand. It has been concluded (kotler et al, 1999) that consumers depend on reputation of the brand name to believe t he quality of the product. Brand name is someone who creates the image and some cases provide perception of the quality in a product and that shows the involvement of low level buyers. The main part of brand impact where the customer experiences the service they provide and class they maintain it guide through the purchasing behaviour. Chernatony (1993) explained four factors that attract them to change a particular brand and to understand their provided framework of their successful brands . 1. Quality is the pre-eminent factor that through time can lead buyers to learn to trust a brand which leads to priority position in the evoked set and repeat purchasing activity. 2. Build superior service can not only endorse product quality, but also prove post purchase problem solving. For instance, digital camera consumers would select an international brand for its global service and technological support. 3. The most common means of building an outstanding brand is being the first into the mind consumer. It is much easier to build a strong brand in the consumer’s mind than in the market, characterised by the intense level of competition. 4. In building brands the principle is to invest in markets which are highly differential or where such differentiation can be created. Mostly, the differentiation is why the brand is different from others. Brand provides consumer with lower search costs for products internally and externally. Brand reduces the risk in product decisions and Keller (1998) identifies six types of risk in consumers view. 1. Functional risk- product expectations 2.physical risk- friendly user or not 3. Financial risk- product should fit in the budget and it should be worth 4. Psychological risk- the product affects the mental well-being of the user 6. Time risk- failure of the product leads to find the other product. Brands have a personally of their own which consumers want to associate with, would like to reflect their own behaviour or aspirations and want to have an experience with. A brand, therefore, adds value to a functional product providing it offers clear differentiation in the market in which it competes. â€Å"Branding is short, transforms the actual experience of using the product and thereby adds to its value (Chevron, 1998). Learning So far it has been highlighted how extrinsic cues of a product namely the brand name can affect the consumers perception. Learning refers to any change in behaviour that comes about as a result from past experience. Dodds (1991) refers to learning as changes in a consumer’s behaviour caused by information and experience. Consumers store information in their memory in the form of associations, which links the brand name of a product with a variety of other attributes of the brand, like its price, packaging, colour, size and benefits as well as how the consumer feels about it in terms of its quality and emotions it evokes. These associations are the ones that form the information base from where the consumer makes his ultimately decisions (Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994). Most of this information consumers have stored in their memory comes from the process of learning that is what they think, feel or know about brands. Conoway (1994), claims that the subjective personal meanings of psycho-social consequences are represented by consumers’ cognitive systems. Since these consequences are experienced by consumers they are likely to trigger responses such as emotions, feelings and evaluations. Learning will be examined as a result of the marketing efforts, in terms of how information from the external communication environment is registered with the consumers long term memory from where it is extracted and used during his purchasing decision and also examine the way learning takes place in the form of changes in the consumers behaviour as a result of experience. At its simplest form learning occurs when consumers are repeatedly exposed to information such as brand names, slogans and jingles. Through this forms of learning consumers may form a weakly held belief that a particular brand is desirable due to an advertisement where the spokesperson repeats this claim over and over again. On the other hand, learning vicariously occurs when a consumer imitates the behaviours of others. Bandure (1977) stated that vicarious learning describes the way in which a consumer learns pattern of behaviour by watching other behave and applying the same lessons to his/her life. Brand images are created through advertisements, marketers use celebrities and famous sportsmen for this purpose, as it are the case with major retailing brands of Sainsburys and ASDA or Nike and Puma. Advertisements conjure upon a image for the brand through the use of models living a certain lifestyle that might be in tune with the consumers aspirations this will allow for favourable information about the brand to be processes by the consumers learning process. For marketers the learning theory is one of significance and of practical importance, as it allows them to build up demand for their brands by associating them to strong drives, motivation cues and thereby enabling positive reinforcements. Attitude A person’s overall evaluation of a concept may be defined as his or her attitude (Carpernter and Nakamopto, 1989). Consumers’ attitudes towards brands are reflected by their tendency to evaluate brands in a consistently favourable or unfavourable fashion. While behaviour and attitude are related and each may uinfluene each other, it si not necessary for them to be entirely consistent (Briggs and Cheek, 1986). General logic claims that if a consumer prefers or favours a brand there is greater likelihood of him to purchase it. thereby a positive trend in consumers attitude towards a particular brand may result in an increase in sales forecast. It is no wonder that testing or measuring attitude provides the bulk of marketing research work (Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994). Researching consumer attitudes are functionally useful for the marketer in directing consumers toward brands they find useful in satisfying needs, wants and aspirations. Chay (1991) claims that advertisements influence attitudes towards the add, which is an importance predecessor of brand attitude. While Cheratony (1989) and Muehling (1987) go on saying that the influence of attitudes towards the ad on brand attitudes has been found to be even more significant under low-involvement conditions and emotionally based advertising. While in some cases even though the consumer has a favourable attitude towards a brand due to an advertisement he might have enjoyed, after having watched the advertisement if his purchase action is postponed the effect of the advertisement will wear off resulting in the favourable attitude towards the brand fading away. Furthermore even if the purchase action is not delayed there is the possibility of variables such as price that rule out the consistency between attitude and behaviour (Belk, 1975). Motivation is another mental factor that influences the underlying emotions and attitudes towards brands and the purchasing decision. Freud (Vecchio, 1992) claims that people are mostly unconscious of the real psychological forces shaping their behaviour. He suggests that a person does not fully understand his/her motivation. He states that as people grow up they repress many urges, and these urges are never really eliminated or under perfect control. An applied example could be in terms of Pepsi adverting campaign during 1989 to 1992, with slogan such as Pepsi the choice of a new generation and Pepsi Gotta Have It (Alison, 1992). David Novak, Pepsis vice president of marketing explains that the campaign represents the Pepsi attitude for people who think young and want to celebrate his life. The implication here would be for a young adult who purchases the Pepsi with the underlying motive to quench his thirst or purchase a beverage. At a deeper leave he might have purchase the Pepsi to feel or show that he is young and alive (Alison, 1992). There is a possibility for the brand to be a reflection of the consumers perception of his image or self-presentation. Carpernter and Nakamopto (1989) and Chisnall (1995) have defined image as a function of social interaction. Thereby consumption can be an act of self-presentation. The consumer tries to link himself with a desired image, or the ideal social self-image. Conclusion Through the literature reviewed the significance and importance of branding as a marketing tool has been highlighted, while providing sufficient evidence as to why a company should brand its products. Product differentiation has been made difficult due to immense competition and improvements in technology, allowing products to be quickly imitated. In this way firms have placed a heavy emphasis on adding symbolic values as the basis for product differentiation. Therefore, while evaluating products the consumer will tend to consider the image aspect of the product to simplify the evaluation of different alternatives. Additionally the review suggested that consumers have a self-concept that have a crucial effect on their purchase decisions. This means that consumer might evaluate brands on the basis of the congruence between the brands image and their own self-image. Moreover, when the consumer has little or no experience with the product or has a lack of information about the product, consumers will use brand names to evaluate products, some consumers even when provided with information will avoid spending time to investigate the products intrin Effect of Branding on the Consumer Effect of Branding on the Consumer Branding: How It Inspires People To Purchase A Particular Brand Abstract This research is done with the suitable research methods to describe how the people attempt to match their characteristics with a particular brand. A firm or company’s primary target is to make and preserve customers. They use various plans which include several research methods in order to discover the best way to make profits. For the companies, the saying, consumer is god, is crucial for a successful their business. Observing the customer’s purchasing behaviour is the initial step in the direction of successful understanding of customers. Branding is a crucial marketing strategy which inspires customer’s viewpoint and purchasing behaviour every time. Understanding customer buying behaviours will give marketers a close look into how significance for the marketers is to know the basic association the consumer has with the brand. So, for this reason, the research splits these issues into number of dimensions to consider that there is any connection between consum er purchasing behaviour. In other words, it permits one to see if branding can actually inspire consumer purchasing process. The research concentrates on the individual purchasing behaviour and branding associations. The sample is collected from the United Kingdom to overlook the culture impact and moreover to get rid of racial, religion and geographic issue for suitable sampling. The importance of this research is to explain how branding have an effect on different buyers behaviours build upon four kinds of complicated purchasing behaviour, conflict-reducing purchasing behaviour, habitual purchasing behaviour, and variety-seeking purchasing behaviour that are further talked about in this paper. By assessing commodity products, investigation of different approaches from these different consumer purchasing behaviour groups towards brand effects is done. The findings showed in the end reveals a strong positive association that can guide companies to concentrate more on strategies of branding according to the customers purchasing attitude towards branding. Introduction Today, in this fast moving environment, marketing depends upon the consumer’s behaviour and response to the product, price, promotion, place, physical layout, process and people (Gronroos, 1997; Kotler and et al., 1999; Egan, 2002) because today marketing is more consumers oriented than never before and due to the increasing value of service sector. For the development and survival of a firm, it requires exact facts about customers like their approach of buying, what they purchase, from which place they purchase and most essentially quantity they buy. Marketing has accepted the behavioural sciences basically sociology and social psychology to study and understand the process of consumer behaviour and decision making. While doing this, marketers are able to get explanations and forecasts build on these disciplines to figure their market offerings. To the extent that marketers are investigating the consumers psychological background in order to their establish factors that affect consumer choice in terms of cognition, perception, learning and attitude – all of which affect his buyer behaviour. A current day market trend has been the increasing similarity of products with little real functional difference between competing products. This is primarily due to intensive competitive rivalry and the existence of efficient production, transport, communication and financial systems. Under such circumstances technological innovations are quite quickly imitated by competitors and can no longer offer previous levels of sustainable competitive advantage and product differentiation (Levitt, 1983; Gronroos, 1997; Kotler, 2000). Therefore a significant feature of contemporary marketing research and practice concerns the emergence of brands as key organisational assets and a major issue in product strategy (Kotler, 2000). Firms have pla ced a heavy emphasis on adding symbolic values associated with brand names as the basis for product differentiation. The winner will eventually be the one whose strategy entails a mix conducive to the customers purchase behaviour, while doing so more effectively than its competitors. Objective Of The Study The primary goal of this research is to display branding value, functions and most important thing, its part in the consumer buying decision. This research examines the process and attributes that direct towards the customers’ evaluation of brands. This research will concentrate on the assessment of questionnaires filled by the public. Other objectives are like explanation of how the present customers attempts to match the individual identity with the identity that they relate to the brand, to prove that is there any correlation between individual purchasing behaviour and branding, and to evaluate how branding have an effect on different purchaser behaviours. Literature Review This study provides a foundation for the value and uses of branding as a vital marketing activity having an important impact on the consumer purchase decision. This research relates to a basic theory which has yet to be verified which says that as the difference among similar available products in the market is reducing, the chances that customers will buy through extrinsic signals, i.e. brand name associations is rising (Murphy, 1992). So, as customers’ ability to distinguish same kind of product declines, it is likely that the awareness of familiarity of a particular brand will push them to buy their particular choice of brand. Branding Let us define a ‘product’ before defining a brand, according to Baker (2000) a product is like anything that meets the needs of consumers. He says that it is the ability of the product to meet these needs that gives it value. The needs or problems can be psychological, economic or functional. In a competitive environment there are several companies offering opponent products that meet the customer’s needs. It is important to consider the fact that the brand can also allow companies to overcome the need to compete at a functional level, and can be used to help a company to compete on any level it is by applying its main capabilities (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994). It is the brand that distinguishes and identifies their offerings (Levitt, 1983). Like, most valuable possession is its brand name. They may be referred to as invisible assets of a lot of corporations around the world. Branding at present is increasingly concerned with bringing together and maintaining a mix of values, both tangible as well as intangible, which are relevant to the consumers and which properly differentiate one’s brand from that of another (Muehling and Laczniak, 1991; Hankinson and Cowking, 1993; Kapferer, 1995; Kotler et al., 1999). There are many tools other then the brand name to distinguish products and invest them with personality. Leading among them are advertising, promotion and packaging, other ways to differentiate from the competition may be product formulation, delivery systems, sizes, colour, smell, shape and so on. On the other hand, all these elements are put together with an appropriate and protected name with which the primary attributes of the product or service ultimately reside give the product its brand identity. This combination of messages within the structure of a brand name is a foundation to the development of brand personality (Graham, 2001; Holt, 2002). From the consumers point of view, brand names are as important as the product itsel f in the sense they make purchasing process easier, guarantee quality and at times form as a basis of self-expression. As said by Kotler (1997), any company can produce cold drinks, but only Pepsi Co. can produce 7UP. Talking about branding purpose and benefits, branding facilitates and makes the customers selection process more effective, people are loaded with lots of decisions in their day to day lives, and they are flooded with limitless products and messages contesting for attention. People look for shortcuts to make the decisions easier, a shorter way is to depend on habit, this shows of purchasing products that have shown good results in the past. This is in particular a case of less involvement purchases. This is further shown by a model of habitual buying behaviour (Assael, 1993), stating that reasonable past consumption behaviour leads to benefit association, which is a idea means the tendency of the consumer to relate the positive rewards to a particular brand, this relation between positive rewards towards a certain brand restricts the customers need for looking information and strengthen the likelihood that the identification of a need will lead the customer to straight buy a particul ar brand. And from the retailer’s point of view, branding can help differentiation. According to (Adcock. et al., 1998), differentiation is an action of modelling a set of meaningful differences to differentiate the companys offering from the opponent’s offerings. Competition with fast pace can follow development in technology and product formulation. An opponent will quickly able to make a replica, example, a cigarette brand, though they will not be able to copy the personality that use the brand name, like Marlboro. Porter (1980) says that differentiation is a source of competitive advantage. Using a differential advantage companies are in a position to distinguish their offer from competitors in the same segment. According to Porter (1980), the main need for gaining a competitive advantage is by creating such differentiation. Differentiation, in this case, refers to a company’s ability to be exclusive in its product sold and service offered. This individuality must be of a value to the consumer and can thus be sold at a premium over its competitor’s price. The more valuable this exclusivity is, the higher the differentiation, leading to the higher premium. Differentiation however comes with a cost, so for differentiation to have a competitive advantage, the cost of differentiating must be significantly lower than the premium earned. Therefore, in the perfect market with perfect competition, this premium allows the company to make a higher profit margin than its competitors. In a market segment with no differential advantage held by anyone, consumers might opt purely on the basis of price, and perfect competition which confirms that profits are pushed to zero (Porter, 1980; Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994; Baker, 2000). The differential advantage above can be gained by obtaining any element of the marketing mix. But studies have shown that the best possible plan is to focus on brand differentiation, rather than cost and price as a way of building profitability and growth (East, 1997; Diaz de Rada, 1998; Fankel, 2002). The Significance of Brand Loyalty According to (Meenaghan, 1995; Quester and Smart, 1998), branding can be related to the increasing value of brand loyalty. Loyalty can be termed as a total commitment towards a particular brand. Building loyalty depends on satisfying the needs of the consumers better than other opponents (Oliver, 1999) and the stage of loyalty that can be reached depends on the aimed consumers. According to (Quester and Smart, 1998), people all over the globe develop irrational connection with different products. Though (Levitt, 1983), came with the structure to understand how booming brands are made and claimed that consumers are not irrational to select them. The core of all brands consists of key product attributes, which allow the consumers to distinguish the product, as an answer to their needs; the attributes describe the products performance and usefulness. Adjoining this main product there is a group of attributes that enable the consumer to distinguish the product from other products of different brands. These characteristics take the shape of the products appearance, design, packaging, and identification. If these attributes would not been there, the only differentiation would be based on its reasonable pricing. According to Doyle, the brand name permits for a sustainable differential advantage. In the end, it is the external shell of the product that has been described by Doyle as, whatever thing that possibly can be done to create customer inclination and loyalty (cited Baker, 2000). According to (Alreck and Settle, 1999,) marketer’s basic aim is to make good relationship with buyers, rather just selling. The core of a relationship is a powerful bond between the brand and the buyer. If successful there will be present a loyalty that keeps out the opponents. A strong brand name should have a consumer franchise that will develop when enough number of customers wants that brand and reject other alternatives, still if the price is less. A brand with a powerful consumer franchise is protected from competitors (Kotler and Cox, 1980; Cheratony, 1993; Cowley, 1996). The brand loyal customers, whether they purchase same brand every time which can be an act of trust, habit or outcome of less participation and product availability, the clear assumption is that they push high profits for the company. Thakor and Kohli (1996) says that it costs six times more to succeed over new buyers then to hold present ones, because of the fact that it results in more expenditure li nked to adverts, promotions and sales. So loyal consumers make brand equity the main asset underlying brand equity is buyers’ equity (Machleit, 1993; Kotler, 1999). It is vital to make loyalty and settled base of customers who are fixed and loyal purchasers of a brand, which negates change and churn from the company’s’ products. For every business it is costly to increase new customers and cheaper to keep present one. Therefore, a settled customer base has the customer acquisition investment mainly in its past (Gwinner and Eaton, 1999). Contemporary marketing recommends obtaining data about customers as much as possible, anywhere it is to widen the understanding of customer wants, standard of living, attitude and purchasing behaviour (Chisnall, 1995; Davis et al., 1996; Dun, 1997; Chevron, 1998). This allows a company to modify the brand offering, to shift from the usual to an unexpected level of service actually delighting the customer, make sure the future loyalty and commitment. Generally, a brand’s value to a company is mainly created by the customer loyalty it controls (Aaker, 1996). Brand Equity Brands might differ in terms of the amount of dominance they have in the market. Many brands are unfamiliar whereas others have great consumer awareness, and moreover some brands have a great amount of consumer brand inclination. A strong brand can be said to have great brand equity. This can be explained as a brand which enjoys great brand loyalty, awareness, powerful brand associations, perceive quality and other benefits like trademarks, exclusive rights and channel relationships (Chay, 1991). The idea behind brand equity relates to the importance of a brand, value to the marketer as well as the buyer. With the marketers’ viewpoint, brand equity is a big market share therefore better cash flows and profit. From the consumer viewpoint, brand equity relates to a powerful positive brand attitude through a promising assessment of the brand, which is build upon consistent meanings and values that are simply accessible in the buyers’ memory (Lewis, 1993; Keller, 1998). With substantial effort has been put in measuring and defining the concept of brand equity there has been limited empirical research aimed at understanding the importance of the brand name associations in product differentiation (Aaker, 1991). One of the main objectives of Marketing is to get the products offered in a particular category to be distinct. Muehling, Stoltman and Mishra (1989), have found consumers to be less brand loyal, more price sensitive and less receptive to marketplace information in the absence of perceived differences between the alternatives. Brand Image Marketers understand that brands summon up symbolic pictures which are more significant to success of a product than its real natural characteristics (Meenaghan, 1995; Feltham, 1998). For products which are recognized with a brand, Davis (1995) has performed a research by splitting the customer assessment in two factors. Assessment which is linked to product characteristics (tangible) and assessment linked to the brand name (intangible). The consumers power to assess the performance abilities of the product and view about its value for money, usage effectiveness, reliability and availability develops the inherent advantage of the product, matching to product’s characteristics. The external benefits are at the emotional stage where, the symbolic assessment of the brand is taken into account. Here consumers make use of their personal reasons normally matching the brand name related attributes. With the growing variety of standardized products, consumers give more importance to t he image of products to make the assessment of different options easier. Meenaghan (1995) tells that consumers display an inclination towards symbolic rather than purely functional features of products. Therefore, they usually ask for social reliability and loyalty from firms and, in general, symbolic associations have their origin mostly in brand name perception instead of product perception (Meenaghan, 1995). Marketers have tried to employ behavioural theories to clarify and recognize useful relations involving consumer’s personality and their buying behaviour. Kamakura and Russell (1993) have spotted such theory stating that individuals have a definite self-image build on who they believe they are ideal self-concept build on who they believe they would like to be. Howard and Sheth (1969) have explained self-image as an individual thoughts and feelings about their own selves in relation to other objects in a socially determined frame of reference. By self-concept or self-image model, individuals will perform in a way that sustain and improve thei r self-image. One way is through the products they buy and use. The Effect of Branding on Consumer Purchase Behaviour The function of brand values is highlighted in the literature above, and in particular the significance of the brand to get distinctive benefit has been documented in depth. The reason behind the study to understand the consumer purchasing behaviour in light of the literature discussed so far. In order to do this consumer decision-making models will be organized. The hypothesis will be assumed as the derivation of the tests that will be conducted in the primary research. Marketing and ecological stimuli penetrate the buyer’s perception, the definition of consumer buying behaviour can be comprehended as buyer’s purchasing decision process. Four types of consumer buying behaviours, based on the degree of buyer contribution and the degree of differences among brands (Kotler, 2000). These four types are complex buying behaviour, habitual buying behaviour, variety-seeking buying behaviour, and dissonance-reducing buying behaviour. In complex buying behaviour the consumer is aware of the brands and gets too involved in the buying by analysing the product thoroughly. The customer is highly involved in buying the product in dissonance-reducing behaviour but doesn’t get too involved in the brands. Some buying situations are characterised by low involvement but significant brand differences. Consumer’s often do a lot of brand switching for variety-seekers. They are only according to the information in advertisement and television. The buying process begins with brand beliefs in habitual buying behaviour. The brand plays most important role in consumers’ purchase decision to purchase a particular product from another. Various attributes that merge to make the consumer behaviour in particular fashion during his purchase decision but also inducing any pre-purchase and post purchase activities. As (Engle et al., 1995) has defined consumer behaviour as consisting all those acts of individuals which are directly involved in obtaining, using and disposing of economic goods and services, including the decision process that precede and determine these acts. It is important factor to consider that influence the consumers’ buyer behaviour and study wishes to incorporate the Howard-sheth model of decision making. The theory of the model is that buyer behaviour is in general component firm by how consumer thinks and develops in order. (Howard and Sheth, 1969). It supports the fact that cognitive decision making which eventually determine the choice of brand and purchasing decision. The brand impact motivate the buyer and changes the behaviour , perception, learning and attitude are examined in terms of how each is affected by this impact on branding. Perception Here brand perception is based on individual personal experience of their own beliefs, needs and values. People receive and understand the sensory from their five senses they are sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) in their own ways. Engel at el have defined perception as â€Å" the process whereby stimuli are received and interpreted by the individual and translated into a response† (Foxall, 1980,p.29). Primarily the social and psychological meaning of a product gets conveyed by two factors which determine the idea of stimuli, also known as stimulus discrimination and stimulus generalisation. Stimulus discrimination the question that hits in mind is whether the consumer can actually discriminate between differences in stimuli. Consumers become conscious of brands through packages, advertisements, promotions, and word of mouth they may be involved at some point in decision making process. Once customers became aware of brands through learning their purchase decision are then guided by their perceptions of their brands formed from the information they get about the brands characteristics (Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994). The marketers will first provide the similar brands and provide same information about the product and they position better way and discriminate between characteristics of the brands. The marketing information which will discriminate based on the brand name information provided with and it will be derived from brand name or the perception of the brand. It has been concluded (kotler et al, 1999) that consumers depend on reputation of the brand name to believe t he quality of the product. Brand name is someone who creates the image and some cases provide perception of the quality in a product and that shows the involvement of low level buyers. The main part of brand impact where the customer experiences the service they provide and class they maintain it guide through the purchasing behaviour. Chernatony (1993) explained four factors that attract them to change a particular brand and to understand their provided framework of their successful brands . 1. Quality is the pre-eminent factor that through time can lead buyers to learn to trust a brand which leads to priority position in the evoked set and repeat purchasing activity. 2. Build superior service can not only endorse product quality, but also prove post purchase problem solving. For instance, digital camera consumers would select an international brand for its global service and technological support. 3. The most common means of building an outstanding brand is being the first into the mind consumer. It is much easier to build a strong brand in the consumer’s mind than in the market, characterised by the intense level of competition. 4. In building brands the principle is to invest in markets which are highly differential or where such differentiation can be created. Mostly, the differentiation is why the brand is different from others. Brand provides consumer with lower search costs for products internally and externally. Brand reduces the risk in product decisions and Keller (1998) identifies six types of risk in consumers view. 1. Functional risk- product expectations 2.physical risk- friendly user or not 3. Financial risk- product should fit in the budget and it should be worth 4. Psychological risk- the product affects the mental well-being of the user 6. Time risk- failure of the product leads to find the other product. Brands have a personally of their own which consumers want to associate with, would like to reflect their own behaviour or aspirations and want to have an experience with. A brand, therefore, adds value to a functional product providing it offers clear differentiation in the market in which it competes. â€Å"Branding is short, transforms the actual experience of using the product and thereby adds to its value (Chevron, 1998). Learning So far it has been highlighted how extrinsic cues of a product namely the brand name can affect the consumers perception. Learning refers to any change in behaviour that comes about as a result from past experience. Dodds (1991) refers to learning as changes in a consumer’s behaviour caused by information and experience. Consumers store information in their memory in the form of associations, which links the brand name of a product with a variety of other attributes of the brand, like its price, packaging, colour, size and benefits as well as how the consumer feels about it in terms of its quality and emotions it evokes. These associations are the ones that form the information base from where the consumer makes his ultimately decisions (Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994). Most of this information consumers have stored in their memory comes from the process of learning that is what they think, feel or know about brands. Conoway (1994), claims that the subjective personal meanings of psycho-social consequences are represented by consumers’ cognitive systems. Since these consequences are experienced by consumers they are likely to trigger responses such as emotions, feelings and evaluations. Learning will be examined as a result of the marketing efforts, in terms of how information from the external communication environment is registered with the consumers long term memory from where it is extracted and used during his purchasing decision and also examine the way learning takes place in the form of changes in the consumers behaviour as a result of experience. At its simplest form learning occurs when consumers are repeatedly exposed to information such as brand names, slogans and jingles. Through this forms of learning consumers may form a weakly held belief that a particular brand is desirable due to an advertisement where the spokesperson repeats this claim over and over again. On the other hand, learning vicariously occurs when a consumer imitates the behaviours of others. Bandure (1977) stated that vicarious learning describes the way in which a consumer learns pattern of behaviour by watching other behave and applying the same lessons to his/her life. Brand images are created through advertisements, marketers use celebrities and famous sportsmen for this purpose, as it are the case with major retailing brands of Sainsburys and ASDA or Nike and Puma. Advertisements conjure upon a image for the brand through the use of models living a certain lifestyle that might be in tune with the consumers aspirations this will allow for favourable information about the brand to be processes by the consumers learning process. For marketers the learning theory is one of significance and of practical importance, as it allows them to build up demand for their brands by associating them to strong drives, motivation cues and thereby enabling positive reinforcements. Attitude A person’s overall evaluation of a concept may be defined as his or her attitude (Carpernter and Nakamopto, 1989). Consumers’ attitudes towards brands are reflected by their tendency to evaluate brands in a consistently favourable or unfavourable fashion. While behaviour and attitude are related and each may uinfluene each other, it si not necessary for them to be entirely consistent (Briggs and Cheek, 1986). General logic claims that if a consumer prefers or favours a brand there is greater likelihood of him to purchase it. thereby a positive trend in consumers attitude towards a particular brand may result in an increase in sales forecast. It is no wonder that testing or measuring attitude provides the bulk of marketing research work (Foxall and Goldsmith, 1994). Researching consumer attitudes are functionally useful for the marketer in directing consumers toward brands they find useful in satisfying needs, wants and aspirations. Chay (1991) claims that advertisements influence attitudes towards the add, which is an importance predecessor of brand attitude. While Cheratony (1989) and Muehling (1987) go on saying that the influence of attitudes towards the ad on brand attitudes has been found to be even more significant under low-involvement conditions and emotionally based advertising. While in some cases even though the consumer has a favourable attitude towards a brand due to an advertisement he might have enjoyed, after having watched the advertisement if his purchase action is postponed the effect of the advertisement will wear off resulting in the favourable attitude towards the brand fading away. Furthermore even if the purchase action is not delayed there is the possibility of variables such as price that rule out the consistency between attitude and behaviour (Belk, 1975). Motivation is another mental factor that influences the underlying emotions and attitudes towards brands and the purchasing decision. Freud (Vecchio, 1992) claims that people are mostly unconscious of the real psychological forces shaping their behaviour. He suggests that a person does not fully understand his/her motivation. He states that as people grow up they repress many urges, and these urges are never really eliminated or under perfect control. An applied example could be in terms of Pepsi adverting campaign during 1989 to 1992, with slogan such as Pepsi the choice of a new generation and Pepsi Gotta Have It (Alison, 1992). David Novak, Pepsis vice president of marketing explains that the campaign represents the Pepsi attitude for people who think young and want to celebrate his life. The implication here would be for a young adult who purchases the Pepsi with the underlying motive to quench his thirst or purchase a beverage. At a deeper leave he might have purchase the Pepsi to feel or show that he is young and alive (Alison, 1992). There is a possibility for the brand to be a reflection of the consumers perception of his image or self-presentation. Carpernter and Nakamopto (1989) and Chisnall (1995) have defined image as a function of social interaction. Thereby consumption can be an act of self-presentation. The consumer tries to link himself with a desired image, or the ideal social self-image. Conclusion Through the literature reviewed the significance and importance of branding as a marketing tool has been highlighted, while providing sufficient evidence as to why a company should brand its products. Product differentiation has been made difficult due to immense competition and improvements in technology, allowing products to be quickly imitated. In this way firms have placed a heavy emphasis on adding symbolic values as the basis for product differentiation. Therefore, while evaluating products the consumer will tend to consider the image aspect of the product to simplify the evaluation of different alternatives. Additionally the review suggested that consumers have a self-concept that have a crucial effect on their purchase decisions. This means that consumer might evaluate brands on the basis of the congruence between the brands image and their own self-image. Moreover, when the consumer has little or no experience with the product or has a lack of information about the product, consumers will use brand names to evaluate products, some consumers even when provided with information will avoid spending time to investigate the products intrin