in 100 word. 

Give me your input on what you think of marketing and/or sales as a career.

due in 48 hour

i need this in 8hrs. time is important so keep time.

Research the selected brand using both its web site and articles in the school’s library’s full-text databases, and address the following:

• What does the brand mean in today’s market?
• How has it evolved over time?
• What is the target market(s) for the brand? Has that changed from the past?
• How is the competition positioned?

 Articles are found in periodicals. No eBooks or reference books. The most popular databases in marketing are: ABI Inform Global, Academic Search Premier, and Business Source Premier. This section of the paper should be at least 2 pages.

APA references

Will DM what chosen brand is. Thank you.

Exploring Innovation in Action: Power to the People – Lifeline Energy

Trevor Baylis was quite a swimmer in his youth, representing Britain at the age of 15. So it wasn’t entirely surprising that he ended up working for a swimming pool firm in Surrey before setting up his own company. He continued his swimming passion – working as a part-time TV stuntman doing underwater feats – but also followed an interest in inventing things. One of the projects he began work on in 1991 was to have widespread impact despite – or rather because of – being a ‘low-tech’ solution to a massive problem.

Having seen a documentary about AIDS in Africa he began to see the underlying need for something which could help communication. Much of the AIDS problem lies in the lack of awareness and knowledge across often isolated rural communities – people don’t know about causes or prevention of this devastating disease. And this reflects a deeper problem – of communication. Experts estimate that less than 20% of the world’s population have access to a telephone, while even fewer have a regular supply of electricity, much less television or Internet access. Very low literacy levels exclude most people from reading newspapers and other print media.

Radio is an obvious solution to the problem – but how can radio work when the receivers need power and in many places mains electricity is simply non-existent. An alternative is battery power – but batteries are equally problematic – even if they were of good quality and freely available via village stores people couldn’t afford to buy them regularly. In countries where $1 a day is the standard wage, batteries can cost from a day’s to a week’s salary. The HIV/AIDS pandemic also means that household incomes are under increased pressure as earners become too ill to work while greater expenditure goes towards healthcare, leaving nothing for batteries.

What was needed was a radio which ran on some different source of electricity. In thinking about the problem Baylis remembered the old-fashioned telephones of pre-war days which had wind-up handles to generate power. He began experimenting, linking together odd items such as a hand brace, an electric motor and a small radio. He found that the brace turning the motor would act as a generator that would supply sufficient electricity to power the radio. By adding a clockwork mechanism he found that a spring could be wound up – and as it unwound the radio would play. This first working prototype ran for 14 minutes on a two minute wind. Trevor had invented a clockwork (wind-up) radio! As a potential solution to the communication problem the idea had real merit. The trouble was that, like thousands of entrepreneurs before him, Trevor couldn’t 7677convince others of this. He spent nearly four years approaching major radio manufacturers like Philips and Marconi but to no avail. But luck often plays a significant part in the innovation story – and this was no exception. The idea came to the attention of some TV researchers and the product was featured in 1994 on the BBC TV programme Tomorrow’s World, which showcased interesting and exciting new inventions.

Amongst those who saw it and whose interest was taken by the wind-up radio were a corporate finance expert, Christopher Staines, and a South African entrepreneur, Rory Stear. They bought the rights from Baylis and received a UK government grant to help develop the product further, including the addition of solar panel options. In South Africa, the details of the invention were featured in a new broadcast and heard by Hylton Appelbaum, head of an organisation called the Liberty Life Foundation, who saw the potential. Even in relatively rich South Africa, half the homes have no electricity, and elsewhere in Africa the problem is even more severe.

Liberty Life is a body set up by a major South African insurance company and Anita and Gordon Roddick, the socially conscious owners of the Body Shop. Part of the work of the Foundation is in providing access to employment for the disabled and a third of the company’s factory workers are blind, deaf, in wheelchairs, or mentally ill. Through Applebaum, Liberty Life provided the $1.5 million in venture capital that founded the company. Baygen Power Industries (from Baylis Generator) was set up by Staines and Stear in 1995, in Cape Town. Sixty per cent of the shares were held by a group of organisations for the disabled, a condition of Liberty’s support. Technical development was provided by the Bristol University Electronics Engineering Department. Shortly thereafter production of the radio began in Cape Town by BayGen Products PTY South Africa.

It came on the market at the beginning of 1996 and one year later around 160,000 units had been sold. Much of the early production was purchased by aid charities working in Rwanda and other African countries where relief efforts were underway.

This was not a glamorous product – as a New York Times article described it, ‘It is no threat to a Sony Walkman. It weighs six pounds, it’s built like an overstuffed lunch box, and it has a tinny speaker. But its wholesale price is only $40 and it gets AM, FM, and shortwave, meaning it can pick up the British Broadcasting Corporation or the Voice of America, so a circle of mud huts can zip back into the Information Age with a twist of the wrist.’

(Source(s): Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times News Service, 1996)

The impact was significant. In 1996 another BBC TV programme, QED, featured the radio and at one point showed footage of Baylis, Staines and Stear 7778together with Nelson Mandela who commented that this was a ‘fantastic product that can provide an opportunity for those people who have been despised by society’.

Although appearing basic and low-tech there is a surprising amount of invention in the product. Baylis filed no less than 13 patents covering the mainspring and gears that drive a little dynamo. The spring mechanism is not a simple clockwork type but is more closely related to the kind used in rewinding auto seat belts. A double-spool mechanism keeps its tension constant, which is crucial, and the gearing is sophisticated.

Baygen continued to develop products around the energy needs of developing countries including wind-up torches and small generators. The company renamed itself in 1999 as the Freeplay Energy Group and have taken the original concepts into a wide range of new product areas.

Although founded on strong social entrepreneurship principles the business has grown through expanding markets in both developing and advanced economies. At an early stage in their life they realised that dependence on government, international and charitable aid providers posed problems in terms of business sustainability and in 1997, following investment by the US General Electric Company, they began diversifying into commercial markets, modifying the product designs to suit this shift. One of the casualties in this shift has been the Cape Town factory – after five years manufacturing was outsourced to plants in China where labour costs are lower.

The company became commercially successful, and sold over 3 million units of their basic radio models, raising an additional $45m in capital on the way. Product development began to embrace a wider range of power options including solar cells, and an increasing range of applications including torches and lighting, small-scale generators and mobile phone chargers. Emphasis remains on replacing battery and fixed-line power applications with rechargeable or self-generating approaches – an approach which, given increasing concerns about sustainability in the advanced industrial economies, is opening new possibilities for market growth.

Typical of their current products is the Lifeline radio, a multi-band, self-powered radio ‘designed specifically for providing dependable access to information across a broad range of humanitarian projects. The radio does not require batteries or mains electricity and can be used practically anywhere. Engineered to operate in the harshest of rural conditions, it is rugged, robust and easy to operate. It offers excellent FM/AM/SW reception and runs on wind-up energy and solar power. Fully charged, it can play for up to 24 hours. The Lifeline radio was field tested in various developing countries as part of an extensive research and development programme to identify and create a radio that truly meets the requirements of these unique and diverse applications.’

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Since its launch in 2003 over 8 million people have received Lifeline radios and the product has had a marked impact on the lives of many others – neighbours, friends and families, etc.

Using the Products

The scope for application is wide since it meets the basic human need for communication and enables a wide range of information, education and community-building activities. Some examples from the radio side of the business include:

·         • A project (funded by various development agencies) using communication satellites and FM radio technology to communicate weather, agricultural and health information to nomadic communities and villages across Africa. The pilot is built on a model in the village of Bankilare, outside Niger’s capital, Niamey, and combines a WorldSpace satellite receiver, a laptop, Freeplay radios, a transmitter, solar panels and other equipment. Information is downloaded from the Internet via a satellite connection. It is then rebroadcast via a community FM radio station powered by solar energy. Villagers, nomads and farmers living in remote and poorly served areas receive broadcasts on Freeplay radios. The aim of this project is to provide timely information on the weather, with implications for crop planting and livestock care, availability of water, market prices for crops, associated diseases, health and disaster mitigation. This is just as important for the nomad as for the farmer. As stated by a nomad: ‘I do not depend on the rain that falls on my head, but on streams running from the hills when they flood. So just tell me when it will rain in that distant land and I will know what to do’.

·         • In Madagascar the Ministries of Communication and Health, working with various aid agencies, developed a radio drama series for women’s listening clubs. Wind-up radios, funded by Rotary, were distributed to clubs who provided regular feedback on the programmes. The series is aimed at improving health education, family planning and AIDS prevention. Similarly in Ethiopia people living in remote communities in Ethiopia’s Harar Province are tuning in twice weekly to a radio serial drama aimed at creating awareness and prevention of HIV/AIDS – a project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

·         • According to the Zambian Ministry of Education (MOE) 800,000 Zambian children are unable to attend school. They either cannot afford it, are orphans, live too far to walk to school or are girls who are kept at home. The attrition rate of teachers poses another problem – two teachers are dying of AIDS for every one who is trained. The MOE, together with the Educational Broadcasting Services, is using Interactive Radio Instruction to help fill the educational void. Each morning thousands of primary school learners listen to the lively English and maths programme 7980Learning at Taonga Market on the radio. To assist with the lesson, adult mentors from the community are trained to use radio as a teaching aid. The Peace Corps in Zambia purchased Freeplay radios for their volunteers to distribute. These volunteers are trained in the mentoring process and then train community mentors, enabling the programme to reach deep rural areas. In addition, Rotary UK is helping to raise funds to bring more radios to community schools.

·         • In early 2000, hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans were displaced by catastrophic flooding. One of the items that people lost were radios – often the only access to information. Various donor agencies including the Freeplay Foundation distributed over 7000 radios and a daily programme called Ndhambi was created in the local language, Shangani. Ndhambi covered information on health, sanitation, hygiene, the location of landmines, obtaining lost ID documents and title deeds, governance, tracing and contacting lost family members, as well as agricultural assistance, all of which were of great importance during the post-flood period.

·         • During the crisis in Kosovo in 1999, DFID and the ICRC purchased over 40,000 Freeplay radios to distribute to refugees on the move and in camps in Albania and Montenegro. Here the radio played a part in helping to find missing relatives and to inform of the location of landmines, contaminated water supplies and booby-trapped villages.

Broadening the Base – The Freeplay Foundation

In 1998 the Freeplay Foundation was established as an extension of the group’s commitment to empowerment and development. The Foundation operates as an independent organisation with its own Board of Trustees but it still receives an annual grant from the Freeplay Energy Group with which it shares some managerial and administration resources. The balance of funding is raised from various donors and used to support a wide range of development and implementation projects. Working primarily in Africa, the Freeplay Foundation promotes access to radio broadcasting in rural and remote areas through alternative energy solutions. It seeks ‘to advance economic progress, promote community development and help eradicate disease, famine and conflict’. It does this by continuing the original wind-up radio mission – supporting or initiating projects that harness appropriate and alternative energy solutions that deliver information and education through radio broadcasting.

The Foundation facilitates access to specialists who can provide the four components vital to the sustainable success of any radio communication initiative:

·         • Software – quality radio programming directed at a targeted audience;

·         • Hardware – radios that allow sustainable listening access to all groups;

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·         • Structured distribution – a planned and coordinated distribution of radios, in consultation with communities;

·         • Project monitoring and evaluation – measuring effectiveness against set objectives.

The Future – Lifeline Energy

Building on their extensive experience and recognising the potential was much wider than the core radio and related products associated with the original business the company changed its name in 2010 to Lifeline Energy. Their vision is ‘to develop a range of practical, fit-for-purpose products using innovative and appropriate technologies and distribution approaches that the poor can apply to their daily lives.’ As they point out, fewer than 5% of the 500 million people living in rural sub-Saharan Africa have access to any form of electricity, so this is an urgent imperative.

A key new product development in this direction has been the Lifelight – an innovation developed in response to an urgent need. Poor families rarely have access to electric lighting and many – especially children and women – suffer because they use firewood, kerosene and candles. This raises major issues around health, fire risk and wider environmental consequences; as the company puts it, ‘it is tragic that in 2010, well over 100 years after the invention of the light bulb, millions of people in the developing world are still in the dark at night’.

The concept underpinning the Lifelight is the use of bright, highly fuel efficient LEDs, which can last for thousands of hours and are relatively non-toxic compared to fluorescent lighting. At the same time there is scope for bringing in the same wind-up and solar technology in which the company has extensive experience.

Significantly they recognise the need for a sustainable business model and their vision now incorporates many of the lessons they have learned about scaling and spread. They are trying to work with a virtuous cycle – ‘researching and assessing what the extremely poor want and need; creating fit-for-purpose products that people can afford; and then ensuring their distribution through various channels including the ability for women to earn income and create jobs by selling or renting lights and providing charging services to those without electricity’.

An important dimension of this is opening up the possibility of reverse transfer of technology – from the lessons learned under these extreme conditions creating alternative solutions to the energy needs of the advanced industrial nations – for example, rechargeable power supplies for computers and mobile phones.

Despite the change of name the underlying commitment to social entrepreneurship goals remains the same:

How could you reconcile the social agenda – make radios freely available – with the commercial challenges of running a business? What problems do you think Freeplay/Lifeline Energy face in trying to sustain the business?

Watch VideoRecruiting the Workforce of TomorrowDuration: (9:57)

User: nhcfae – Added: 6/17/09YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sqmJkUIxHw

Class, This week’s video focuses on Recruiting for Tomorrow. After reviewing the video what are your thoughts concerning Tomorrows work force, how do we attract the right people for the right jobs, discuss job fairs, recruiting at colleges and universities, TV, radio, word of mouth. How did you find your current position, what were some of your marketing strategies, etc.

Write at least a 2 page paper including some research analysis to support your discussion.

Write a 500- to 750-word paper that describes the importance of blue ocean strategy and identifies a product or service that would be considered a blue ocean move. Include the following:

• A description of blue ocean strategy and its importance

• A product or service that might be considered a blue ocean move and why

• An alternative red ocean move for the same product or service along with the pros and cons of that strategy

Select a small business that you visit often (e.g., coffee shop, bookstore, sporting goods store, etc.). Write 

a 6-8 page paper in which you:

1.  Craft a brief (1-2 pages) strategy for a business concept that would directly compete with the 

small business you selected. Explain the rationale for the strategy in detail. 

2.  Determine if it would make more sense to open the new business you describe or to purchase the 

existing business you selected. Explain your reasoning.

3.  Discuss the most appropriate form of ownership for your new business (assuming your current 

financial situation).

4.  Outline a business plan for your business. Visit http://www.sba.gov for tools and templates. 

5.  Include at least two (2) references outside the textbook.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

  Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all 

sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your 

professor for any additional instructions.

  Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s 

name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in 

the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

  Analyze the nature of entrepreneurship, business ethics, and social responsibility in managing a 

successful small business.

  Analyze a business strategy and supporting business plan for a small business concept

  Describe and analyze the necessary activities and key decisions to start a small business.

  Use technology and information resources to research issues in small business management.

  Write clearly and concisely about small business management using proper writing mechanics.

Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic/organization of the paper, and 

language and writing skills

Part 1 (400 to 600 words)

Marketing is all around you. Examples are all around you. In fact, people market themselves every day. Consider how you landed your current or past job. How did you persuade someone about your idea? Maybe you convinced someone to try eating at a different restaurant that he or she wasn’t familiar with. Marketing also includes the 4 Ps of marketing—product, place, price, and promotion.

To help start brainstorming how to market your client’s product, discuss with your colleagues the following:

·         Write your own definition of marketing.

·         Research and cite a definition of marketing from a reliable source.

·         From a personal perspective, what is one way that you market yourself? Provide an example.

·         Is your definition of marketing yourself different than the textbook definition of marketing a product?   Why or why not? What are a few of the differences or similarities?

·         Discuss how the 4 Ps of marketing contribute to a brand’s success.

·         Which of the 4 Ps do you think is most important, and why?

Part 2 (7 to 8 Slides) (100 to 150 speaker note)

·         Choose 1 consumer product brand to be your “client.” You may choose any consumer brand or select a brand from this list.

·         Review your client’s brand by researching their Web site and other supplemental resources, such as this directory to learn everything you can about the company, its customers, management team, and anything else that will help you understand its brand.

You are the chief marketing consultant for your company’s brand. Your goal is to help the company create an updated marketing plan by learning to apply the marketing process to communicate how great the company’s brand is to its current and potential customers in the marketplace and market space.

One of the first steps of the marketing plan is to understand the business goals of the project. The job of the marketer is to help design a marketing plan so that the company can realize additional revenue and profits through increased market share or motivating existing and new customers to buy the product. Sometimes this requires repositioning or changing the brand’s image and the way the brand is perceived by customers in the marketplace by using the 4 Ps of marketing.

Your client has asked you to draft the goals of the marketing plan by suggesting how to use the 4 Ps of marketing that will help reposition the brand in the marketplace. The client wants a brief PowerPoint presentation to help brainstorm the interaction of the 4 marketing Ps and other ideas with the company’s marketing team.

The presentation will help everyone on the team understand how to apply the 4 Ps of marketing to a brand by developing 2 objectives for each marketingP that can be used in the final marketing plan. Analyze how the marketing Ps will help reposition your selected brand.

Create a PowerPoint presentation of 7–8 slides showing the goals of the marketing project by illustrating 2 objectives for each marketing P. Explain your ideas for each P by writing at least 100–150 words per slide of speaker’s notes. The presentation should include the following:

·         Slide 1: Product Overview

o    Briefly explain the company and brand you are working on. Add a picture of the brand to the slide.

o    Give an overview of the brand and its current position or perception by customers in the marketplace. For example, do customers seem to think the brand is too expensive compared to its competitors?

·         Slide 2: Competition

o    Identify 1 competitor of this brand. Add a picture of the competitor brand.

o    Explain 1 reason why this brand is a competitor of your client’s brand.

·         Slide 3: Product Objectives

o    Draft 2 objectives of the marketing plan to show how product can be applied to your brand. Examples are as follows:

§  Objective 1 could include a statement about the features of the product and the benefits of those features for the customer.

§  Objective 2 could include a new product satisfaction guarantee policy that can be communicated in the advertising message.

·         Slide 4: Price Objectives

o    Draft 2 objectives of the marketing plan to show how price can be applied to your brand. Examples are as follows:

§  Objective 1: One goal of the price marketing P could consider how to possibly discount the price for a short time in an advertising campaign to entice current and new customers to try the product.

§  Objective 2: You could competitively price the product against its competitors for maximizing market share.

·         Slide 5: Place Objectives

o    Draft 2 objectives of the marketing plan to show how place can be applied to your brand. Examples are as follows:

§  Objective 1 should be designed to find as many distribution outlets as possible for the product.

§  Objective 2 could be to introduce the product in an online capacity to gain market share.

·         Slide 6: Promotion Objectives

o    Draft 2 objectives of the marketing plan to show how promotion can be applied to your brand. Examples are as follows:

§  Objective 1: One objective on promotion is to find a creative and different targeted message that “speaks” to the target customer segments, attempting to show how much better one brand is over the competition. For example, one message could be to explain the quality of the brand over the competition.

§  Objective 2: Another objective of promotion could be to create advertising campaigns that reinforce the brand for the customer. For example, a special promotion offering a 25% discount on the first online purchase is another way to advertise and promote the product for increased brand awareness.

·         Slide 7/8: Conclusions

o    Write a paragraph about your understanding of how the 4 Ps are linked for this particular brand.

Part 3 (400 to 600 words)

Check your client’s Web site to find out if it discusses its business plans for now and in the future. This is often found in a public company’s annual report. Private companies sometimes list their business activities under the “About Us” or “Newsroom” tabs on their Web sites.

Based on what you know about marketing, discuss the following:

·         Briefly explain your understanding of the basic concept of a marketing strategy to your colleagues in 2–3 sentences.

·         Discuss with your colleagues how you think research can help your selected company understand its brand’s economic value in the marketplace.

·         Compare your client’s brand “personality” to a character in a movie, book, or cartoon.

o    How would you describe the brand relative to a character, and why?

o    Use a few adjectives to describe the brand’s personality.

·         Add one thing that you think your company has not researched well about its brand.

Preview

 

In this assignment, you will research information related to the marketing and promotion of the acquisition by EDUS and provide an assessment. Click here to review the EDUS case and consider the following:

Topics for Research and Analysis

Promotional Goals: Identify specific objectives related to the promotion of EDUS’s acquisition of the institution. In addition, identify specific objectives related to informing potential students of new capabilities and offerings resulting from the acquisition. (Promotional goals vary. Some organizations need to create awareness of their product’s benefits compared to competitors. Other promotional goals may involve communicating new uses for an item, or informing customers or lower prices.)

Business Environment: Identify cultural and legal factors that might influence promotional decisions – both in announcing the acquisition within the region and recruiting new students to the institution. (In some countries, certain information is required in television commercials selling products aimed at children.)

Media Plan: Analyze media availability to determine cost-efficient methods of communicating with potential students within the country and within the geographic region. (While television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet may be common in industrialized countries, developing economies may require other different media. In some countries, advertising messages are broadcast through large speakers mounted on moving trucks.)

Promotional Strategy: Compare the benefits of push-and-pull promotions for acquiring new students at the institution. Devise a promotional strategy that will help EDUS expand the student body and also inform potential students of increased capability of the institution resulting from this acquisition.

Economic, Cultural, and Political-Legal Environment: Investigate the economic, cultural, and political-legal environment that might affect promotional messages and media relevant to this acquisition.
 
Recommended Actions: Recommend EDUS actions related to promotional goals, needed adaptations due to cultural or legal factors, and a media plan. Provide evidence to support your recommendations.

Conclusions:Draw conclusions about the material you have presented. The opinions or judgments you present should be supported by your research.

By Wednesday, July 9, 2014, submit a PowerPoint presentation (approximately 10 slides) providing your analysis and research findings on the topics indicated. You are expected to include statistical data when possible, including tables, graphs, and other visuals that support and enhance your study. Most importantly, all written assignments and responses should follow APA rules for attributing sources! Submit