Nike †SWOT Analysis Essay

STRENGTHS Nike is a very competitive. It has a huge and healthy dislike of its competitors. At Atlanta Olympics, its competitor Reebok went on expense of sponsoring the games but Nike didn’t take this step. It sponsored top athletes and gained much coverage. Nike does not have factories. It does not let its cash to tie up in buildings and manufacturing employees. This model makes it a very lean organization. They manufacture high quality product at a location which offers low prices. If price gets increased, it shifts to other production location. Nike has a very strong research and development area which can be seen in its innovative product range. Nike is a global brand. It is at top position in sport brand in the World. Its famous â€Å"Swoosh† logo is instantly recognizable by people. Nike is a very professional company. It has offices in 45 different countries. It offers products all over the world. It is a fortune 500 company. It has very strong marketing campaign that increases the familiarity of its brand. It employs over 30,000 employees across the world. It has got its retail chain – Niketown. It has taken initiatives in many different branding opportunities and resulted in impressive outcomes. It provides lightweight shoes by using lunarlite materials. (Nike SWOT Analysis) WEAKNESS Though Nike has varied range of sports products but still its business’s income is depends heavily on the share of footwear market it has got. So, in case its market share decreases, it can leave the company becomes vulnerable to come down. Though Nike has got its own retailer: Niketown, its huge part of income comes from selling into retailers. And retail sector is very sensitive as well. Retailers also provide same set of experiences to customers. So, the profit margin will get affected if retailers try to sell off the products at lower prices. It has got charges against labor violations; experienced bad publicity with issues of sweatshops and practicing unethical patterns has degraded its image to some extent. Its  history involves the violations of minimum wage rates in Vietnam. For cheaper prices, it has been charged for exploiting workforces which will be employed at lower price in overseas countries. It’s been accused of providing poor working conditions to the workers. It gets constant negative criticism from anti-globalization groups. Its production is carried out at a cheaper location, so majorly it happens outside U.S. But this practice is not considered good in U.S. (Swot Analysis Nike) (Nike SWOT Analysis) OPPORTUNITY 1. The development of product range offers Nike many opportunities. Though Nike owners don’t consider its brand as a fashionable one but its customers consider it so. They don’t buy it for sports activities only. It has become a fashion trademark among customers especially the youth. This creates huge opportunities for Nike as the product could come under unfashionable tag before it wears out i.e. shoes gets replaced by the customers. 2. Opportunity also lies in developing sports wears, sunglasses and jewellery. These high end valued items will surely get associated with their mainline products. 3. It can develop its business internationally which can give strength to its global brand recognition. There are many emerging countries like China and India which offers disposable income to be spent on high value sports products. These countries have growing number of customers especially the working population. 4. There are many global sports events such as the World cup (So ccer) and the Olympics, which can be used as global marketing events. They can support the brand of the company. 5. Company can extend its reach in trendy and fashionable industry where not only Athletes but general population is also targeted. 6. There is a scope of new sponsorships. These new sponsors usually have successful ways to brandize an organization. 7. It can create new products by using waste from usual manufacture. 8. It can expand into jewellery and sunglasses items. 9. It can change its product development strategy with change in trends. 10. It can reduce controversy occurring around its business practices. (SWOT Analysis Nike, Inc.) THREATS 1. Nike has its business in several countries i.e. it is been exposed to international behavior of trade. It manufactures and sells in different  currencies. Hence costs and profit margin will fluctuate over a longer period of time. This nature of trade can put Nike on loss side. 2. The market of sports shoes is very competitive. Hence the business model developed by the owners of Nike is no longer in use. It needs to come up with a sustainable model so as to remain in the race. 3. Market is flooded with competitors who are developing alternative brands to take Nike’s market share. 4. As we have observed that retail sector is very competitive. This means customers have got lot of options available at one’s end. So if one store charges a price for a product, consumer can go to other store if that store is selling the same quality price at lower rates. Hence price sensitivity is a huge threat to Nike. 5. A global business usually experiences hiccups because abroad busin ess operations are exposed to risks of fluctuations in currencies, quotas, safeguard measures, restrictions in trades and terrorism. 6. Its exposed to risks associated with importing costs because of international barriers 7. It needs to maintain reputation as one of the eco-friendly organizations. 8. It is difficult for them to manage financial conditions in today’s economy. 9. Its association with Kobe Bryant. 10. It’s been accused for unfair labor practices. (Nike SWOT Analysis) Works Cited Nike SWOT Analysis. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.teamonedesign.com: www.teamonedesign.com/aio/mk/Nike_SWOT_Analysis.doc Swot Analysis Nike. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.quality-assurance-solutions.com: http://www.quality-assurance-solutions.com/swot-analysis-nike.html SWOT Analysis Nike, Inc. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.marketingteacher.com: http://www.marketingteacher.com/swot/nike-swot.html#

Chinese language Essay

Another major difficulty experienced by ESL Chinese students are the topic-comment structure of sentences. It could be noted that the value of the subject is not as important as it is with Chinese, it is often the case that Chinese sentences has a topic but seldom has a subject. As such ESL Chinese students often find themselves using the Topic-Comment structure rather than the Subject-Verb-Object/Complement structure of sentences. Examples are the following: My father he always get my mother’s money. Hong Kong in the year 2047, it will have a lots of things become better. The most important event in my thirteen years life. It was in my eight years old. The use of relative pronouns has also been a source of problems as the Chinese language does not contain relative pronouns (Chan, 2004, p. 41). For example: She is my mother which is the most important person in my life. I can get new friend from church whom are nice to me. They brought her to playground, swimming pool and various places where is interesting. (p. 41) Relative clauses in the Chinese language are also often found to have its pronouns repeated. Example: She is the teacher that she taught me grammar last year. There is one thing which I can remember it very clearly. Did you remember the person you met him yesterday? (p. 41) On the other hand, some sentences are not found to have repetitive pronouns, but rather lack of it. For instance: You are the first person came to Hong Kong. There is only one people look after my whole life. One obvious symptom can be detected is insomnia. (p. 42). Some ESL Chinese students tend to remove pronouns that often result in a serial verb construction. A serial verb construction is two or more overlapping verb phrases or clauses which doe not signify any relationship between them (Li & Thompson, 1981, 594, as cited from Chan 2004, p. 42). Missing verbs are also a problem in reduced relative clauses. Examples are: I have a large family which including grandmother, grandfather, uncle, my parents and also my younger sister. After enjoying our delicious food which cooked by my mum, we went to school together. The negative consequence that brought by its growth was. . . (p. 42). of Chinese Students The study of Fei-Yu (2005) was done using a corpus linguistics based error analysis (EA) among 50 student essays which is made of 88,000 words. These essays for studied for formal errors in which a total of 5,232 errors were identified. The errors of the participants were categorized in broad categories in which the top ten sources of error seen were: †¦ determiners (23. 7%), nouns (15. 3%), verbs (7. 6%), grammatical prepositions (6. 9%), lexical misconceptions (5. 8%), punctuation (5. 1%), sentence parts (4. 1%), tenses and aspects (3. 8%), modals (3. 5%) and lexical-grammatical prepositions and syntactic complementation of a word (3. 3%) (Fei-Yu, 2005, p. 27).

Stem cell research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Stem cell - Research Paper Example â€Å"Mouse embryonic stem cells treated in culture with a growth factor and then injected into the liver reverse a form of hemophilia in mice analogous to hemophilia B in humans, the new study shows.† (Stem Cells Treated with Growth Factor) Stem Cell Research- a clash of Science vs. Ethics, could well be a debate that might go on for generations as every individual has a different opinion about the subject. Should we allow doctors to play God and reverse our own destiny? Should we strive to provide cures that reverse the processes of injury and death? Or do we hold strong on our religious and moral aspects? These are the sorts of questions that have sparked the massive debate we have today. The purpose of our study, though, is not to argue about one particular stand point but to discuss both the view points and finally to allow readers to draw their own opinions and conclusions. In addition the process has been facilitated by providing an integrative review that details previ ous research, theories, explanations and answers and then counteracting them with questions and objections so that at the end of our research readers can make their own rationalistic conclusion. The Beginnings of Stem Cell Research Stem Cells, as defined by The National Institute of Health, are cells that have the ability to develop into different cell types within the body. Two facets make them incredibly important: Firstly, they can renew themselves during cell division and secondly, when grown under certain conditions, they can achieve specialized functions. These cells differentiate and form almost all the tissues of the body- skin, lung, brain, heart and muscle tissues among others. Stem cells can also be divided into two types: Embryonic stem cells and Adult stem cells which differ in both function and characteristics. According to the UK Stem Cell Foundation, stem cell work was first conducted in the early 1900’s with the discovery that white blood cells, red blood cel ls and platelets all arose from the same source. However, it was not until 1963 when Ernest A McCulloch and James E Till noted â€Å"the self-renewing activities of transplanted mouse bone-marrow cells† that confirmed such theories. Adult stem cells now play an integral role in chemo and radiation therapy as well as in other fields of biotechnology as they are grown and replicated in the lab. The discovery by James Thomson and his researchers from Madison University really helped to put Stem Cell Research on the map (Boyle, A., 2005). In 1998, for the first time ever, he isolated human embryonic stem cells from fertility clinics and then harvested them in the lab. This attempt along with the cloning of Dolly, the Sheep, two years earlier, caused a major ripple within the community. The Pros and Cons of Stem Cell Research Pros Stem cell research has paved the way for scientists to decipher â€Å"how we are made or formed and try to reverse problems† (Richard Hamilton, n .d). It has been described as having â€Å"limitless potential† (McLaughlin, 2009) by many as it can aid in finding cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Stroke, Heart Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and Diabetes, and hundreds of rare systemic immune disorders (Drlica,1997, p279) 1998). . There have been a number of researchers confirming the clinical application of stem cells. Stojanoski et al (2009), stated that stem cells taken from the peripheral

Passage analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Passage analysis - Essay Example She first contemplates that the birthmark may be dangerous to remove because trying to do so may lead to a cureless deformity. The birth mark here is used as a symbol of human imperfection, and this phrase may mean that humans are meant to be imperfect and therefore trying to remove the imperfection will only lead to more imperfection (cureless deformity). It may be necessary to note that the story was written at a time when religion still played a major part of people. In the western world where the author lived, Christianity was the major religion. From a biblical point of view, imperfection was also regarded as a positive thing because it is the only thing that separates mortals from God. By accepting that humans are imperfect, they are then allowed to recognize that God is above them. However, refusing to admit their imperfection amounts to pride that is regarded as blasphemy (incurable deformity) and thus leads to a sin that is not forgivable (incurable deformity). The second part of the phrase is also significant. In this part, she says, â€Å"or it may be the stain that goes as deep as life itself.† In other words, the only way human imperfection can be removed is by death. This has two significant meanings; first that for human beings, perfection can only be achieved through and during death. Again, this concept has its roots in most religions and especially Christianity which advocates for the idea that it is only when people have died and their spirits gone to heaven that they can hope to be perfect. Although this sentence can also be regarded as a sign of what would happen later when they tried to remove the birthmark, that is, the death of Georgina after going through the â€Å"plastic surgery†, it may also mean that she was saying that if they become arrogant enough to want to correct what nature (God) has set, they must be prepared to face death. The next part of the sentence refers to imperfection that is conjoined with

Recruitment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Recruitment - Essay Example Technology plays an important role in bringing the employers and job seekers on one platform and the ways of recruitment have been modified according to the emerging technology from time to time. Today, many big enterprises make use of softwares for the formulation of job description, job advertisement, response management, short-listing, selection of analytical method, arrangement and conduction of interviews, and the final selection. Thus, the reliance upon technology or recruitment agencies to assess the skills and competences of candidates has made it easy for the managers to select the finest candidates from the pool of applicants. Selection of right individuals for the right positions is indeed, the first step of workforce management. Management of existing workforce, may however, be adversely affected by the recruitment of new employees. Workforce management is a skill and art that requires much more than a manager’s conscious efforts to satisfy the workforce and improv e its morale.

Are leaders born successful or can they be trained Essay

Are leaders born successful or can they be trained - Essay Example However, to achieve such goals they must have broader skills and trait sets that allow them to think and act globally. Such traits are charisma, creativity, flexibility, achievement drive, motivation, honesty, integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability and emotional stability (Elliot, 1994). Nevertheless, there is an issue that always arises when we are trying to understand the nature of the leaders. Are such skills and traits inherited or any of us can be trained to become a leader? Are leaders born? This controversial issue has been an object of study for centuries. There are many theories that suggest that to become an authentic leader, one has to be born with a distinct set of personal characteristics. Such as ‘The great man theory of leadership’ that became very popular since the 19th century. Many historians and scientists examined this theory. â€Å"Effective leaders are those gifted with divine inspiration and the right characteristics.† This theory is based on the study of people who were already world’s legendary leaders such us Abraham Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Mahatma Gandhi, and Alexander the Great (Bass, 1990). The conception of Traits Theory of Leadership also suggests that leaders are given special qualities that separate them from their followers. The leadership is defined in terms of traits of personality and character. To be even more precise, (Bird 1940) compiled a list of seventy-nine such attributes, from twenty psychological oriented studies (Bass, 1990). People declared as leaders, or sometimes even as heroes, presented features like superior intelligence, physical strength, moral force, charisma, self-confidence and an unbelievable desire to succeed. Those divine virtues given to them, enabled born leaders to stand out from the masses and achieve great things, regardless of setting or situation (Bass, 1990). Many scientists also consider the phenomena of leadership as the set of the right qualities or persona lity that are innate. The ability to lead is directly linked to one's personality. Moreower, there is a special brain chemistry between leaders and followers. The high levels of serotonin appear to promote leadership (Cawthon, 2006). Numerous contemporary studies have revealed that genes affect a variety of leadership abilities. The innate qualities influence your attitude toward leadership, your willingness to take leadership role and even what kind of leader a person might become. Some portion of your attitude toward leadership is hidden in your DNA. Through many studies, we know that genetics accounts for about 40 percent of the difference between people in what they think of leadership. The same genetic predispositions that accounted for our ancestors’ interest to heading up the hunting party or running the clan, it seems, the same happens today, affecting our lives in modern organizations (Shane, 2010). Professor Scott Shane (2010, pp.122-123) also suggests that the DNA influences whether you move up in your company or not. Because people tend to engage in behaviors that they are good at, those with the genes that predispose them to develop leadership potential are more likely to move toward leadership roles. Genes influence whether you become a leader through your personality traits, social

World Civilizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

World Civilizations - Essay Example As time flies by, African regions have been establishing contacts with other countries not only with Europe but also with other countries like the US, which aided notable developments in its society. However, the level of development and change still varies among these African regions. For example, the East African region has little improvement when it comes to its economy. Note that this region has been suffering from malnutrition, starvation due to food shortage and some illnesses which had badly been spreading widely across the region for almost 6 decades now (East Africa Crisis). Steps have been taken to get all the help from across countries. Many articles have already been published both in web pages and print. Call for donations and sponsorships have also gone live on-air and via new, but it seems that relief organizations are still having a hard time finding enough funds to overcome this problem. East Africa has been asking assistance from the US both for raising fund and conducting campaigns to raise awareness of the region’s situation. However, improvement is still at its littlest. Meanwhile, West Africa in majority is still suffering from poverty, drought, nutritional challenges and difficulty in earning money. But increasingly studies are showing that â€Å"sociocultural aspects are playing an increasingly important role† in the development of business in this region (Long, 2011). Reports have been made that China is trying to build business ties with countries located in this region. There are also reports of continuous efforts to connect West African business centers and universities to the rest of the world. Among the three regions, it appears that South Africa, labeled as the most developed region in Africa, has been the most changed by the foreign contact with culture and technology. According to Connor Septhon’s report, South Africa has a noticeably better infrastructure among these other regions.

STRategic Marketing Management ( Analysis and decisions ) Term Paper

STRategic Marketing Management ( Analysis and decisions ) - Term Paper Example Asides from modifying PCs, the company also developed the audio feature on these PCs that allowed melodies and speech to be played (Baldauf and Stair, 2010:74). Since its inception, the entity has achieved various milestones with the most remarkable one being the Sound Blaster audio cards. The entity has been through difficulties and has always emerged at the top. This paper gives a detailed analysis of Creative Technology and its strategic marketing management. The major factor that has contributed to the entity’s success over the years is Sim’s effective leadership. Sim is a born entrepreneur who comes up with creative ideas that have enabled the entity to remain afloat over time. He had a vision for his company and laid down quantifiable goals that saw the company increased profitability over the years (Koh, 2008:147). Sim was not only visionary but was a strategic decision-maker and highly effective in solving problems that came up in the company’s operations. The second aspect that has contributed to the company’s success is diversity in their products. It can be observed that technology is dynamic and in order to maintain its customers, the entity has always been conducting modifications on their products in the trendiest and latest designs. This can be observed on various occasions. For example, the company was in the lead in the sound card trade in the past twenty years and was struggling owing to the lack of new and inventive products. This explains why Creative Technology ventured into producing a wide array of products including high-end speakers, DVD players and graphic cards. This was followed by the launch of the Sound Blaster and the Cubic CT (Schaar and Chou, 2009:38). Later in 1998 the company entered into the digital segment of the entertainment industry by launching the Sound Blaster Live! That was enjoyed immense success and placed the company at a competitive advantage over its rivals including Philips and Sony.

Methods Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Methods Project - Essay Example arts of the body, the cells are thought to exclusively be sourced from fetus instead of the adult human being since those of fetus are considered most viable and important. These cells are important to the human body because they are viable and important within the body of human once introduced. These stem cells in the body are able to grow into the different cells found in the different parts of the body and even tissues of the body hence they enable the body to be able to repair the damaged or worn out tissues of the body. This means that the bodies therefore have the ability to generate body parts which then immediately replace those parts or the tissues that are partially or completely damaged. The embryonic stem cells are generated in the eggs of a female after fertilization a process that takes either four or five days. This is the science that deals with the investigation which is set to establish the cells especially the basic cells that enable the organisms grow and develop. Such cells are collected then grown and developed in the laboratories so that the basic properties of these cells can be established and used to develop the field. Using the findings from the laboratory analysis and experiments the information obtained is used to improve the efficiency of the stem cells (Thomson et al. 13728). One of the reasons for the anti-stem cell research is the perception that people generally have regarding the source of the stem cells that are used in research. The general perception of people is that the cells are obtained from aborted fetus only which is not necessarily the case. These cells are also found in the placenta as well as the blood that is found in the placenta which is an alternative source of the cells without necessarily having to do any abortion. But apart from these two sources the major or rather the main source of these cells is the blastocysts which are basically the human eggs that have been fertilized but not embedded in the womb of a

Affect of Women in Advertisement Essay Example for Free

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 womens 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.

Effects of Viral Marketing

Effects of Viral Marketing Viral Marketing 1.1 Viral Marketing These years, the competitions among companies become more and more furious. Song (2004) pointed out that many companies in order to survive even to develop, they try to make good use any way that can help them to enlarge their market share and build a strong brand. The traditional Medias such as television, newspaper, radio and printed Ads were over used in the last decade. This view was supported by Mogg (2006) who believed that using these traditional ways to promote a product or service not longer can stimulate audiences’ passion and urge effectively. Because in some extent, audiences were get used to receive information of these ways, they need something new, need a new â€Å"flavor† of the information they receive (Sally, 2006). The era that customers rely on marketers’ suggestions or advertising to make a purchase decision was gone. Czinkota (2007) argued that only supply the information that you think customers would need is not working, not enough to persuade customers, and can not fulfill their needs and satisfy them. Customers already become smart enough; they do not like to be persuaded by marketers or advertisings in many situations. They prefer to be active in the buying process and use their own knowledge and standards to decide what they need, and what they happy to buy (Grewal, 2008). A strong brand can make customers have faith in a company and its products. This view seems acceptable for Fill (2005) who agreed that building close relationship with customers is vital; companies try their best to pursue the best marketing strategies with the purpose to be strong and profitable. Word of mouth is one of the effective ways for a company to promote its products (Anderson, 1999). Word-of-Mouth (WOM) was described as oral, person-to-person communication between a receiver and a communicator which the receiver perceives as a noncommercial message, regarding a brand, product or service (Haywood, 1989, pp53-66). It can help a company use less money to do the mass promotion. This view was supported by Buttle(1998), he believed that customers are easier to be persuaded through this way as they think it is a noncommercial way. They consider that they are on the active position to receive information and make a buying decision, not be persuaded to do that. With the evolution of technology, and the growth of the internet, the arena of many companies have move from realistic world to a new world—the internet (Castells, 1997). Word of mouth has upgrade through internet, and gets a new name â€Å"viral marketing† these years (Modzelewski, 2000). Base on Dicher’s (2001, pp47) research, â€Å"viral marketing is a strategy that companies use to stimulate their customer to pass on something about their products to their network of colleagues and friends†. For the company, viral marketing can help a company use a little budget to promote itself sharply, since the information you send out, customers would pass them on by themselves. In the customers’ side, viral marketing help customers feel better as they think that they make the purchase decision by themselves, and they get information from their friends who seem more reliable than marketers or advertisings. (Wangenheim, 2007, pp131-146) Base on the advantages of internet, using viral marketing relate to internet can make the promotion effect like a nuclear bomb. Internet can make the information deliver very fast, even exceed your expectation. Sudaraman and Rajagopalan(2003) found that since you use viral marketing to send out your information, it may reach every corner of world that has internet connections only need a few days. Internet seems something bring information deliver from the â€Å"Stone Age† to â€Å"21st century†, it acting like a pair of wings of information delivery, make information deliver reach to an incredible speed. Considering the effective of viral marketing strategy, this report decides to examine the effects of viral marketing that can make to a company. The author is very interested in the effects of viral marketing, as it is a trend for future business; it is so useful to company’s promotion and information delivery. To know clear about the viral marketing can help author to enrich his marketing knowledge, and will be very helpful in his future job or business, even can help readers of this report to know more about viral marketing. In order to make the research more reliable and get accurate analysis, this report would choose MySpace, an online company which seems to be success on using viral marketing strategy to assist the analysis. 1.2 MySpace Tom Anderson (born November 8, 1970) is the President of the social networking website, MySpace. He is one of the people identified as a founder of the site, along with CEO Chris DeWolfe (Boyd, 2006). At the beginning, it was a website with a small number of users, which used to make friends. Then they invite some famous people to join in, these famous people bring many fans in. since more and more bands build up their website on this station, MySpace becoming bigger and get huge number of users. It develop from a music wed station to a core of young people’s live in America, then explore all over the world(Diving into the Myspace Pool, 2006). It chooses to give users enough freedom to build what they like in this wed station, and this freedom and right make it explore so quickly. People can use their email address to sign up as the user of it. (Source from Dwyer, 2007) Every user can upload the things they like, such as video and sound clips, pictures and many other things. MySpace listen to their users and improve the wed station, like increase blogs, message board, discuss rooms, and online communications. Users can talk to their friends there, play games together, even use wed camera to meet each other when they talking.(source from Boyd, 2006) This wed station can make users feel so free in it; they can talk what they like with their friends here. So users invite their friends to join in MySpace (Diving into the MySpace Pool, 2006). In such a way, MySpace reach to a great success. Until 2006, MySpace only set up three years, but its development speed was faster than any wed station in history, it is a myth of the internet development history. It already beyond Yahoo and Google to be the biggest wed station in USA. It was set up with a very small cost, but in 2005, Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of The News Corporation Limited, use 580 million dollar to buy it. One year after it was purchased, it earn 900 million dollar from Google for advertising fee. (Source from Hempel and Lehman, 2005) It seems that MySpace really a success example to make good use of viral marketing strategy, that why this report choose UK MySpace as the case study to assist the research and analysis. 1.3 Research Objectives a. Examine the effects that viral marketing can make to a company, associate with case studyUK MySpace b. Access to customers attitude and reactions to viral marketing through primary and secondary data analysis c. Find out the effects of viral marketing for a company’s success at last. Chapter 2 Literature Review 2.1 The Background and Development of Viral Marketing Marketing is a social process which satisfies consumers needs. The term includes advertising, distribution and selling of a product or service. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers future needs and expectations, often through market research (Frenzen and Nakamoto, 1993). This view was supported by Eugene (1998) who believed that marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. Pamela (2000) pointed out that traditional marketing is the marketing techniques that are used for many years, it mainly using mediums such as, television, newspaper, telephone and radio. Nowadays, there are many new technologies are used to replace the traditional mediums to do promotions: Internet, multimedia mobile phone, blogs and so on. These new mediums can help marketers to reach more customers and cut cost. This view was supported by Wegert (2004) who believed that the traditional mediums do not work effective as before, they make many audiences feel boring and many offers what they dislike. Customers want to see something new and soothing, really make them interesting and happy, so the new mediums may work effective and can catch their eyeballs (Anderson, 1998, pp104-141). These years, more and more people like to surfing on internet (Wangenheim, 2007). This situation leads to many marketers focus on internet to promote their products and services. Especially, young people prefer using internet to traditional mediums. For a company’s future development, holding the young people now can make them get a big market share in the future (Bayus, 1985). So to make good use of the internet to do promotion is vital for many companies, especially the company which rely on internet to do business. There are many advantages to use internet as an advertising medium: message can change quickly and easily; create own page cheaply; low cost; direct sales possible and so on (McWilliams, 2000). Base on its advantages, more and more companies choose to use internet to do advertisings. Several main online promotion techniques are recognized by marketing researchers, viral marketing will be the focus of this research as it can reach mass consumers in a short time with a low cost. 2.2 From WOM to Viral Marketing During the last decade, customer satisfaction and perceived service quality have been important topics in the marketing literature. This is due to the empirically verified belief that increases in satisfaction and quality will finally result in higher profitability (Wangenheim, 2007). Over the past 10 years however the focus of research on satisfaction and quality has slowly shifted from understanding how â€Å"service quality perceptions and satisfaction judgments† are formed to a more â€Å"outcome-oriented view† of assessing the returns on service quality and satisfaction based on a thorough understanding of the associated costs and benefits (Buttle, 1998, pp76-89). A strategy called â€Å"viral marketing† was used by many companies to pursue the profit. Before the â€Å"viral marketing† appears, a marketing strategy called â€Å"word of mouth† was used in that way. Haywood (1989) believed that Word-of-Mouth (WOM) refers to oral, person-to-person communication between a receiver and a communicator which the receiver perceives as a noncommercial message, regarding a brand, product or service. Even though WOM strategy can bring huge benefits to a company, the development of technology usage has upgraded the word of mouth strategy to a new one call â€Å"viral marketing† (Richins, 1999). These years, stationary Internet consumers’ communication environment has been changed and enriched. As a result WOM has gained new significance and WOM on the stationary Internet was termed â€Å"viral marketing†. This view was supported by Godes and Mayzlin (2004), that Viral or word-of-mouth marketing has become very popular because it has a new medium—the Internet. According to one venture capital firm, 76 percent of new business plans have the words viral marketing in them (File, Cermak and Prince, 2000). Using e-mail makes it incredibly easy to pass information on to a friend or colleague, especially if it involves something fun or free. With millions using the Internet all over the world, the potential for exponential growth is quite huge. 2.3 What is Viral Marketing Since the term viral marketing was introduced in 1997, many disagreements exist about its definition. Subramani and Rajagopalan (2003) view it as word-of-mouth advertising in which consumers tell other consumers about the product or service. Yang and Allenby (2003) argued that true viral marketing differs from word-of-mouth in that the value of the virus to the original consumer is directly related to the number of other users it attracts. Shirky (2000) suggests that, in generally, viral marketing would be word-of-mouth advertising to most people. More importantly, however, he adds that the concept describes viral marketing as a way of getting new customers by encouraging honest communication among consumers. The originator of each branch of the virus has a unique and vested interest in recruiting people to the network. (Modzelewski, 2000, p.30). According to Senecal and Acques (2004) suggestion, purchasing is part of a social process, it involves a one-to-one interaction between the company and the customer and many exchanges of information and influence among the people who surround the customers. They also suggest that many effective networks comprise hubs, clusters, and connections among clusters. In these networks, people will notice a constant flow of green sparks between certain nodes. Wilson (2000) said that viral marketing is sort of this explosion that you start with one customer and he/she will tell people and pass it on continuously. In Dichter’s (2001, p47) opinion, â€Å"viral marketing is the idea that you incite your customers or referral sources to pass on something about your business to their network of colleagues and friends†. There is a similar saying that viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages customers to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the messages exposure and influence (Hogon, Lemon and Libai, 2004). Nalor (2002) claimed that viral marketing is a marketing tactic relying on some aspects of the system to promote itself as initial targets pass the promotion on to others. Depend mostly on Hogon, Lemon and Libai’s perspectives, the current article views viral marketing as the process of encouraging honest communication among consumer networks, and it focuses on email as the main channel. One example of viral marketing is encouraging current and potential customers to tell others about a companys products and services, and then encouraging those others to tell even more consumers, make the information go forward continuously (Subramani and Rajagopalan, 2003 ). These strategies like viruses, can take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands even to millions customers in a short time. â€Å"The term viral marketing is also used to refer to stealth marketing campaigns—the use of varied kinds of astroturfing both online and offline to create the impression of spontaneous word of mouth enthusiasm†(Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler,2004, pp 95). Out of the internet, viral marketing has been described as â€Å"word of mouth†, â€Å"creating a buzz†, â€Å"leveraging the media†, â€Å"network marketing†. However, on the internet, whatever, it was called â€Å"viral marketing† (Helm, 2000, pp 57-71). Datta, Chowdhury and Chakraborty (2005) used the term as â€Å"network-enhanced word of mouth† to describe the then high innovative marketing strategy of the free email service Hotmail. For other words, such terms as propagation, aggregation or organic marketing are used. Successful viral marketing is characterized as â€Å"strategies that allow an easier, accelerated, and cost reduced transmission of messages by creating environments for a self-replicating, exponentially increasing diffusion, spiritualization, and impact of the message†. (Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2001) 2.4. Forms and Categories of Viral Marketing 2.4.1 Forms There are many forms of viral marketing; these include images, jokes, reality TV show transcripts, digital video clips, e-cards, interactive microsites, advergames, and alternative reality games (Modzelewski, 2000). The list is continuously growing as the development of viral marketing. 2.4.2 Categories There are several ways to categorize viral marketing. First, difference between â€Å"intentional and unintentional message† delivery and used a â€Å"motivational classification†. Secondary, difference is between â€Å"service-based and incentive-based†. In the first situation, viral effect was decided by the quality of offer, another one means that company uses monetary incentive to stimulate customers so that they would pass on an advertiser’s message. Base on the differences between private and public recommendation, the categorization between â€Å"high (active) and low (passive) integration strategies are varying in the degree of requiring the consumer’s activity in passing on the ‘virus’ †. (Source from Goldenberg, Libai and Muller, 2001, pp 209-257) 2.5 Viral Marketing in B2B Beside the explanation of viral marketing base on B2C, many authors get another similar definition for it on B2B side. In B2B, viral marketing means the rapid spread of a message about a new product or service, in a similar way to the spread of a virus (Yang and Allenby, 2003). Viral marketing can be word of mouth; however, it is particularly common being use on the Internet, where messages can be spread easily and quickly to reach people all over the world. Products can become very famous in this way with very little advertising cost. Carrabis (2006) has proved that viral marketing rely on social networks in order to function. Linking is also an effective viral marketing tool, as is the provision of free products or services. The Hotmail free e-mail service, for example, grew quickly with little marketing investment (Tafe, 2007). In B2B area, viral marketing works well in the following circumstances: (a) when a product is genuinely new and different, and it is something that opinion leaders want to associate with;(b) when the benefits of the product are real; (c) when the product is relevant to a large number of people, and the benefits are easy to communicate (Bansal and Voyer, 2000, p26-63). 2.6 Why Viral Marketing These years, online social networks are increasingly being considered as an important source of information to affect the adoption and use of products and services (Mac, 2006). Viral marketing as the tactic of creating a process where interested people can market to each other, is therefore emerging as an important marketing strategy to spread-the-word and stimulate the trial, adoption, and use of products and services. (Herr, Kardes and Kim, 1999) What is new about viral marketing is not word of mouth, but the way people are spreading it (Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2004). Web users have the ears and eyes of hundreds, even thousands of people. They are in contact with an International crowd they would never have met otherwise. Most significantly, they can reach people they do not really know. That is why several weeks after a people sent the first Hotmail message into India; thousands of Indian users had Hotmail accounts (Kuruvilla, 2007). It is believed that a satisfied customer tells an average of three people about a product or service he likes, and nine people about a product or service which he dislikes (Sudaraman, Mitra and Webster, 1999). Viral marketing is based on this natural human behavior to conduct its campaigns. Domingos (2006) believed that the purpose of marketers interested in making a successful viral marketing campaign is to identify customers who with high social networking potentials, and then created viral messages that can attract this segment of the customers and have a high likely to keep the message spreading. Viral marketing has received extensive attention from both academics and practitioners these years (Jurvetson, 2000). Base on the analysis before, many authors form their standpoints about the effect that viral marketing strategy can bring to a company. They argue with other authors’ opinions base on their own standpoints. 2.6.1 Positive Effects of Viral Marketing Viral marketing facilitates spreading commercial information and content within the desired target group (Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2001)). Another advantage of it is that advertisers can expand the promotion reach significantly at a very low company expense (Baker, 2005). According a survey of Duhan, Johnson, Wilcox and Harrell (1997), 35% of the 3000 respondents said a friend’s recommendation would convince them to visit a website they do not know before. These results illustrated the huge potential of viral marketing for communication and distribution purposes. What is great about viral marketing is that it is low cost and works virtually by itself. Once you make an offer and provide the facility, for referrals, viral marketing spreads by itself very faster, just like a virus (Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2004). Just like Tafe (2007) said that, Hotmail only cost 18 months to get 12 million users by using viral marketing that let users to referral users, it cost nothing to do Ads, only use free email account. Viral marketing has been studied both as an input into consumer decision-making, and as an outcome of the purchase process (Holmes and Lett, 1997). In the pre-purchase stage, as a risk reducing strategy, consumers seek product information by participating in the viral marketing process. Positive and negative messages are examples of exit behaviors exhibited by consumers at the conclusion of a service encounter ((Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2004) or usage of a product (Naylor and Kleiser, 2000). Anderson (1998) pointed out that viral marketing could â€Å"influence consumers’ choices and purchase decisions, and shape consumers’ expectations, pre-usage attitudes, even post-usage perceptions of a product or service†. It is believed that the influence of viral marketing is much greater than that of classic advertising media (Gremler, Gwinner and Brown, 2001).BMW is a good example, it supply 5 video clips to watch and download for free, and then get over 11 million visitor in 4 months. The sales of BMW car are increase 12.5% in the next year (Hespos, 2002). It seems that video clips and internet can make viral marketing working effectively. Viral marketing has been referred to as product-related conversation, personal recommendations, informal communication, and interpersonal communication (Jacob, Barak and Muller, 2001). There are one big distinction between viral marketing activities and commercial mass communication. As viral marketing is a consumer-dominated channel of information, the communicator is thought to be independent of the marketer (Lau and NG, 2001). As a result, it is recognized by customers as a more reliable, credible, and trustworthy source of information. It provides information concerning product performance and the social and psychological consequences of a purchase decision (Naylor and Kleiser, 2000). For example, Myspace use viral marketing to make the users to referral itself and make a big success (Dwyer, 2007). Viral marketing can convert lower order cognition and affect to higher order cognition and affect, which in turn can lead to committed behaviors of receivers (Baker, 2005). The credibility of viral marketing, coupled with the probability that a receiver will be more highly involved in a viral marketing message than an advertisement, lends itself to the formation of such higher order beliefs and cognition. Through multiple dyads and retransmission, one message can reach and potentially influence many receivers (Henning-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler, 2004). Make good use of the customers’ internet social networks, like using free email referrals and internet chat rooms, the information can spread sharply (Domingos, 2006). The effectiveness of viral marketing can also be explained by the accessibility-diagnosticity model (Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2004). Some findings suggest that vividly (face-to-face) presented information is more memorable to customers and is weighed more heavily in their judgments (Henning-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler, 2004).such as Myspace, it use the chat rooms that users can talk to each other, even face-to-face through PC camera, and then its information become more reliable and memorable for users (Boyd, 2006). Because of internet, information accessibility increases, it is high likely that this information is used by customers as an input for their judgments and choices also increases (Hogan, Lemon and Libai, 2004). 2.6.2 Negative Effects of Viral Marketing For all its advantages, viral marketing also has many unexpected pitfalls. Most important, companies have almost no control over the viral spread since it was send out, and therefore they can do little if the viral turns to against them and their products (Jurvetson, 2000). â€Å"The action most frequently reported by consumers who are dissatisfied with a purchase or who have rejected or discontinued using a product is telling friends about the experience and urging them to avoid it† (Weinberger and Lepkowska-White, 2000 ). Many researchers have suggested that negative information tends to cause many attention to and weighting of that information (Bristor, 1990). For example, Naylor and Kleiser (2000) found that negative messages destroy the image of a brand are more than twice as strongly as positive WOM promoted sales of that product. Negative message has also led to the failure of many companies’ promotion. Wilson (2000) argues that negative messages would be communicated to more people than positive messages. According to much previous evidence about the spread of marketing information, it is suggested that a negative message may travel farther than a positive message through retransmission. In previous research; the influencer was oft en considering to be an opinion leader. However, a dissatisfied customer who initiates negative message need not be an opinion leader, and yet his opinions can have adverse effects on the marketer (Richins, 1999). For example, Sony try to use Youtube to promote its Playstation consoles, it created an imaginary character called Peter and tried to make the character as a hip -hop shark. However, some clever users soon discovered the wile, and tell many others. Many people then angary with what SONY done, and refuse to buy the playstation consoles. In the end, Sony had to make a public apology to delighted and hold the customers. (Source from Kuruvilla, 2007) 2.6.3 Viral Marketing Effects in B2B For business-to-business companies, it makes sense to begin with a product or service offer that has real, free value to prospects. Examples: an e-mailed newsletter that can easily be forwarded to colleagues, or a product that comes with an incentive, such as gift certificates or coupons, sent via e-mail, which can be passed along to more than one person. Viral marketing can work effective for B2B providers, since the following is true. One very significant effort of viral marketing is to allow others to post articles that you have authored on their Web sites (Lau and NG, 2001). Another way to encourage visitors to spread the word about your product or service is to provide a link or button on each Web page that they can click on to forward your wed site (Goldenberg, Libai and Muller, 2001). While some people may use viral marketing only as buzzwords, there is another significance for B2B marketers. Companies can encourage satisfied customers and referral sources in a credible way and persuade them to spread the positive words for their products. Keep the reward combined with your business and appropriate for the size and type of referral. Ensure that your offer adds value or reward for the referrer and for those people that are referred to you, and then you will have a cost-effective marketing tool to grow your business (Herr, Kardes and Kim, 1999). 2.6.4 Factors Motivating Viral Marketing According to Chen, Iyer and Padmanabhan (2002), viral marketing involves two parties: the communicator and the receiver. Viral marketing will only start when the communicator is motivated to speak and the receiver is motivated to listen. Therefore, in order to understand how the process works, it is very important that understand the inherent motives. In the case of the receiver, motivation to listen may be affected by: (a) source reliability (Blodgett, Granbois and Walters, 1998); (b) interpersonal ties between the sender and receiver (Goldenberg, Libai and Muller, 2001); (c)product and purchasing situation characteristics such as high perceived risk (Bristor, 1990), newness, .and intangibility associated with services (Weinberger and Lepkowska-White, 2000); and (d) situational factors such as conditions where product information may be hard or impossible to get from the marketer, or where there is a shortage of time. In the case of the communicator, motivation to speak may be influenced by: (a) the personality of the communicator, for example, self-confidence (Bristor, 1990) and sociability (Richins, 1999); (b) the attitudes of the communicator, for example, a desire to help others (Lau and NG, 2001) and attitude towards complaining (Singh, 1990); (c) involvement with the product and with the purchase decision (Henning-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler, 2004); and (d) situational factors like â€Å"proximity of others during dissatisfaction† (Lau and NG, 2001). Viral marketing has quickly been recognized by many companies because of many successful examples: Marketers proved that a little budget they could motivate millions customers. They did so by encourage customer-to-customer communication to increase sales, brand awareness, and market share. Seth Godi uploads his ebook on the internet and the people can download for free and has the right to send to their friends. If they like, they can buy a print copy. Only three months, nearly one million people download the e-book. (Source from Tafe, 2007) Receivers getting a marketing message from familiar communicators participate more frequently in a campaign as initial contacts. Because the personal message which come from friends or people you know would be more credible than that coming directly from the self-interest advertiser (Goldenberg, Libai and Muller, 2001). Taking advantage of the inherent nature of internet as communication vehicles viral marketing enables consumers to share information and content within their social network easier and faster, there are without time and location limitation for internet communications (Naylor and Kleiser, 2000). Money incentive can works very effective when a viral marketing not clever and attractive enough for customers. Give referrers a reward can encourage fast spread of the marketing information. Those people who pass on your information can get something in return can encourage their passion to pass on the information. That something may be a gift or service related to your business or simply the knowledge that they have added value for others. 2.7 Measuring Success and Effective Many authors argue that what is a successful campaign? Can it based on the amount of number of people who positively interact with the campaign’s content or the sales created by the campaign? Although no a single measurement system has build up for viral marketing, measurement tools do exist, allow the markers use to tracking the process and effects of viral marketing. It is hard to know whether audiences care about the contents behind the campaigns, what ensure about the marketers maybe how many people see the campaign (Goldenberg, Libai and Muller, 2001). Shirky (2000) believed that viral marketing not always effective as it also have many disadvantages, and many situations would make it fail. The difference between a successful and unsuccessful viral marketing campaign is the campaign’s ability to connect with audiences and persuade them to pass on the message and ultimately the product or service (Kirby, 2006, p.92). Kirby (2006) recognizes that in order to increase the chances of a successful viral campaign many companies are starting to invest more into the planning and implementation of it. Freedma

Background and Summary of King Lear :: Essays Papers

Background and Summary of King Lear Background of King Lear King Lear was written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered to be Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. The main plot was drawn from an old chronicle play called The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his Three Daughters, supplemented by treatments of that story in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicle of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Spenser's The Faerie Queen, and perhaps others. The subplot of Gloucester and his two sons comes from Sir Philip Sidney's popular romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Shakespeare also makes considerable use of Samuel Harsnett's Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603) for Edgar's language of demonic possession as Poor Tom and the mock exorcism he works to cure the blinded Gloucester's despair. The play was performed December 26, 1606, for King James, as part of the court's Christmastide celebrations, as well as on the public stage at the Globe. Recoiling from the bleakness of the play's tragic vision, Naham Tate revised it in 1681, providing interpolated love scenes between Edgar and Cordelia and a happy ending in which Lear and Cordelia survive: his version held the stage for a century and a half. Dr. Samuel Johnson and the Romantic poets testified to the original play's greatness--Shelley terming it "the most perfect specimen of dramatic poetry existing in the world"--but they also began a critical tradition that judged the work too large and sublime for the stage. Lear has, however, proved notably successful in the modern theatre, accustomed to nonrealistic stage techniques and Samuel Beckett's apocalyptic dramas as well as to the contemporary horrors of concentration camp and Gulag. - Norton, 888 Summary of King Lear ACT I This tragedy play tells of the downfall of King Lear and the death of his daughter Cordelia. The play begins with the old Lear, deciding to retire, plans to divide his kingdom between his three daughters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia.. With his daughters and men gathered around him, Lear asks his daughters, "Which of you shall we say doth love us most?" (Act I, Scene 1. 43). Both Goneril and Regan reply with flattering words of love which satisfied their old father, in turn he gave each of them a third of his kingdom. Cordelia, Lear's favorite daughter, answers with words from her heart, saying that she loves him as much as he loved her and as she should. However, Lear sees her words as disrespectful and demands Cordelia to reply again like how her sisters did, with flattering words.

Essay --

Assignment #1 Ethics Bernie L. Madoff Investment Securities LLP was part of what is considered to be one of the largest financial frauds in U.S history. The Wall Street investment firm was used as an elaborate â€Å"Ponzi Scheme† that extorted upwards of $65 billion from unsuspecting investors. The Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays earnings to older investors using the money generated from newer investors. The Ponzi scheme was perpetrated by founder Bernie Madoff and was carried out for a number of years until 2008 when he was finally convicted. Bernie L Madoff Investment Securities LLP was founded in 1960 by Chairman Bernie Madoff and was one of the top market-maker businesses primarily serving as the middleman between buyers and sellers of shares. Bernie Madoff first started his firm as a penny stock trader using the $5,000 he saved up from his job as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer. As time went on he was able to build up his firm with the help of his father-in-law, Saul Alpern who referred him to a large circle of friends and families which further helped expand his business (Biography.com). The firm eventually became so successful that by the 1980s, the firm handled up to 5% of the trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange. The firm also helped develop the National Association for Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), a computer technology information platform which the firm used to broadcast stock quotes. In the 1990s Bernie Madoff was eventually named chairman of NASDAQ (DeGrace, 2011). Alongside B ernie Madoff was his brother Peter Madoff who was the firm’s chief compliance officer and senior managing director. Bernie also hired his two sons Mark and Andrew Madoff at his firm. ... .... According to the nytimes.com, it is required under the SOX that brokerage firms such as Madoff Securities are required to be audited by firms registered with the Public Company Accounting Board. However, the S.E.C issued a rule to waive that requirement for privately held brokerage firms. This again allowed Friehling & Horowitz who weren’t registered with the board to continue on doing the audits for Madoff Securities. (Norris, 2009) It’s obvious that Bernie Madoff was highly respected among his peers for his knowledge and experience in stock trading and he used that leverage to manipulate hundreds of investors. His returns despite seeming suspicious left his investors wanting more. There’s no doubt greed was the driving force behind Madoff’s unethical behaviour but it could also be said greed was also the reason Madoff was able to get away with it for so long.

Social Networking: A Negative Influence on Young Adults Essay -- Socia

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In have gained a widespread audience across the world. Although the original intentions of these social sites were positive, these mediums of social interaction now have negative effects. Young adults aged 14 – 26 are the demographic which make up the vast majority of social media users and thus are the most effected by social media. Social media has negative effects on young adults. The use of social media by young adults has harmful psychological effects, creates antisocial effects, and negatively consumes time. Social media has harmful psychological effects on young adults. Social websites generate cyber bullying, depression, and a lack of independence. Cyber bullying is extremely prevalent among young adult users of social media. Many young adults claim they â€Å"have seen more bullying over the internet than in real life† [6]. The prevalence of online bullying is attributed to the lack of consequences that follow. Cyber bullies tend to think that they will get away with their crime without any consequences and â€Å"81% of youth agree that bullying online is easier to get away with than bullying in person† [2]. Victims of cyber bullying have a lowered sense of self worth. This lowered sense of self worth has devastating effects: According to psychologist Anthony Pellegrini, Bullying is a specific form of aggression and one that is used deliberately to secure resources like friends, self-esteem, and self worth. Sites like Facebook and MySpace make this easy through public posts and retaliations that encourage other mutual â€Å"friends† to join in. In fact, peer to peer harassment and bullying is the most common disadvantage to these sites. â€Å"This is where students are finding their identity and terrorizing each other. Cyber bullying is contributing to a generation of socially maladjusted adults and social networking sites are paving the way. The hostile environments on these sites have helped cause this generation of girls to become superficial and cutthroat by behaving more like or worse than boys." This electronic meanness can lead to depression and more serious, suicide. [3] Bullying has been made widespread through social media and has been the root of many suicides in young adults. Suicide as a result of bullying is so widespread that â€Å"every  ½ hour a youth who has been bullied will complete suic... ... adults become aware of these hazardous effects and take action to combat them. Works Cited 1. Cherry, Kendra. "What Is the Social Comparison Process?"  About.com  Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. 2. "Cyberbullying Statistics."  InternetSafety101.org: Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. 3. Gilliam, Natalie. "The Potential Dangers of Social  Networking."  The Potential Dangers of Social Networking. N.p., 30 Mar. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. 4. Kulbarsh, Pamela. "Bullycide: Suicide as a Result of Bullying."  Officer.com. N.p., 11 Jan. 2012. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. 5. Lauritsen, John. "Is There A Link Between Social Networking And  Depression?"  CBS Minnesota. N.p., 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.    6. Nelson, Cordelia. "Free Executive Summary."  Negative Effects of Social Networking. N.p., 1 Apr. 2013. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. 7. Pagliarini, Robert. "Is Social Networking Bad for You?"  CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 2009. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. 8. "The Effects of Social Media on Teenagers."  SociallyActive. N.p., 22 Nov. 2012. Web. 17 Apr. 2015. 9. Turkle, Sherry. "The Flight From Conversation."  The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 Apr. 2012. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.   

Dr. Jack-O-Lantern, by Richard Yates Essay

Struggle for acceptance in the coming of age story, Dr. Jack-O-Lantern, by Richard Yates the main character Vincent Sabella faces struggles that force him to become a rebellious adolescent. Yates depiction of Vincent represents the maturation process of a ten year old orphan boy who grew up in New York and moved to a new city, enrolled in a new school, and had to make new friends. Vincent can be described as a quiet child with poor hygiene who became lonely and rebellious after moving to his new school. Coming from an orphanage, Vincent wasnt able to have someone around him that made sure his hygiene was taken care of. When Vincent arrived at his new school, his school mates made fun of him because he made an unintelligible croak and smiled fleetingly, just enough to show that the roots of his teeth were green (Yates). Not only were his teeth green, the clothes he went to school with were absurdly new corduroys, absurdly old sneakers and a yellow sweatshirt, much too small, with the shredded remains of a Mickey Mouse design stamped on its chest (Yates). The ridicule that Vincent had to face from his classmates made him a very lonely and depressed child. Along with having bad hygiene, Vincent became lonely and depressed. His first day at his new school he stayed on the apron of the playground, close to school, and for the first part of the recess he pretended to be very busy with the laces of his sneakers (Yates). None of Vincents school mates wanted to play with him. During class, Vincent gave a report to his class about his weekend. He made up a story about getting chased by the police on Saturday and his classmates began to catch on to his exaggeration. Recess was worse than usual for him that day; at least it was until he found a place to hide — a narrow concrete alley, blind except for several closed fire-exit doors, that cut between two sections of the school building (Yates). Because nobody was around, Vincent felt like his new hiding spot was safe so none of his class mates could make fun of him. Vincent began to feel like he was an out-cast at his new school and started to become a rebel in the making. At ten years old, Vincent already knew every vulgar word in the book. Standing in his newly found hiding spot in  the alley, he just stood there, looking at the blankness of the concrete wall; then he found a piece of chalk in his pocket and wrote out all the dirty words he could think of, in block letters a foot high (Yates). Because Vincent was treated as a loner in his new city, writing on walls was a way for him to release his anger created by his struggle. After having to clean the chalk off the wall, he went back to his alley and drew a picture of a naked woman and titled it Miss Price.Vincents struggles throughout the story caused him to grow into a rebellious adolescent with no responsibility. We can conclude that the author is trying to illustrate Vincents maturation process as a struggle for approval. Vincents quiet demeanor quickly turned into him becoming a disobedient child who longed for the acceptance of his new surroundings. Bibliography Short-storyRichard Yates, â€Å"Dr. Jack-O-Lantern†

Affirmative Action PRO vs. CON Essay

The 108th Congress of the United States brought up the debate of whether to allow public institutions to adopt the Affirmative Action, allowing minorities to have higher opportunities than the majority. Although no specific stand was approached, it clearly shows the growing interest of people on the act of Affirmative Action. I am pro Affirmative Action when dealing with public institutions. However, I believe a private institution should practice equality. Affirmative Action compensates for the past faults and biased treatments toward minorities, provides ample opportunities to unprivileged people who currently can’t be accepted to institutions, and could rid of the biased view many people still have on minorities. Looking back on American history, we can clearly see many prejudiced acts and viewpoints towards the minorities. The most obvious example is with African Americans. Now at present times, Affirmative Action can and will compensate to a degree the hurts and pains minorities suffered. Although people call America the land of opportunity, many people, consisting largely of minorities, never get a chance to succeed. Many colleges screen applicants with a biased standard, calling it tradition. Companies and institutions prevent employees from receiving full privileges, shouting company regulations. Affirmative Action can tear down those obstacles and false standards giving those underprivileged new opportunities. When Asians fluctuated to the United States during the gold rush, many locals responded violently thinking they will take all the jobs there were. Even today, a number of people still hold biased views toward the minorities. It is evident on the existing practices of the Ku Klux Klan. Affirmative Action can change much of those biased views and allow the minorities to be accepted in the eyes of others. Although Affirmative Action should apply to public institutions, equality should be practiced in private institutions. Equal treatments should allow others to participate on making a non-discriminatory system. Equality, not favoritism, should be standards on private institutions. However, on the overall view, I stand pro on Affirmative Action.

History of Culinary Arts Essay

The history of culinary arts started in the early 1800 when the first cooking school in Boston was established to teach the art of American cooking and prepare the students to deliver and forward their knowledge to others. It was in 1896 Fannie Merritt Farmer published the first cook book; the book was written referring the Boston cooking school. In the year 1946 the first cooking show was telecasted on the televised. After thatJames Beard the father of American cuisine conducted regular cooking classes concentrating on the art of American cooking. In 1960s the French cuisine has been entered the American society by Julia Child. Later in the year the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) was founded and established this was the first culinary school that offers career-based courses of course in the art of cooking. The first campus of the CIA was inNew York and was started in 1972 and now there are Different types of cooking schools that offer different kinds of training programs to its candidates and the selection of the appropriate culinary arts and it can be determined by considering the goals and interests and aid to choose the education programaccordingly. The school was begun with the intention of offering education courses in culinary arts. The school offers both long term and short term courses. There are a number of students who enrol in the CIA and each year and the number of applicants increase. Prior to the establishing of the CIA, those who wanted to have a career in culinary arts typically had to go through many tests and challenges like until they become seasoned chefs by gaining on-the-job trainings. Looking at this today internships and recruitments are among the main essentials. â€Å"

Children and Criminal Intent

Case Study #1 James M. Bufford Liberty University Online 11/18/12 This week’s case study was very interesting from a developmental standpoint. It seems to be a rather blanket statement of our legal system to say that children under 7 are not held responsible for crimes and that a 6 year-old cannot form criminal intent. My personal opinion is that children differ in their maturity levels (some may act older, others younger, developmentally). However, with that opinion, I can see the argument of: Who determines that maturity level? What is that determination based upon?What research has been done to prove this? Therefore, we must refer to what has been proven through the many years of research of biosocial development. According to our text, the prefrontal cortex (sometimes called the frontal cortex or frontal lobe) is said to be the executive of the brain because all the other areas of the cortex are ruled by the planning, prioritizing and reflection in the prefrontal cortex. S till, this area must be developed-or mature-over the years; this development occurs through genetics and early experience (Berger, 2011, pg. 15). In this case, it seems the early experience of growing up around those that were most likely careless and irresponsible with guns, had a major impact on the boys life. Maybe he was taught to shoot in the backyard? All of this could be considered what Vygotsky considered to be â€Å"Social Learning†-which could also lead to the child being curious about guns and observant about how they are to be used, as well as being â€Å"mentored† by his loved ones who were also in prison on gun-related charges (Berger, 2011, pg. 240). Maybe he feared his classmate?This may have led to him taking the gun to school, being afraid of confrontation. The interaction of the amygdala and the hippocampus can cause fear to be either constructive (causing a child to use good judgement); or, in this case, destructive, allowing fear and misplaced ange r to take over their emotions and act out on what he’s seen other family members do (shooting a gun) (Berger, 2011, pg. 217). Perseveration, the tendency to persevere in, or stick to, one thought or action for a long time (Berger, 2011, pg. 216), may have also played a role in the child carrying out this action of shooting his classmate.The fact that he was able to remember overnight to take the gun to school and use it the next day. Acknowledging, once again, the childs’ upbringing, maybe he was encouraged to be like his other family members? This could be a natter of gaining extrinsic motivation, which is a drive, or reason to pursue a goal, that arises from the need to have one’s achievements rewarded outside, perhaps by receiving material possessions or another person’s esteem (Berger, 2011, pg. 267). This, as well, is crucial to consider when looking at all the factors that went into the child committing this crime.Who knows how long this lifestyle w as embedded into his young, impressionable mind! There were so many variables that contributed to this unfortunate situation. The fact that he ran into the corner after pulling the trigger shows that maybe when he got in trouble at home, he was sent to the corner as a way of punishment. His actions after the crime showed he carried on as a child, not realizing the significance and danger of what just occurred due to his impulsiveness in the moment of anger. REFERENCES Berger, 2011. The Developing Person Through The Life Span. New York, NY. Worth Publishers