Audre Lorde Essay Example for Free

Audre Lorde Essay On page 388 of the class’s anthology there is a work by Audre Lorde entitled â€Å"Power. † What interests me about this work is how Lorde expressed her poem(s) with a meaningful purpose; she expresses and explores pride, love anger, fear, racial and sexual oppression, urban neglect and personal survival. In connection, the question that I want to research is, where does Audre Lorde get her inspiration to write? Audre Lorde a self-styled black, lesbian, warrior, poet; dedicated her life to addressing the injustices of racism, sexism and homophobia. She had a creative talent of confronting these issues through her writing. Audre writes poetry, essays and autobiographies, she has a great impact on American and African-American literature, feminist theory, and gender studies. Audre, whose original name was Audrey Geraldine Lorde; at the age of four she learned how to talk while she learned to read. Audre’s mother taught her to write and during that time Audre dislike the way her name was spelled, she didn’t like the tail of the â€Å"Y’ hanging down below the line, so she would omit it; she loved the evenness of Audre Lorde. This inspired Audre to write a part autobiography and part revisionary myth called Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. I loved the way she opens with a beautiful question of spiritual and intellectual indebtedness, â€Å"To whom do I owe the power behind my voice, what strength I have become, yeasting up like sudden blood from under the bruised skin’s blister? † Zami tells the story of- as Audre said it â€Å"coming out blackened and whole,† in the story she expresses her identity as a fierce black lesbian woman, she talks about becoming a loving woman, a poet, a creator of self-authored words and perceptions. In Lodre’s words â€Å"Zami† is a â€Å"biomythography† which is combining history, biography, and myth. She also focuses on her developing lesbian identity and her response to racism in the white feminist and gay communities, and to sexism and homophobia in the African American community. The elements that make the book so good are its personal honesty and lack of cockiness, characteristics that shine through her writing. When reading about her experiences and her life story she shows an exquisite imagery, she talks about her West Indian heritage and its shows in her pictures and use of words. In Lorde’s poem â€Å"Power† she uses her poetic prose to express her feelings of anger and fury over an unfortunate incident that happened in New York City in the late 1970’s. She expresses her outrage and disgust at a racist society that allowed a child’s death to be buried with no true justice. Growing up in Harlem Lorde understood the difficulties that people encountered when race was involved. In â€Å"Power† it seems like she is trying to use her poetic gift to stand up for these racial injustices and try to make a difference. She wanted to be heard, instead of just using rhetoric and the use of effective writing, it was like she was searching for the â€Å"power† she has as an African-American woman poet, to make people hear and really think about racial injustices. â€Å"Power† is a poem that has two different levels of meanings, literal and nonliteral. Literal because the narrative poem is literally about Clifford Glover, a ten year old African- American boy from Queens who was shot by a Caucasian police officer that was acquitted by a jury. Nonliteral, because it has a more poetic intent; Audre’s reaction and feelings of fury and disgust over that incident. She mixes this racial injustice with her own furious and unsatisfied feelings in this piece. When reading this poem I had to reread it a few times so I could really understand the emotions and meanings in each stanza. The first two stanzas are about Lorde’s feelings and images she sees due to this violent tragedy; she expresses her natural woman instinct that children must come first in a blunt and short poetic verse. The third stanza tells the story of Clifford Glover’s death and the proof of the racial insensitivity displayed by the police officer. The fourth stanza talks about the trial of the officer and the jury that granted him an acquittal. It was a jury made of mostly white men and one African- American woman. The last stanza goes back to Lorde’s feelings about the injustice that the boy received and her fury over it. She shares her thoughts of what awful acts she might perform if she doesn’t use her own power as an African- American woman with a poetic gift to find the difference in poetry and rhetoric. When Lorde heard the verdict she was so furious about the incident she thought she was going to drive her car into a wall, so she had to pull over and jot down her thoughts, which inspired her to write this poem. In conclusion the answer to my question is that Audre Lorde gets her inspiration to write from her personal life experiences, the wrongs that are being done around the world and the injusticeness that occurs till this day in our society. She feels the need to express her thoughts so that other people around can actually open their eyes to see what’s really going on in the world. I like that Lorde wasn’t afraid of what people may have thought about her writing as long as she expressed what she felt was right and honest. Anatol, Gisele Liza. Border Crossings in Audre Lordes Zami: Triangular Linkage of Identity and Desire. MaComere: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars 4 (2001): 130-41. Landy, Alice. The Heath Introduction to Literature sixth Ed. Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Print The Lorde Compendium: Essay, Speeches, and Journals, introduction by Alice Walker, Pandora (London), 1996.

Competitive Enviroment Of Mobilink Telenor

Competitive Enviroment Of Mobilink Telenor At the achievement of 100 million customers PTA has released interesting figures. A very obvious trend shows enormous growth of mobile density. Mobilink, Telenor and Ufone are currently giving each other a tough challenge, Warid and Zong are also increasing their market share and in upcoming days the overall cellular environment will be facing more challenges. Though existing mobile operators are using aggressive and innovative methods of marketing to increase the consumer count, the issue faced is the rivalry. The competition between the stakeholders is also challenged by the newer investments making it essential for old players to know their methodologies and to preserve their market share. Mobilink is a prime example of companies facing this challenge. A large number of users were gained by aggressive strategies of Telenor and that helped Telenor to establish in a lesser period. However, next inline challenge for any giants is to retain what they have gained and always keep their strategies aligned with new methods of marketing. 1.2 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT: The major scope of my thesis is to analyze Telenor and Mobilink telecommunication companies on following three aspects, organizational standards/policies, competitive behaviors and the customer behaviors. I have analyzed their business and marketing strategies by examining their advertisement war and marketing tactics. 1.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: I have used the following research methodologies in writing this thesis: Going through Mobilink and Telenor websites. Collected information from Mobilink and Telenor Employees. Obtained research papers from Mobilink and Telenor. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 TELECOMMUNICATION SECTOR IN PAKISTAN: Marketers are foreseeing promising potential in future growth in the telecommunication industry on the basis of the previous 5 years that have shown a rapid and enormous growth in this sector. Government of Pakistan is taking serious interest in the expansion of this industry and funding for the growth and it has a firm belief that this sector will provide quality services to the general public of this country. 2.2 SWOT Analysis: SWOT is basically a method to evaluate an organizations environment. It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is widely used by the marketers to do an investigation on key issues exist in an organization. It divides the aspects in two halves; one is the external aspect that covers up the opportunities and threats, while the internal aspects are the strengths and weaknesses of a business. It is quite easy to adopt and it helps in identifying the main apprehensions and tries to infuse their remedies in the marketing objectives. 2.2.1 Strengths: Strengths are the attributes that adds up value to a company and make it stand out among other because of the customers positive attitude towards those attributes. Strengths include the specialties in marketing tactics, new and innovative products and services, quality of their internal and external processes, and the market value of that business venture. 2.2.2 Weaknesses: Weaknesses are the negative attributes of a business and it majorly indicates the loose holes in marking techniques. It also indicates the poorly managed internal and external processes, bad management, bad fame because of low quality products and services and lack of innovative ideas. 2.2.3 Opportunities: Opportunities can be best illustrate as the new options that can make a business more strong and open up ways to grab new markets by the use of new technologies, market trends, or by implementing innovative ideas for earning huge revenue and strengthening the businesss position in the competitive market. 2.2.4 Threats: Threats are the upcoming disasters that can make a businesss position fragile in the market place. These can be the lower prices offered by a competitor, better and innovative products and services offered by a competitor, new rival emerging in the market, etc. 2.3 MARKETING MIX: Marketing Mix are 4Ps of marketing study, which includes product, place, promotion and price but for the industry of services, it is taken up to the next level that embraces physical evidence, process and people. This concept gives the marketing professionals the flexibility to alter the current offers they have for their customers and make new innovative offers by manipulating these 7Ps. 2.4 CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: For any business, the behavior of the customers and their buying patterns are of great importance. A customer buying behavior is precisely classified in the following four aspects. This classification helps in creating new products and services and identifying potential customer. The first and foremost aspect is the Cultural background of the customer that includes its attitude and thinking directions that roots down to the core values its family and society make up of. Another aspect is the Social factors that strongly reflect in its choices and decisions; it is basically about the social environment it possesses because it truly affects a persons mind set. Third aspect is about the Personal Characteristics that includes the social and economic status, personality, age group and intrinsic uniqueness. Last but not the least aspect is about the psychological Characteristics that comprises of the insights, motivation and way of approaching towards different things. All of the above fac tors influence the decision making of a buyer. 2.5 CONSUMER BUYING DECISION PROCESS: Marketing professionals use different tactics to study the purchasers mind and make strategies to use this information in improving the sales of their products or services. There are several things that are running up in the purchasers mind at the time of purchasing; these things are the information available to the purchaser, the alternatives, acknowledgement and his personal preferences. 2.6 SEGMENTATION: The identification of purchasers in a market place who owns similar necessities and acquires identical manners is called as segmentation. 2.7 TARGETING: After the completion of segmentation, marketing professionals picks up a segment of market place to keep it in focus. 2.8 MARKET COVERAGE APPROACH: Organizations put together their planned strategies to attain specific targets and mile stones and as the time passes by, these planned strategies are altered by keeping in mind the growing needs of in-focused markets. The in-focused market is a deposit of purchasers who have recognizable needs and these needs are recognized by companies to offer new products and services for benefiting the market. There is an approach called as market converge approach that facilitates an organization to construct the right strategy for its in-focused market. We can divide the market converge strategies into three broad categories: Undifferentiated strategy: this strategy states that a company provides undifferentiated products to customers at lower cost after identifying their needs. Differentiated strategy: this strategy states that a company provides a product that is profitable and full fills the need of a certain segment of market. The product is actually differentiated on certain factors that include its features, prices and availability but the quality of the product should be maintained at a reasonable level. Concentrated strategy: this strategy states that a company brings up a product after identifying the gap in the marked which was not earlier identified, the most money-making strategy is positioned marketing. 2.9 POSITIONING: Positing is about valuing a products position within the market and it is done after segmentation and aiming a customer class. Positing depends on the perception of the person who is evaluating a products position and it always varies and so does its results. MOBILINK 3 INTRODUCTION OF MOBILINK Mobilink has started its operation being the subsidiary of Orascom Telecom .Currently is the market giant in Pakistan Telecommunication industry because of having the leading number of subscribers which exceeds 31 million and its still increasing day by day. Mobilink is a market ruler in terms of its expansion. Mobilink is so delighted on taking initiative as a cellular service provider. Mobilink is the so delighted to provide high-tech telecommunication solutions to its privileged customers nationwide. Mobilink puts forward exclusive and specially designed packages to its customers nation wide having diverse needs, it includes all type of subscribers like individuals, business personals, and corporate tariff plans. Mobilink offers Postpaid and prepaid tariff plans to its privileged subscribers. These solutions are competitive and balanced packages in the current fierce market competition. It also offers various Value Added Services. Mobilinks strongest point is its far and wide coverage that covers 9000 regions and localities inside the country and over 130 other countries worldwide for international roaming services. 3.1 Products Mobilink is offering two different types of tariff plans, one is Jazz that is offered to the masses of the society of all classes and it is better for keeping control on cellular expenses. Prepaid service has so many different packages for different type of users. While, the other service that is Indigo is for society that can afford to pay monthly bills. It has a wide range of packages for different type of users and they are based on the level of usage of the service. 3.2 Value Added Services Info Services Home SMS Translator Call / SMS Blocking Power Tools Info Services Reverse Auction SMS Filter SIM NIC Services Package Info Service SMS Search Islamic Portal Holy Sayings Kisan Service My PowerTools 3.3 Sales Tactics Mobilink also led the way up for opening up franchises nationwide and it has over 500 franchises which provide different services to its customers. Mobilink has over 800 sub dealers too that help it in expanding its network and quality services. The basic idea behind opening up a franchise is to provide help to its customers that are encountering any issues or problems in the communication service. Franchises also provide facilities for bill payments, sales, etc. Mobilink has hired proficient personnel who are dedicating working for providing help and support to Mobilinks privileged subscribers. 3.5 Mobilink Core capability: Research and development is always a core competency for every service providing organization that wants to compete in the fierce market war and Mobilink has it all as well as its employees. Mobilink takes pride in its hardworking and proficient professionals that makes it a market leader by dedicatedly working for its growth and integrity. The research and development department always takes part in launching new products and services for the sake of its customer and Mobilink knows who to keep its customers bind and pleased. It launches innovative products and services to the market that adds up its value, like the recently launched Jazz Jazba. 3.6 Operational Targets To lift and improve market share: Mobilink is trying to lift and improve its market share by investing in various other business like wireless solutions and broadband internet offers. It is putting up efforts in not only sustaining its current market positions that possess almost 40 % market share as well as trying to increase it. Mobilink is keen in making up a positive image in its subscribers mind and wants to increase its horizon from telecommunication industry to other businesses as well. It has offered infinity click service for Karachi people and also organizing different activates for making things better at both ends. To keep its position of having largest customers: Mobilink wants to keep the title of having largest number of customer nationwide and for keeping this pride, it has to bring fresh and exciting offers for keeping its customer satisfied as there are other service providers are also in the market like, ufone, warid, Telenor and zong; all of these companies are providing their services on cheaper rates than Mobilink and that is the main point of concern for this market giant. Workers Growth and development: Mobilink takes great pride in its reliable and skilled workforce that is the main reason behind its success. Mobilink values its employees and always tries to improve their technical and interpersonal skills by proper training, recruiting and evaluating current employees by appraisals. Mobilinks HRM department is effective and keen to grab the best professionals from the market place and make them real treasure for the company. 3.7 Business Strategies at Mobilink There are three most important functioning strategies: Commercial Strategy Production Strategy Operational Strategy Commercial Strategy Commercial strategy focuses on the overall range of products and services which actually in total encompasses the companys product line, different methods and processes through which a company interrelate its products to its business. Early mobilink only focused on its internal expansion but due to increase in competition they have changed their strategy and now working with other telecomm companies for example Mobilink started to work with Citi bank, Atlas Bank and KASB for the online bill payment system. Production Strategy Mobilink production strategy focuses on putting together its profitable products hence maintaining and strengthening its business position which will also benefit them in the long term. To continue its production Mobilink has always worked with its research and development department to distinguish its product from other competitors on the basis of network simplicity, as compare to its competitors. Mobilink has created their product and services unique through: Promotion/Advertisements Mobilink have an enormously impressive marketing team who designs and promotes its packages and services by keeping in mind the variations in consumer behavior of customers. Mobilink has been advertising and promoting its offerings through different media like Electronic media. Promoting its new products through Print Media like glossy magazine, tabloids and Billboards. They have nominated different sportsmen and celebrities as their brand ambassador. 3.9 Operational Strategy As the cellular companies continue to launch new services and products, they are implementing new and innovative strategies to beat their competitors. Most of the companies has started to focus on low cost strategy, by offering cheaper rates they comprise on service quality, on the other hand Mobilink stands firm on its quality service strategy, they dont comprise on quality at all, this is also the reason that its rates are on higher side but its loyal customers understand and appreciate Mobilinks efforts to maintain the quality management hence they dont switch to other companies. 3.10 Mobilink Infinity Mobilink introduced Wimax wireless technology which doesnt need any telephone lines or any kind of cables to connect to the work internet. Mobilink Infinity fulfils the requirement of a user who wants to access the internet with fast speed and unlimited downloads. Mobilink Infinity is available in different packages for the home users. A subscriber either can use a dongle or a modem to connect to internet. CORPORATE COMMUINCATION SOLUTIONS Mobilink Infinity introduced several last mile connectivity solutions for corporate user and organizations through which high speed connectivity can be achieved. These solutions include wireless solutions, microwave solutions, VSAT, Optical fiber and xDSL. Currently Mobilink has the state of art optical fiber network being commissioned across the country covering all the regions and cities of Pakistan. MOBILINK GENIE: Through Mobilink genie a user can pay bills through Mobilink connection. This solution is designed to comfort the lifes of its users by saving their time. You can pay your utility bills as well as Mobilink bills through this package from anywhere and anytime. 3.12 SWOT ANALYSIS OF MOBILINK Strengths à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Its main source of power is the foundation of its robust, indispensable and balanced marketing strategy, which is proposed to fulfill the needs and requirements of its customers. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink has been generating high revenues in past years which enable them to invest heavily to improve its infrastructure, technology and research and development areas. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ First Mover advantage. First company to launch GSM service in country à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ At present Mobilink has the largest market share, they have the most cellular users in the country also their revenue earnings are highest as compare to other companies. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink was first to launch the Blackberry services in Pakistan and currently they have the most users of this service. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink is the first cellular company which launched the mobile services in the northern regions of Pakistan. Weaknesses à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Even though Mobilink is covering whole country but still its rates are on the higher side, because of this particular matter Mobilink lost their share values in previous years. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink has been less investing and focusing on the Advertisement as compare to its competitors, this is one reason which can harm them in future as their customers will start switching to other networks. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ It has been found that Mobilinks network is usually busy in densely populated areas. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ PTA has fined Mobilink twice because of its bad service and user complains. So they need to stress on giving improved services to its existing users rather on development of its network. Opportunities à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink can expand and extend their existing share by targeting young generation as Ufone and Telenor has been doing, they can also introduce new packages for old age people, but these packages must be introduced keeping in mind the pocket of every targeted segment. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink can use their brand name and image to target new customers as well as retain their existing users for this they need to implement innovative promotion techniques. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ By working on CRM system Mobilink can enhance its relationship marketing procedures which will benefit them to achieve their goals. Threats à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ The new entrant Zong has come up with very cheaper rates due to which cellular consumers especially youngsters are shifting to Zong. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Telenor is now offering better postpaid packages and services for business and high class users. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Current price war between all cellular companies might result in a situation when only brand images and names will be important for new cellular user. 3.13 BCG Matrix I have examined Mobilinks products and services through BCG Matrix. Following are the main products: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink Indigo à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink Jazz à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Mobilink Blackberry Services Cash Cow Mobilink Indigo is the cash cow for Mobilink. Likewise Mobilink Blackberry services help Mobilink to generate good amount of revenue as it is mostly use by business class. Star Mobilink Jazz is the star for the Mobilink, this is one package whose users will keep on growing. Question Mark Jazz one, Jazz easy, club red are question Mark for Mobilink because more or less similar packages are also offered by its competitors. Dog At present no product or service of Mobilink comes under the dog category. TELENOR 4.1 INTRODUCTION OF TELENOR: Telenor is basically a Norway based telecommunication service provider and it has a major place in telecommunication industry worldwide. Its operative in quite many countries around the globe. Its main operation office is in Islamabad and main regional offices are in Karachi and Lahore. Telenor has expanded and increased massively since its founding and has achieved several objective to meet its goal. They have currently 24% market share with more than 23 million users. They are among the top cellular companies around the globe, Telenor has been investing hugely to improve their infrastructure so that they can reach every remote location of the country. 4.1 Organizational Principles: Produce trouble-free resolutions People at Telenor have a great interest in producing simple, easy and hassle free solutions for their customers. Their motto is to make peoples life easy and simple by providing quality services. Maintain Promise People at Telenor always put their best efforts to get the work done. They believe in producing the best possible solutions for their privileged customers. They never sacrifice over quality to provide solutions and offerings. Keep moving Telenor have the best resources to deliver the goals. They make every effort to bring energy to the work they get done. Every product they create appears better and finer. They are always keen and eager about everything that is related to their trade and subscribers. Social endurance Telenor has people that are quite familiar with the area they are operating and they love being gelled up with the local society by respecting and valuing their social and moral values. They never compel a uniform strategy globally but they actually wish to gel up with the local people anywhere they operate. Telenors main operational approach is to expand their market value by capitalizing on its subscribers all over the world and to increase the companys efficiency and out but by integrating work efficient and advanced marketing techniques with diverse business ventures. The focused chief points are as follows: Buildup their rank as a global cellular provider Telenor is very keen and eager to position themselves as the top and largest mobile operator not only in Pakistan but also. They have been collaborating with other top mobile operators in order to seek new ideas and strategies so they can strengthen their operations and ability of producing better services. To reach every remote area Telenor is keen enough to renovate their operations in all the remote regions. Their presence in every part of the country will make them a bigger operator. By establishing an integrated communication they can support and give value to their users in a better and efficient way. Worldwide harmonization Telenor intelligently use its worldwide harmonization program for grabbing the local market in mobile operational services. It assure its control by this using this program and take advantages. In current cellular market condition it has been very important for operators to come up with effective strategies also being aware of other strategies which are used by their rivals. Giving value addition to customers through offering cheap packages and value added services. 4.5.1 Production Strategy Customers are the main focus of attention for Telenor, everything they do, make, forecast is for their valuable customers. Telenors business strategy entitles its customers to grow and increase their interest and loyalty with Telenor. Their strategy, vision and mission is a representation of the social values of its customers, these are the main factors which differentiate them for others. To achieve its vision and goal Telenor has always come up with exceptional business strategies which are essential in helping the local culture and getting to the already forecasted plans and goals. Moreover a top serving management makes it easier for the bottom management to accomplish all these typical issues and task. Telenor doesnt sacrifice the ethical rules and regulation in order to implement its business strategies. All the international ethical procedures are adopted and applied with strict monitoring; they have a very strict code of behavior for all the employees. 4.5.2 Telenor strategies: Telenor achieves its motives and goals by implementing following strategies: Societal Commitment Telenor is always keen to perform all the social obligation that are important and they strive to purpose valuable products and services to various sects worldwide and they want to take part in socio-economic growth of the region and they take it as their responsibility and trying to improve it by all means. Delivering best Quality Telenor is more than a service carrier for the societies it serves and has become an essential part of their business thus contributes to the economic growth. Since Telenor buys so many products and services itself to serve its customers. To ensure that best services are provided to customers, Telenor ensures the quality of products and services it acquire from market. The standards of services we commit to our customers are what we demand from sellers and service providers, serving our business. Partnership: Coalition and responsiveness is quite important with other organizations either public or private institutes. Education and exploration Starting up, holding up and running exploration programs with education session and other competitions. Administering specific Processes Telenor organizes different events, including seminars, sessions and conferences related to the fields in which Telenor is operating. Fulfilling Commitments They always fulfill their commitments and if its not the case, they are always present to help and lead others. Vibrant Being vibrant is being energetic and having a passion for excellence and achievement. Inventive Being inventive is all about innovating new and amazing services and products that can bring up maturity to the organization. Accountable Being accountable is all about keeping promises and being committed and devoted to work that can lead to a good reputation and market good will. 4.6 Forecasted targets Aspects 2010-11 2014-15 Telenor share 24% 45% Market saturation 11% 35% Income share 9% 35% Impulsive Brand Awareness 22% 85% 4.8 Consumer Oriented Approach: Basically segmentation is done for dividing a market in various segments and then identifying need for every portion. It is necessary for researching and finding gaps and opportunity and it can help in keeping track of the progress too. Telenor has a subscriber oriented approach and it wants to give top priority services to its subscribers. It has divided the market into different segment for the ease. Comparison of Mobilink and Telenor : Feature Mobilink Telenor Product Maturates Mature Growing Share 40% 24% Exposure 1100 cities 900 cities Brands Jazz, Octane, Indigo TalkShawk, Telenor DJuice Marketing function Outstanding Standard 4.9 Approaches for Segmentation: As Telenor have various departments and divisions responsible for their products hence they have diverse and unique segmentation strategy for their each product and service, moreover they have different strategy even for the promotion programs split. They always pay more attention on their loyal customers. Efficient and effective market surveys and researches are done in order to get the customer feedback then the total market needs and potential is analyzed and calculated finally in the end buying power of consumer is analyzed for each n every segment. Telenor has an assorted segmentation strategy and a different marketing program is build up for each market segment. Telenor is always very concerned about its privileged customers and because different people look for different settlements and their needs for services always vary. A level of markets potential is approximated for each segment and it helps in setting targets and designing different strategies and making policies for increasing the sales. 4.10 Approaches for Pricing: Telenor approach for pricing is very simple; they started by targeting the young generation. Because of the tough competition every Telecom company have to be very flexible in their pricing approaches and offerings. You can lose your customers very easily and cheaply if you are rates are not up to the standards and needs of consumer Cellular companies keep on launching new packages with best and revise prices so that their customers remain stuck to their products and services Launching of Djuice and TalkShawk are the excellent examples of how Telenor targeted the youngsters, as the young generation is more price sensitive as compare to business Telenors follows the simple standard business models while creating their pricing strategies. They have come up with best offerings; every now and then they are launching more exciting and cheap packages for their customers. One example of this is their current Persona package which fulfils the demand of a business and corporate user. 4.11 Approaches for Promotion: Telenor approach and idea for promoting and advertising of it products and services is completely different from other cellular companies. They are using every possible available medium of communication to communicate with their targeted customers. Their main focus and goal regarding promotions is to become the top cellular company of the country by increasing their market share along with providing them the value they deserve 4.12 Media Advertising: In todays television channels boom advertising plays an important role to represent and pass the message of a service provider to its customer. Through advertsising telenor has been easily hitting the factors which affect the consumer decision making process. In current cellular media war Telenor has managed to retain its value by appropriate advertising strategy by selecting countries famous personalities in their promotion campaigns. 4.13 FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATION SYSTEM Availability: For Telenor, production is about offering a vast variety of packages and it is working quite well in providing amazing and innovative packages with high-tech facilities Telenor is leading the market in providing quality high-tech services and making them available for everyone. Business Centers: Telenor has it business centers and sales service centers in major cities for all the technical and non technical queries. These centers provide facility to the subscribers fo

Ethical Theory of Hedonism

Ethical Theory of Hedonism According to many scholars, to live ethically means to thinks about things that are beyond ones personal interests. When one thinks and lives ethically he or she becomes a just human being with needs and desires of his own but still living among people who also have their needs and desires. Ethics is branch of philosophy that deals with the study of right and wrong questions and therefore helps us to make the right moral judgments in the events of our daily life. This excerpt aims at discussing normative and applied ethics and in particular hedonism and its application in the criminal justice system. The modification of hedonism as a theory in ethics engrosses a number of amazing and important decisions. In this excerpt therefore two types of hedonism are also discussed. Introduction Both the criminal justice system professionals and the general public are concerned with the application of ethics in our daily lives. Everybody would like to see all the public servants and all people in the world perform their duties in the best way possible. In understanding the peoples behavior the criminal justice system uses number of ethical theories where hedonism is one of them. According to Banks (2009), hedonism has been traditionally expressed as the notion that pleasure alone is intrinsically good (p.333). In his explanations banks says that the only thing that is worth seeking just for its own sake is pleasure and that pleasure is the good. Hedonism is therefore the doctrine that pleasure is the sole good. Hedonism was first explained by Epicurus who was a great philosopher from Greek. In the English form Epicurus name appears as epicure, which means a person whose main enjoyment and satisfaction is gotten from exotic and carefully made food and wine. Epicurus advocated for the moderate and yet pleasurable living where he stated that pleasure is the good for which all human beings aim. On the other hand the pursuit of pleasure can also result to pain for instance when a person drinks to excess in his or her pursuit for pleasure and suffers stomachaches and headaches. Pain is mostly good as a means since its usually a signal that something is not right and that a change is necessary. Therefore according to the views of Epicurus the best way for one to live is to live in a pleasant manner and at the same time suffer not any of the unwanted effects of pleasant living. According to Banks (2009), the main aim of human living is tranquility of the mind and the health of the body. He did not recommend a life of endless pleasure or sensuality since by pleasure it means the absence of pain on the body as well as the absence of problem in the soul. However certain pleasures like making fun of others or taking drugs are a means of something painful and therefore would not be good. Tranquility of the mind is attained through practical wisdom and philosophical understanding. Hedonism appears in two forms which are ethical hedonism and psychological hedonism. Psychological hedonism states that human beings pursue pleasure and only pleasure in their lives and that all their activities are aimed towards attaining pleasure as well as avoiding pain (Banks 2009 p.334). Ethical hedonism on the other hand states that not only do human beings seek pleasure but they are actually supposed to seek pleasure because pleasure alone is good. In psychological hedonism all actions are motivated or driven by the search for pleasure while the ethical hedonism goes a step further and views the pursuit for pleasure as being normative. However, in its both forms hedonism is criticized by many scholars for trying to give only a single explanation for all human acts. According to Tuner (2000), pleasure is not the only thing that is desirable. Many other things like peace, money, education and liberty are desirable as means and ends but in hedonism pleasure is desirable as the eventual end. In this study we also find that human beings get pleasure in different ways. Pleasure can also be the same even when the sources of pleasure are the same. The hedonists believe that moral goodness is actually an instrumental good and not necessarily an intrinsic good. Moral goodness means doing the right thing even when it does not lead to happiness. According to hedonism, moral goodness can be an instrumental good though it does not always mean that it will result to pleasure (Larry, 2009) The idea of pleasure and happiness being a measure of ethical morality is basically limited to the western philosophy. Many people have promoted the hedonistic belief in pleasure from Aristotle and Socrates to John Mill and Jeremy Bentham as well as to others in the contemporary times. According to the proponents of hedonism all human beings are selfish by nature. These supporters argue people do good or bad to others so as to acquire a certain intrinsic pleasure (Everett 2006 p. 36). This pleasure may be overtime, in the immediate future or may even cause them pain in the immediate sense and eventually cause them pleasure. In this sense its believed that people help others because helping others gives them pleasure. Similarly people do evil because doing evil gives them pleasure. The criminal justice system therefore uses the theory of hedonism to understand the behavior of criminals and what drives them into committing crimes (Turner). This way the criminal justice system is able to give the right punishments to these law offenders. People have different ways of walking, thinking or acting. When one begins to know an individual there begins to emerge a pattern in train of thoughts. These behavioral patterns and traits are usually studied by the behavioral scientist. For instance the law enforcement uses such behavioral studies to monitor dangerous criminals like serial killers (Axelrod Antinozzi 2002 p.22). Deep inside the mind of criminals there is psychological reasoning behind the actions that they commit. A criminal will therefore leave a signature or a pattern behind which helps the investigators of the crime scene in analyzing information regarding the crime. Classical criminologists view human beings as rational and capable of making free choices. In a well organized society that has rational system of criminal justice therefore, any crime should be defined as the product of an irrational decision. According to Axelrod Antinozzi (2002), all behavior is reduced to avoidance of pain and seeking of pleasure. The main question of the criminal justice system is therefore how to make crime less pleasurable and more painful to the criminals (p.26). From the perspective of those intending to commit a crime, the pain involved should be more painful than breaking the law is worth. Only by making the punishment this way will the Criminal Justice System be able to discourage criminals and those intending to be criminals from indulging into crime. Otherwise if the pain gotten from committing a crime is equal or worth the pleasure derived from the committing it then many would go on committing the crime. The end punishment should always be meant to p revent the criminal from doing further harm to the society after refrain others from committing similar offences. The criminal justice system should therefore be able to choose punishments that will a strong and lasting impression on the mind of the criminal.

2pac Shakur :: Tupac Amur Shakur

Tupac (Two-pahk) Amur Shakur, commonly known as 2pac, led a violent life. He died on September 13, 1996. He was a gangsta rapper/Aspiring actor. Tupac was a big figure in the rap community, always doing what he wanted and not caring what others thought of him. His life symbolized what a lot of people have gone through, through his music and movies he showed us how hard life can be. Tupac was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1971. His family and he moved to Baltimore, Maryland early in his life. He took Performing Arts classes at his school; his teachers said he looked promising. He never finished school. He dropped out and moved to a small town outside Oakland, CA (â€Å"Associated†), however he did go to college and finish his high school credits. All his life he was raised by his mom, with his sister. He always led a violent life; April 5, 1993, he assaulted a fellow rapper with a baseball bat. October 31, 1993, he was charged with shooting two off duty police officers. The charges were later dropped. November 19, 1993, he was convicted of sexual assault (â€Å"Death†). In November 1994, Tupac himself was shot during an attempted robbery outside a music studio in New York. Tupac did, however, mention this; â€Å"Thug life to me is dead. If it's real, let somebody else represent it because I'm tired of it.† Shakur told Vibe Magazine. â€Å"I represented it too much. I was Thug Life†(â€Å" Associated†). Tupac had a very promising career. His first album â€Å"2pacallyps Now† was very successful. Not too late after that his movie â€Å"Juice† was released in 1992. He released two more albums titled â€Å"Strictly for my Niggaz† and â€Å"Me against the world† and two more movies â€Å"Poetic Justice† (1993) and â€Å"Above the Rim†(1994). His last album, â€Å"All Eyes on Me† sold over 6 million copies and was the first double CD for rap music. (â€Å"Thuglife†)(â€Å"Associated†) 4:03 p.m. PDT, Friday, September 13, Tupac died of respiratory failure and cardio-pulmonary arrest at University Medical Center, Las Vegas(Payne). He died of bullet wounds to the abdomen and chest at the young age of 25 (â€Å"Unofficial†). â€Å"Shakur was shot four times in the chest and abdomen. Police believe he was the target.† He lingered in a coma before he died. So far police have no suspects. All they are saying is that the people were in a white cadillac, not from Las Vegas where he was shot (â€Å"Associated†).

The Portrayal of Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Ha

In the novel Far from the Madding Crowd written by Thomas Hardy, I will be observing in detail the main character, Gabriel Oak, a young sheep farmer. I am going to determine how he is described as a heroic character in the first seven chapters. Gabriel Oak is portrayed to the reader as a heroic character in several different ways. In chapter one, there is no action or events. Alternatively, in the first paragraph, there is a description of Oak, which is mainly focused on his broad smile. His smile is compared using a simile, 'like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.' This immediately implies that he is a cheerful, good-natured character. Secondly, he is referred to with many different names. Farmer Oak illustrates his status, respect and authority. His Christian name, Gabriel has a reference towards the bible, as Gabriel was the good angel of God. Lastly, his surname, Oak, this may refer to wood as Oak is strong and durable which may represent his strength and durability. This is stressing the positive quality of Oak's character. The reader starts to get an encouraging image of Gabriel once reading the first two paragraphs. Farmer Oak's background is rather straightforward although he has had many jobs. He is conscientious and thorough as he cares greatly on how everything is presented and what people think of him. He was firstly a shepherd and then a bailiff before becoming a farmer. His father was a shepherd, so he had grown up on a farm learning the skills required from his dad. Moreover, the clothes Gabriel wore were not pretentious. I know this because on his working days he wore his clothes ... ...ently told everybody what had to be done to help and soon the fire was under control. Without Gabriel's good sense and bravery the fire would have been unmanageable. Oaks courage was admired by all of the spectators and many compliments soon spread through the crowd. Once Gabriel had found out that Bathsheba was in need of a shepherd, he was not too modest to ask her. He did not let what happened in the past effect his decision in asking her for a job and did not seem embarrassed. This shows his respect towards people and shows that he is a highly regarded man. All these positive qualities show that Gabriel Oak is a reputable man and is willing to help anyone, even if he does not know them. It shows that he is courageous and not a proud man. All of which portray to the reader that Gabriel Oak is a heroic character.

Affect of Women in Advertisement Essay

Abstract Due to advertisement clutter in the 21st century customers are exposed to a variety of advertising appeals that aims to influence their attitudes towards a wide range of products and services. Many companies worldwide are using women as an object to attract and influence consumers’ attitudes towa rds the products they sell. Women appear in huge number of advertisement as a sexual object or as attractive decorative model standing nearby a product, even when the sexual image has little relevance to the advertised product. This article looks at Jordan ian male consumers’ attitude towards using women in advertisement. Results reveals four factors tend to influence consumer attitude towards using women in advertisement. Culture, control, and emotion were found to have a significant influence on consumer attitude towards using women in advertisement, while there was no significant influence for women appearance on consumer attitude towards using women in advertisement. In general Jordanian male consumers’ were opposed to exposing, exploiting and objectifying the woman and her body in advertisement. Introduction Research on advertisement featuring sex role focused on how content and imagery affect cognitive responses and attitude toward the advertisement, which in turn affect attitude toward the brand and purchase intention (Jaffe, 1994; Leigh and Whitney, 1987). Attitude toward advertising can be defined in general as learned tendencies to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner to advertising in general (Lutz, 1985; Mackenzie and Lutz, 1989). The link between attitudes, intentions and behavior has been explained primarily by Ajzen (1985, 1988), Ajzen and Fishbein (1980). This theory is based on the assumption that human beings usually behave in a sensible manners where they will take into account information available to them and consider the consequences of their actions. Thus people are expected to act in accordance with their intentions. The personal factor is the attitude toward the behavior, which is the individual‟s positive or negat ive evaluation of performing the behavior of interest. Whereas the social determinant of intention is the person‟s perception of social pressure to perform the behavior under consideration. People generally intend to perform a behavior when they evaluate it positively and belief that important others think they should perform it. Advertisements perceived as contentious will not be effective in capturing the attention of people or changing their attitudes towards the advertised products (Michell and Al-Mossawi, 1995). Based on that, it‟s very essential to choose the appropriate advertisement strategies employed in advertising which range from informational to emotional. Among those designed to stir emotions or rouse particular feelings, we can find fear, humor, warmth, novelty, contrast, animation, music, and sexual arousal. According to Reichert et. al. (2001) sex appeal advertising invokes any message, which, whether as brand information in advertising contexts or as persuasive appeals in marketing contexts, is associated with sexual information. It has long been an accepted belief that this form of advertising is very effective at attention-grabbing, considered by some commentators as a powerful step in reaching one‟s target market, especially in the current clutter of 21st century marketing and communications (Reichert & Lambiase, 2003). Sexual economics theory (SET) is a stimulating theory about sexuality that combines the idea of gender differences in sexual attitudes with social exchange theory, which S precher, (1989) conceptualize as two or more parties that each give up something with the aim of getting back something of greater value. Much research suggests that sex as an end in itself is less valued by women than men (Baummeister et al., 2001). Ther efore, sexual economics theory posits that women possess substantially greater negotiating power than do men in the context of a sexual exchange. Based on this theory, the current study will focus on men and the way women are used to persuade them in adver tisement to influence their attitudes. Using women in advertisement as a sexual appeal has transferred women to a marketing instrument by many firms. Women are used as a material mostly in advertisements (Bayraktar, 2011). In many advertisements, the ideal woman is an object that exists to satisfy men‟s sexual desires. Many researchers have shown that women in advertisements are portrayed as sex objects (Baker, 2005). Advertisers feature provocative images of sexually attractive women in ads (Reichert, 2 002). Sexual appeals in advertisements consist of a variety of elements models. Courtney and Whipple (1983) describes sexuality in advertisements as sexuality in the form of nudity, sexual imagery, innuendo, and double entendre used as an ad object for dif ferent kinds of products. Reichert (2002) reveals that common forms of sexuality in ads includes nudity (dress), physical attractiveness, seductive behavior and interaction, innuendo, and other factors such as setting, context and camera effects. While Lambiase and Reichert (2003) propose that there are five types of sexual content in ads: Nudity, sexual behavior, physical attractiveness, sexual referents, and sexual embeds. Ramirez and Reichert (2000) propose that viewers consider physical characteristics the most sexual in ads and the sub-categories of these characteristics are clothing, attractiveness and body. Table 1 shows the categories of women appearance in advertisements and their meanings in USA. It‟s noteworthy to say that women misrepresentation in advertisement is a world wide phenomenon. In India, for example, Bag and Roy (2010) bring up various reasons behind unaccept ed representation of women in advertisement, such as poverty where still a number of women, particularly young girls with intolerable economic misery compelled to represent themselves in different forms of uncultured version for survival. To the contrary some rich women’s do it as a hobby, just to get mental or psychological satisfaction through modeling, front page sensational attraction in different popular magazines. Globalization is another factor responsible for misrepresentation of women in advertisement. Being attracted to western culture, teenager girls have been adopting western style in their garments and manners and hence, they have been losing their own culture and tradition, social values and moral character. Consumerism, which tries hard to inc rease the consumption of people, is another cause of such unaccepted representation. Much consumption means much economic profit which a group of people highly want. Profit maximization has escalated the introduction of women in a number of advertisements of different companies in television, magazine, T.V., Cinema, Newspaper, Cartoons, painting and even in the Internet to attract customers from different age groups. The different types of women representation in advertisement are presented below. Representation through Television- There is a lot of representation of women in advertisement through T.V. which affect common people and children adversely. It is obvious that visual indecent representation of them has been perverting psychologically all youth. Representation through Newspaper- Newspaper is another source of representation in indecent manner. Readers from almost all age group are intensely influenced while observing and reading those undesirable advertisements. Representation through Magazine- Similar examples will be cited in several advertisements in several reputed magazines where the honor of women have not only been despoiled simultaneously people are being psychologically endangered. But interestingly, by virtue of human instinct, neither presenter nor consumer is realizing its adverse impact. Other forms of Representation- There are other forms of uncultured representation which we can find rarely but have both internal and external effects on common people. Despite fewer in number, such representations are noticed in different sorts of paintings, hoarding hanging or fixed in cities and towns, and even displayed in Internet. Painting of undesirable quality is often displayed in cinema hall for greater publicity. Similarly, a lot of painters draw naked or half naked figures, which may have inner good meaning, but it is a matter of question how many people are finding that inner good meaning and how many are taking those adversely. Research Problem and Significance Very few studies tries to explain the influence of using women in advertisement based on cultural factors. Researchers have either concentrated on or compared dissimilar cultures, such as the U.S and Japan or they have focused on similarities or differences on similar cultur es, such as Great Britain and Australia (Al-Olayan and Karande, 2000). Many researches explain ads by using Hofstede‟s cultural dimensions or Hall‟s high and low typology and other country specific variables. Culture dominates communications, such as langu age, traditions, beliefs and music (Al-Olayan, & Karande, 2000). Therefore, the main motivation behind this article is to identify the influence of using women in advertisement on male consumers‟ attitude in Jordan. This study is conducted in a Muslim country where Shariah (Islamic Law) prohibit the use of sexual appearance or body in a way to attract or convince consumers with company products, brands or services. This study is significant for the reason that there is no any study has been done in this field regarding this issue. Another reason for doing this study is to increase our understanding of the Arab societies, and in this case Jordan. Research Objectives The objectives of this research are: 1) To identify the factors that may affect male Jordanian consumers‟ attitude towards using women in advertisement 2) To examine consumers overall attitude towards using sexy women in advertisement Theoretical Background Culture and Advertisement Marketers need to observe the cultural traits, environments, norms, beliefs, and values of a particular country or region to obtain an understanding of whether their future behaviors will be perceived as ethical (Haque et al., 2010). For example, companies advertising their products or services in different countries should be aware of a country‟s existing norms concerning role portrayals and the way these organizations affect these norms (Gilly, 1988). Clow and Baack (2009) maintained that culture, religion and value system determine the levels of nudity, sexual references, and gender specific issues that are permitted in a country. Several differences have also been recognized across countries for men and women appear in different settings and for different products. Women are more likely to be portrayed in domestic environment as sex objects, while men are more likely to be portrayed being occupied. In Sweden, for example advertisers show men and women in greater variety of nonworking roles than in the U.S.A and Germany and women in Asian countries are less likely to be shown as sex objects (Das, 2000). Since in many Middle Eastern countries, sex and gender issues are taboo subjects, sexual appeals are not used in advertising and even sexually related products are difficult to advertise (Bryant, 1998). Muslim nations tend to reject any kind of nudity and any reference to sexuality and other gender -related issues. Any hint of sexuality or display of the female body is strictly forbidden. In Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, women must be shown in family settings. They cannot be depicted as being carefree or desirable to the opposite sex. Marlin (2008) conduct a study on how culture affects advertisement, he used an advertisement showing a sexy picture for Paris Hilton, the famous model wearing a bikini and asked respondents to writ e their reactions. About 27% had positive reactions, 45% had negative reactions and 28% were indifferent. For this advertisement some respondents were confused whether it is an advertisement for a burger or for a car. The results show that different cultures imply different reactions, some of the comments the respondents wrote were: †¢ Unrealistic, bizarre (German respondent) †¢ It is not about the product, they are selling a lifestyle (Iranian respondent) †¢ Nice, interesting (French respondent) †¢ Too much naked skin (1 Ethiopian and 1 Swedish respondent) †¢ I am discussed, angry and feel fat (Swedish respondent) †¢ Too naked, too unrealistic (Moroccan respondent) †¢ Sexistic (Swedish respondent) †¢ Inappropriate, bad taste (French respondent) †¢ It is totally unnecessary for the object of advertising (Swedish respondent) Muslim countries are not the only ones with restrictive advertising for sex appeals. Many Christian countries such as Ireland, Spain, South Africa, Mexico and the Philippines have similar standards. 184 While in Canada, France, and Sweden, sexism should be avoided in any advertising directed toward children (Boddewyn, 1991). Based on that, understanding how religious beliefs influence the attitude towards the advertising is of great importance to international advertisers and advertising agency managers in their efforts to improve advertising effectiveness without offending or alienating their target audience. It‟s important to comprehend that Islamic social philosophy is based on the belief that all spheres of life: spiritual, social, political, and economic form an indivisible unity that must be thoroughly imbued with Islamic values. Advertisement and Women in the Muslim world The aim of this section is to give an in-depth understanding on the nature and position of women and advertisement in the Muslim world to help and benefit marketers and the advertising producers in the Muslim world to gain a profound understanding of Muslim values. As a starting point, it‟s important to note that the Holy Quran does not prohibit advertising (Al-Makaty et al., 1996). Some advertisements use religious terminology to reassure consumers of the Islamic integrity of products and services. For example, in a television advertisement, a Saudi Investment ba nk in Egypt had used religious terms to show that it had no unlawful transactions and that all of its financial products Shariah compliant. The use of selected Quranic injunctions and words can enhance the mood of the advertising communication to make it more appealing to Muslim consumers. Luqmani et al. (1989) provide an example of a manufactured water pump that uses a verse from the Quran in advertising. Although it is obviously welcome to keep in mind that the Islamic regulations related to business and marketing, appropriate implementation of precise Islamic terms is crucial. Contrary to this, a business may face unexpected troubles in gaining markets in Muslim populous areas if some how its advertisements create feelings that are inconsistent with religious sensitivities. In such a context, the most potential and contemporary issues in Islamic markets should be carefully introduced, developed, and offered through appropriate advertising and communication messages which meet the commitment of ethics as gu ided in the Islamic Shariah. For example, the Islamic system encourages moderation in living, while prodigality and waste are denounced. Costly promotional efforts and massive commercial advertisements by businesses are considered unnecessary. Producers of advertisements must make sure that their advertising campaign does not overstep any social or legal norms. Little attention has been paid on the exposure of advertisement in the Arab societies. Except from investigations in Saudi Arabian ads, there is only one study that has examined the cross-cultural differences in advertising content in other countries in the Middle East and only one study of the portrayal of Egyptian women in television commercials. Luqmani et al., (1987) study focused only on the influence of Islam on advertising content and regulation in Saudi Arabia while Michell and Al-Mossawi, (1999) study focused on message contentiousness among Gulf Co-operative Council countries, and showed that religious Muslims scored lower in terms of recall and were unfavorable towards contentious advertisements relative to lenient Muslims. The findings suggest that there is a difference in perceived controversial elements in advertisements between a devout and a lenient Muslim. These findings also highlight the importance of matching creative execution and message content to a society‟s socio-cultural environment. Michell and Al-Mossawi claim an offensive advertisement will not be effective in capturing an audience‟s attention or changing his/her attitudes. Both of these studies revealed the importance of understanding the Islamic religion in relation to effective advertising. In particular, Luqmani et al., assert that unconventional advertisements must obtain prior approval from religious authorities. While in Malaysia, Unilever‟s used an ad for Pond‟s skin lightening moisturizer showing a Malay college student using the product for a fairer complexion to attract a boy‟s attention. The ad is deemed offensive to the Muslim ethnic culture (Haque et al., 2010). In addition to the above mentioned facts, the women‟s status is debated among traditional Islamists, reformist Islamists and feminists, secular or Islamic. The traditional Islamists are clear about the male-female differences and insist on the distinct sex roles. They view women as emotional, sentimental and weak humans whose duty is in the household. The traditional Islamists take every verse in the Qur‟an as a source of protection of women and see women as minors that need to be protected by superior men. In return the woman will nurture the family and try to please her father, brother or son, or whoever may be the head of the household. The woman has a responsibility to maintain the honor, reputation and status of the family. Traditionally, a man‟s hon or depends on the extent on the virginity of his sisters, wife and daughters, and widows divorcees‟ sexual continent. 185 The Islamic reformists believe that the inferiority is only in relation to the woman‟s physical strength and weaker autonomy, thus she is capable of participating in all spheres or public and social life. Modern and liberal reformists are trying to accommodate the Islamic rules with the realities of modern times. The feminist view is a secular movement whose aim is to achieve equality for women. The roots of this movement consider the woman as totally subordinated to the man and that the veil is a symbol of this. Advertising in Jordan Jordan‟s media sector has seen significant privatization and liberalization efforts in recent years. Based on official rack rates, research firm Ipsos estimated that the advertisement sector spent some $303m towards publicity in Jordan‟s media, 80% of which was spent on newspapers, followed by TV, radio and magazines. In recent years, Jordan has also seen a spectacular rise in the number of blogs, websites and news portals as sources of news information. The increasing diversification of Jordan‟s media boosted advertising revenues and private initiatives. Recording growth of 30%, 2007 turned out to be yet another outstanding year for Jordan‟s advertising industry. Following nearly a decade of double-digit growth, the Jordanian advertising had some catching up to do with the rest of the region in terms of average expenditure per capita. Since 2000 total ad spend increased from $77m to $303m in 2008, an increase of 260%. The Jordanian telecoms sector was the biggest ad spender in 2008, accounting for around 20% of the market, followed by banking and finance sector (12%), services industry (11%), real estate (8%) and the automotive sector (5%). Research Design In order to measure Jordanian male consumers‟ attitude towards using women in advertisement , male respondents between 18-55 years were selected. The survey instrument included a list of 22 statements from which respondents were asked to indicate their level of personal acceptance on a five-point scale, where 1 means â€Å"Strongly Disagree† and 5 means â€Å"Strongly Agree†. Statements from 1 -17 was designed to measure factors affecting consumers attitude towards using women in advertisement. Most of the statements were adapted from earlier studies, for example (Al Makaty et al. 1996; Nordà ©n 2006; and Baker, C.N. 2005). While statement 18-22 were designed to measure consumers overall attitude towards advertisements. The statements were adapted from earlier studies as well such as (Usman, 2010; and Ashill, 2005). Respondents belonging to different demographic groups in terms of education level, marital status and profession were considered in the study. The sampling frame for the study was male consumers living in west of Amman. For respondents‟ selection, simple random sampling procedure was adopted. Questionnaires were filled by the respondents. The total number of respondents was 450. The responses received were 353 (80.5 per cent). Cronbach alpha reliability analysis was conducted for the items included in the study. The internal consistency – Cronbach alpha value for reliability of the questionnaire was found to be 0.74. All items were well above the 0.70, which was the commonly accepted threshold (Nunnally 1978). Respondent Profile Respondents from different parts of west Amman were asked to fill in the questionnaire. Table 2 depicts a summation of the study‟s respondents‟ demographic information. As per research objectives all the respondents are male consumers. Of the 353 respondents, 79.0 per cent were less than 25 years of age. A larger number of respondents were unmarried (74.4 per cent) the maximum respondents fell into this age group, since youth is the target market and they are the ones who pay maximum attention to the advertisements. Out of the remaining sample, only 2.3 per cent were above 55 years of age. The remaining 29.5 per cent belonged to the age group of 26–55 years of age. The larger number of r espondents was unmarried (74.4 per cent), and this could be attributed to the young age of the respondent. In addition most of them 78.5 percent were with undergraduate education. The maximum respondents in the category „profession‟ belonged to the student group with a major share of 68.2 per cent and the remaining 31.8 per cent included businessmen, executives and others. The overall composition of respondents included in the study was young, unmarried and students.

Dressen Case Study Essay

#1)I believe one major factor was how appealing Dressen had become during 1995, as opposed to previous years. It appeared that new management had turned the company around. Management stated Dressen was looking good for future growth during the end of 1995. I think management felt it was the opportune time to sell. They wanted to sell Dressen while they were making money and being successful, as opposed to hemorrhaging money from Westinghouse. Dressen was Westinghouse’s star performer in the Q3 of 1995. Sales increased 10% over the year-prior quarter. EBIT reached 12% of sales as well. Their growth strategy as well as technology and work processes lead management to believe that there was even greater growth potential. Dressen was now headed in the right direction. Management was trying to strike while the iron was hot. Another factor was the cash acquisition of CBS in August 1995 for $5.4 billion. The large purchase price had strained an already weakened balance sheet. There was also a $2 billion bridge loan that was due in February 1996. Businesses are meant to earn economic profit and mitigate the cost associated with them. Without effective and timely cost strategy, a business cannot climb the stairs of economic prosperity. Organizations have to be aware of how much cost they are incurring over a certain period of time, as most of the time, high operational costs can devastate the entire financial structure of an entity. Apart from the cost, it is also important for a company to be consistent in their earnings momentum because it is something that shareholders, as well as analysts, are looking for in a company. There are certain ratios that can be taken into account to analyze why Westinghouse would want to sell Dressen. Mentioned below are some calculations that justify why Westinghouse was intending to sell Dressen at the end of the fiscal year 1995: 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 Net Sales 671 577 508 563 621 % Change -14.01 -11.96 10.83 10.30 Gross Profit 200 151 122 153 203 Gross profit margin 29.81 26.17 24.02 27.18 32.69 Net Income -40 -60 29 Net Profit Margin -7.87 -10.66 4.67 Dressen recorded a net profit of $29 in 1995, as compared to the net loss of $60 a year before, but the net profit margin of the company in 1995 was only 4.67%, which is still very low. The Gross Profit Margin in the same year was 10.30%, which shows that around 90% of the sales come under the net Cost of Goods Sold. This is a very high figure that businesses cannot sustain for a long period of time. Total assets of Dressen also showed a net decrease from fiscal year 1994 to 1995: Year 1994 1995 Assets $ in Million 705 657 Proportion -6.809 A decrease in the operational assets would not be acceptable for the company as a whole. Therefore, Westinghouse was willing to sell Dressen because the company was not doing well in its jurisdiction. #2)There are a number of valuation tools which could be used for the purpose of analyzing the effectiveness of a company as a whole. Warburg is considering paying $585 million for Dressen and we must analyze if this is a fair price for Warburg to pay. Price to Earnings is a ratio that is usually applied by investors on the entire investment in order to anticipate the expected dividend.  Specifically, it refers to the ratio evaluation of an entity’s price of shares in relation to earnings for each share. Price to Earnings ratio is generally symbolized as an earning multiplier or investment multiplier. However, there are some probability flaws in the P/E ratio, but it is still the most widely accepted technique to measure potential speculations. Market price to earnings is one of the most vital tools used to analyze the stance of investors while investing in the company. Five-year period analysis has been taken into consideration for Dressen: Question-2 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 Share Price Average 32 32 15 15 15 Earnings Per Share 0 0.00 -0.87 -1.31 0.60 Market Value to Earnings 0 0 -17.175 -11.45 24.88 The computation of Dressen’s Market Price to Earnings is showing that the  company did a good job in the fiscal year 1995, as its Price to Earning (P/E) or Market Value to Earning (MV/E) ratio had increased tremendously to a level of $24.88. The higher the P/E, then the higher the net worth of the company. Enterprise Value to Sales is a valuation method that is applied to assess the ratio of enterprise value to its market share price. The Enterprise Value to Price ratio allows investors to make a decision on whether the market share of the company is expensive or cheap. The ratio has also considerable influence on the company’s sales as it is utilized by many market analysts to avoid any manipulation over the turnover of an entity. The Enterprise Value to Sales analysis is mentioned below: 1994 1995 Market Capitalization $ in Million 458 481 Total Debt in $ million 247 176 Total Worth in $ Million 705 657 Less: Cash in $ Million 5 2 Net Worth in $ Million 700 655 Annual Sales in $ Million 563 621 EV/Sales 124.33 105.48 The Enterprise Value to Sales is high in both years 1994 and 1995. This shows me that the net worth of the company is high. EBIAT is a financial appraisal technique which is used to figure out the operating performance of a company. It refers to how much resources have been utilized to generate revenue within a given span of time. The financial evaluators are most likely to consider this ratio as an indicator of a company’s performance within a defined accounting cycle. This will allow them to set a point of time within the operating cycle that they can focus on. EV/EBIAT 1994 1995 Market Capitalization $ in Million 458 481 Total Debt in $ million 247 176 Total Worth in $ Million 705 657 Less: Cash in $ Million 5 2 Net Worth in $ Million 700 655 EBIAT in $ Million -2.5 10.4 EV/EBIAT (28,000) 6,298 The company recorded a net loss in the year 1994 of $-28,000, but it is a positive figure of $6,298 in the year 1995. My calculation for the Dividend Discount Model is as follows: P = Dividend / WACC – g WACC = 12% G = Growth rate = 4% = 1.2 / 12 – 8 1.2/ 0.08 P = $15 The average Share Price in the year 1995 was also $15. Taking all of this analysis into consideration, I believe that $585 million is a fair price to pay for Dessen. The net worth of Dressen in terms of financial value and share valuation are strong. I believe that Warburg is underpaying for Dressen. I believe Warburg got Dressen for a good price. I feel that Warburg should have paid more for Dressen, so with a purchase price of $585 million I believe Warburg got a great value. #3)Financial Forecasting is an important metric to use because it can estimate the future financial outcomes of a company. Analysts have to forecast the cash flows and debt obligations to analyze the financial competitiveness of a company as a whole. Two different ratios could be used to analyze Dressen’s ability to generate sufficient cash flows to service its debt. The two ratios I used for Dressen are the Cash Flow to Sales Ratio and Debt to Equity. The Cash Flow to Sales ratio is an important ratio which analyzes what percentage of the company’s sales are on credit, and how much of the sales are on cash. The computed ratio for the next five years is below: Operating Cash Flow to Sales 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Forecasted Operational Cash Flow 77 83 99 101 95 Forecasted Sales in Million $ 658 698 740 784 804 Operating Cash Flow to Sales 11.70 11.89 13.38 12.88 11.82 Average 12.33 The forecasted figure of the cash flow to sales is showing that the company is not efficient in getting their cash sooner as related to sales. The amount of operating cash flow to sales ranges from 11.70% to 13.38%, with an average of 12.33%. This shows that over 80% of Dressen’s sales are on  credit, which is not a good sign from the viewpoint of the company. The risk in generating sufficient cash flow will remain with the company for the next five years (1996-2000) as well, because the cash generating cycle of the company is too low and it has to be increased accordingly. The Debt to Equity ratio of Dressen for the next five years is below: Debt to Equity 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Total Debt in $ Million 530 501 455 409 357 Equity in $ Million 178 208 247 294 345 Debt to Equity 2.98 2.41 1.84 1.39 1.03 Average 1.93 The Debt to Equity ratio for Dressen (Forecasted) is showing that the level  of debt is twice that of the equity. This is against the restrictive covenants. A high debt/equity ratio generally means that a company has been aggressive in financing its growth with debt. This can result in volatile earnings because of the additional interest expense. Average Debt to Equity of the company is showing that the proportion of debt is nearly 68%, while the proportion of equity is 32%. This is very near to the restrictive covenants, in which debt should not be higher than 70%. There is a risk that this ratio will increase in the upcoming years. #4)For the Debt Rating analysis I decided to examine the Debt to total Capital and the liabilities to total assets. I wanted to figure out these ratings for 1994 and 1995, before the buyout. Question-4 Debt Rating 1994 1995 Average Subordinate Debt in $ Million 165 Capital 458 481 Percentage of Debt/Capital 36.03 34.30 35.16 Total Liabilities in $ Million 247 176 Total Assets in $ Million 705 657 Proportion 35.04 26.79 30.91 The Total Debt to Capital of Dressen on average is 35.16%. This would represent a rating category of â€Å"A.† Along the same lines, liabilities to assets have a figure of 30.91%. The bond rating in this particular scenario is also â€Å"A.† The coverage ratio is a measure of a company’s ability to meet its financial obligations. The higher the coverage ratio, the better the ability of the company to fulfill its obligations to its lenders. Analysts and investors perform coverage ratios to determine the change in a company’s financial position. The findings of the coverage ratio I performed on Dressen are below: 1994 1995 EBIT -2.5 10.4 Interest Expense 3 1 Coverage Ratio -0.83 10.40 This analysis shows that Dressen generates enough cash flow to pay its interest, specifically in the year 1995. Taking all of this information into account, I would assign an â€Å"A† rating to Dressen. #5)In order to analyze the level of business risk for the buyout, I decided to use the current ratio and the gearing ratio. The current ratio is a liquidity ratio that measures a company’s ability to pay short-term obligations. The higher the current ratio, the more capable the company is of paying its obligations. A ratio under 1 suggests that the company would be unable to pay off its obligations if they came due at that point. This is an important ratio for Warburg because they need to make sure they can meet their short-term obligations after the buyout. Current Assets in Million $ 183 Current Liabilities in Million $ 95 Current Ratio 1.926 Dressen has a current ratio of 1.926. The current ratio can give a sense of the efficiency of a company’s operating cycle and its ability to turn its product into cash. This ratio shows that Dressen is doing a good job as far as meeting its short-term financial obligations and promises. The gearing ratio is a financial ratio that compares some form of owner’s equity to borrowed funds. It is a measure of financial leverage that demonstrates the degree to which a firm’s activities are funded by owner’s funds versus creditor’s funds. A company with high gearing (high leverage) is more vulnerable to downturns in the business cycle because the company must continue to service its debt regardless of how bad sales are. If a company has more equity, then there would be more of a cushion, which would show financial strength. Debt 420 Equity 160 Assets 705 EBIT 10.4 Interest 1 Debt to Equity 2.625 EBIT/Interest 10.4 Equity/Assets 22.70 From this analysis, it can be determined that the Debt to Equity of the company is still high at 2.62%. Total Equity to Assets is relatively small at only 22.70%. This shows that most of the assets in Dressen have been bought using debt. From this analysis, it is found that the company is not risky when it comes to short-term financial obligations, but it will be in a dangerous situation in the long-term.