The History Of Nike Inc Footwear Marketing Essay

The History Of Nike Inc Footwear Marketing Essay Nike Inc., develops and designs footwear, sportswear, apparels and equipment. They make the availability of goods in Nike stores, franchisee stores and online through the website www.nikestore.com . They organize, supports and sponsors main sports around the world as they think sports is the main key for being healthy and they also sponsors high profile athletes so that the people can follow their icons. Nike has a trademark logo Just Do It. Recently, many countries faced recession followed by sharp increase of inflation. Graph 1: Inflation Rate Graph (2002-2012). (Source www.usinflationcalculator.com) Inflation defined as a persistent increase in the level of consumer prices or a persistent decline in the purchasing power of money. In other words, the inflation tells the effect on the people life financially. When they see prices in stores going up they call it inflation. Price inflation is a result of monetary inflation. http://thefaintofheart.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/metamorphosis_11.png Graph 2: Inflation rate graph for Nike. As per the data collected from Indonesian Plant, the Nike shoes Cost $20.00 to the company, $35.00 to retailer and $70.00 to the consumer. The breakdown can be found in the table below. Production labor Materials Rent, equipment Suppliers operating profit Duties Shipping Cost to Nike $2.75 $9.00 $3.00 $1.75 $3.00 $0.50 $20.00 Research and development Promotion and advertising Sales, distribution, admin. Nikes operating profit Cost to retailer $0.25 $4.00 $5.00 $6.23 $35.00 Retailers rent Personnel Other Retailers operating profit Cost to consumer $9.00 $9.50 $7.00 $9.00 $70.00 (Including VAT) Table 1: Nike shoes cost breakdown. (Source http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/poli/nike/nike101-8.htm ) Nike spend approx 12% of revenue on marketing every year that includes advertisement, endorsement fee that it pays to sports league and Team. A) Due to inflation there is less demand of the Product and to overcome the company has different strategies to reduce the cost of the production. As the company has a full time employee so the company will have a fixed cost which they need to give to the employee. Instead of fixed employee they can shift to part time employee and thus reducing the cost. They can also outsource their production to a country with low labor cost. They can also lower their material cost by using cheap materials like polyurethane instead of rubber for the shoe sole. The Company also needs to look into the factors like Fixed and Variable Cost. Fixed Cost basically a minimum quantity of inputs required by the firm to be in a business at all whether or not output is produced and Variable Cost by (Begg, 9th Edition) The Cost of hiring Variables inputs, typically labor and raw materials. If the Fixed cost is more than the variable cost than there would be low level of production but if variable cost is higher than fixed cost than the production of the company increases. Q TFC TVC TC AFC AVC AC MC 0 60 0 60 1 60 10 70 60 10 70 10 2 60 20 80 30 10 40 10 3 60 30 90 20 10 30 10 4 60 40 100 15 10 25 10 5 60 50 110 12 10 22 10 6 60 60 120 10 10 20 10 Table 3: Table for Marginal Cost. By the above chart we can see that MC Graph 3: Graph for TFC and TVC. B) Nike is a globally recognized brand which produces accessories, apparels and shoes for majorly sports and fashion. Nike introduced customization of shoes and focused on each and every group age. The brand already attached to many renowned sports personality like Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods. The brand had focused on every sport around the world. Income elasticity of demand (IED) examines how the quantity demanded responds to a change in consumer incomes. IED can be calculated as, IED = (% Change in Quantity Demanded) / (% Change in Income), Consider that the original and new income of my product is $100, $200 and Original and new demand is 25, 50 units respectively. IED = ((50 25) / 25) * ((200 100) / 100), = 1 Here we can see that IED is equal to 1 thus it is a normal good and income inelastic. The price elasticity of demand (PED) measures the responsiveness of quantity demanded to changes in the price of the good or service. The PED can be calculated as PED = (% Change in Quantity Demanded) / (% Change in Price), For example we can assume the price of shoe rose from $100 to $200, resulting in demand rising from 50 to 55 units. PED = ((55 50) / 50) / ((200 100) / 100), = 0.1 Here PED The Cross-Price Elasticity of Demand (CPED) measures the rate of response of quantity demanded of one good, due to a price change of another good. The CPED can be calculated as CPED = (% Change in Quantity Demand for X) / (% Change in Price for Good Y), If CPED > 0 then they are substitute goods. If CPED =0 then they are independent goods. If CPED (http://economics.about.com/) Nike substitute good is Adidas and they are horizontally integrated. Nike decides to increase the price of Adidas shoes. If the cost of Adidas shoes increases then there would be decrease in the demand of the Adidas shoes and the demand of the Nike shoes will increase as it will cheaper then Adidas. C) Market structure of Nike is that it should be available for every age groups and it will maintain a leading position to its competitors. Nike will make it sure that the goods are available at all stores around the world and it will make sure that it will fulfill the change in demand of the customers. They will also make sure that the quality products are reached to the customers at cheap costs. The main competitors of Nike are Reebok, Adidas and Puma. Reebok http://www.buyerden.com/media/text_img/Reebok_Logo.gif: Reebok main strategy is that to change the peoples mindset about the word fitness and to bring fitness around the world and they want to declare themselves as the world fittest company. They target is to invest more in marketing strategy rather than the infrastructure. Adidas http://preview.thenewsmarket.com/Previews/ADID/StillAssets/197410.jpg: Adidas focuses on marketing its products as they think that products are a selling goods. They spent huge amount of its revenue on marketing their product. They hire famous designers for the designing of the shoes. Puma http://www.roanokestar.com/imgs/home/puma%20logo.gif: Puma targets female group and female dominant region. They fulfill the demand of the customers on the perception of customers image rather than their needs. They also target middle-upper class group through there advertisement and it reflect it on there marketing strategy. Nike has different strategies with respect to his competitors The mission is to provide availability of products at every marketable place and exceed from all leading athletic companies. The company targets to be in a lead by providing quality products and innovative designs for all age groups. The Company guarantees the availability of every kind of products at all leading market and stores. To meet the changing demands of customers. Value the stakeholders, laborers and other communities in the executing of every strategy and decision. The company focuses on providing quality products on low prices to have bigger share in the market. (http://marketingmixx.com/) Graph 5: Profit prediction after the strategy. D) Nike segments its market according to demographic location as they wants their products to be available at every corner of the world as they treat every customers as equal. Nike make sure that the availbility of products for every age groups. They focuses on the sports as they think that sports make the people live their life in the healthy manner. Nike main product is Footwear and they try to innovate and designs their footwear according to sports and age groups. Nike make it sure that the products are available at every market place so that the customer can go and a grasp on a quality Footwear. They also target to provide their footwear with low cost in the country were the economy is low. The company will focus on different pricing strategies to attract customers. Nike will target on marketing through advertisement like television featuring high profile athletes using our product etc. There will be offers for every customer like buying a product will get discount in their next purchase. There will be loyalty cards where the customers can convert their buy into redeemable points. Special offers will be available for students like they can get extra discount into the existing discount if they show there student Identity card. E) Nike focuses on vertical integration to produce their products. The main parts of Nike footwear are upper (top of the shoes), midsole (the cushion of the shoes) and the outsole (lower sole). Nike outsource to different company to build these segments which led to low build cost. The company focuses on both local and global markets. Nike has earned its maximum of its revenue from North America, followed by Europe and a small share from countries like China and Japan. They are now targeting markets like South America, Russia, India and Pakistan for more revenue as there is a gradual rise in the economy of these countries. Due to inflation, there are fewer sales of products and therefore there is low output. Nike has suffered a lot due to that. Due to inflation there is a increase in the cost of material and the transportation of Nike. To Overcome Nike has decided that they will try to increase their product price and decrease their marketing budget. If the company is new to a particular country there is a lot of help provided by the government of the country like the government may exempt the taxes until unless they start making the profits. F) To overcome the foreign exchange losses, the company will invest in a country where currency is cheap. To do so the company needs to look into the big picture of the world economy like investing in the countries like Qatar, China, Argentina, Srilanka, India, Iraq etc as their Gross Domestic Product(GDP) are growing gradually. The gradual growing GDP of these countries ensures that their economy is stable and there are opportunities for the company to invest in these countries. If companies invest in countries like India they will have cheap labor, cheap raw materials as maximum of raw materials are exported from Asian countries, cost of production will go down means increase in profits.

Inequalities and Discrimination of Women In The Workplace

In countries such as Brazil, Bangladesh, Cyprus, Macao, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore, women earn 60 percent less than what men earn (256). Although U. S. figures aren†t as extreme as these, women face discrimination in the workplace. In 1999, women held only 5. 1 percent of top executive management positions, and only 3. 3 percent of companies† highest paid workers were women (256). The term glass ceiling is used to describe the situation in which qualified women aspire to fill high positions but are prevented from doing so by the invisible institutional barriers (256). Discrimination of women in the workplace is a result of men†s power and their reluctance to give up resources and their control over women and can be summed up for women of corporate America by looking at four categories. First, the quality of women†s work tends to be undervalued. Frequently, studies asking participants to assess a piece of work have found that it is evaluated less favorably when said to have been done by a women than when the same piece is attributed to a man (257). Although the tendency to favor a man†s work is not always found, when differences in evaluation are found they tend to favor men. Further, women†s successes tend to be attributed to â€Å"luck†, and competent women are sometimes described as â€Å"unfeminine†. Society†s distrust in women†s abilities results from the stereotypical roles which label women as less assertive and expert than men. A second form of discrimination of women in the work place involves making unjustified assumptions about women†s values. Whereas men are assumed to have values that tend to perpetuate the system, women†s values are assumed to challenge it. Felicia Pratto and her colleagues conducted a study testing the status of the positions for which men and women were most likely to be hired. They found that women were favored to fulfill hierarchy-attenuating jobs (jobs that seek to change the system or improve the lot of people who have been marginalized); men, on the other hand, were favored for the hierarchy-enhancing jobs (which maintain and strengthen the status quo). This was true even when applicants† resumes violated the stereotypes associated with men and women (I. e. men†s career history that indicated they were â€Å"attenuators† and women†s which indicated they were â€Å"enhancers†) (258). The work place is made especially difficult for women with children. Up until the 1970s, pregnancy or the potential for pregnancy was used as a justification for discrimination in the U. S. , allowing employers to routinely force women to leave their jobs or take unpaid leaves (259). Women were even excluded from jobs because they might get pregnant. Looking at current issues, however, the U. S. does not hold any government provision for paid maternity leave for female workers, often causing mothers to bear an economic cost which is not borne by fathers (260). Even when discrimination against mothers is not formal, our culture†s work-family dynamics disproportionately affects women†s careers. Much more women than men have primary responsibility for child care. Working mothers are judged by their community according to how well they parent and work but particularly according to how dedicated they seem to be to parenting. Women, generally, are expected to alter their work commitments when children have problems and are more harshly judged for not doing so (261). A fourth and final aspect of discrimination against women in the U. S. orkplace lies in the notion that they do not have equal right as men to be employed. The U. S. situation is not as extreme as countries such as Russia and China, where many government bureaucrats and factory managers assert to anyone willing to listen that women belong at home, because in the U. S. such public pronouncements are likely to create an explosion of protests. Still, though, the perception that women†s household duties should come before their careers is widespread. Whereas men carry the obligation to earn an income and support their family, the nurturer role is assumed most important for women (260). A review of 21 studies showed that between 16 and 46 percent of the identified lesbians, gays, and bisexuals surveyed reported that they had experienced some form of employment discrimination, as discrimination against individuals of these sexual orientations is legal in most workplaces in the U. S. Also, researchers found that lesbian and bisexual women earn about 13 to 15 percent less than heterosexual women. This is in part because they are more likely to be working in the lowest-paying female-dominated jobs, but it also suggest the impact of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (261). Understanding the circumstances that promote stereotyping and lead to discrimination of women in the workplace provides some clues as to how an organization could act to reduce them. Companies can make an effort not to isolate women in particular job categories. Company managers can avoid falling into the notion that specific jobs require â€Å"masculine† qualities by examining job-related assumptions. They can base judgments of whether workers should be hired or promoted on clear and concise criteria. Last, they can develop formal guidelines to be modeled and enforced by top-level management about how to avoid discrimination (265).

Definition and Examples of Hyponyms in English

In linguistics  and lexicography, hyponym is a term used to designate a particular member of a broader class. For instance, daisy and rose are hyponyms of flower. Also called a  subtype  or a  subordinate term. The adjective is hyponymic. The term is pronounced HI-po-nim (with the emphasis on the first syllable), and its etymology from the Greek, below plus name. Words that are hyponyms of the same broader term (that is, a hypernym) are called co-hyponyms. The semantic relationship between each of the more specific words (such as daisy and rose) and the broader term (flower)  is called hyponymy or inclusion. Hyponymy is not restricted to nouns. The verb to see, for example, has several  hyponyms—glimpse, stare, gaze, ogle, and so on.  In Language: Its Structure and Use, Edward Finnegan points out that although hyponymy is found in all languages, the concepts that have words in hyponymic relationships vary from one language to the next. Examples and Observations Hyponymy is a less familiar term to most people than either synonymy or antonymy, but it refers to a much more important sense relation. It describes what happens when we say An X is a kind of Y—A daffodil is a kind of flower, or simply, A daffodil is a flower. – David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003 Hyponyms of Red [L]et us consider words that have a similar meaning because they belong to the same segment of a domain. For instance, the words pink, scarlet,  orange, hot pink, and pumpkin . . .  are all more marked, specific terms for colors that derive from the color red...These words share many of the semantic properties of the word red. Because these words form a subclass of the word red, they are referred to as hyponyms of red. Similarly, maple, birch, and pine are hyponyms of tree...Hyponyms are  more specific words that constitute a subclass of a more general word. – Bruce M. Rowe and Diane P. Levine,  A Concise Introduction to Linguistics, 4th ed.  Routledge, 2016 A Test for Hyponymy Hyponymy involves specific instantiations of a more general concept such as holds between horse and animal or vermillion and red or buy and get. In each case, one word provides a more specific type of concept than is displayed by the other. The more specific word is called a hyponym and the more general word is the superordinate which may also be referred to as a hyperonym or hypernym...Where the words being classified according to this relation are nouns, one can test for hyponymy by replacing X and Y in the frame X is a kind of Y and seeing if the result makes sense. So we have (A) horse is a kind of animal but not (An) animal is a kind of horse and so on. – Ronnie Cann, Sense Relations. Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language and Meaning, Vol. 1, ed. by Claudia Maienborn, Klaus von Heusinger, and Paul Portner. Walter de Gruyter, 2011 Inclusion In general, there are a number of hyponyms for each superordinate. For example, boar and piglet are also hyponyms of the superordinate pig, since the meaning of each of the three words sow, boar, and piglet contains the meaning of the word pig. (Note that in defining a word like sow, boar, or piglet, the superordinate word pig is often used as part of the definition: A sow is an adult female pig.) Thus, it is not surprising that hyponymy is sometimes referred to as inclusion. The superordinate is the included word and the hyponym is the including one. – Frank Parker and Kathryn Riley, Linguistics for Non-Linguists. Allyn and Bacon, 1994 Hierarchical Relationships and Multiple Layers House is a hyponym of the superordinate building, but building is in turn, a hyponym of the superordinate structure, and, in its turn, structure is a hyponym of the superordinate thing. A superordinate at a given level can itself be a hyponym at a higher level. – Patrick Griffiths, An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh University Press, 2006 ​Hyponyms and hypernyms have multiple layers, as in the following examples, where fry is a hyponym of the hypernym cook, but fry itself is a hypernym for some other types of frying:Hypernym: cookHyponyms: bake, boil,  grill, fry, steam, roastHypernym:  fryHyponyms:  stir-fry, pan-fry,  sautà ©, deep-fry – Michael Israel, Semantics: How Language Makes Sense. How Languages Work: An Introduction to Language and Linguistics, ed. by  Carol Genetti. Cambridge University Press, 2014

Comparison Between The Simpsons and Futurama Essay

Comparison Between The Simpsons and Futurama The word genre can be used to describe several things such as books, films and television programmes. It means the theme of the book, e.t.c. and in the case of a film or programme means either horror, thriller, comedy, romantic. It is important that a programme or film makes clear what genre it is. For example, a horror should make you cower in fear and a thriller should keep you on the edge of your seat. In the case of a comedy, which I have chosen to compare, it must make you cry with laughter. What genre a piece of media is, also helps you to choose the things that you like. I have chosen to compare two cartoon comedies, The Simpsons and Futurama.†¦show more content†¦This makes the audience think that the boy is often in trouble. It is also introducing one of the main characters. The school bell then rings, so the boy rushes out and jumps onto his skateboard. This gives you the impression that he is a typical American boy who hates school and likes video games and ska teboarding, e.t.cà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ The camera then cuts to a man who is wearing safety gloves and handling chemicals, which indicates he is working. A whistle then blows, and the mans face lights up as he exits to the left. The eagerness he expresses to leave, indicates he is related somehow to the previous boy, as he was also keen to exit and did not like working. Next, it shows a supermarket, with a mother doing her groceries. You also see the baby crawling along the belt where the food is placed. This scene indicates that the woman is a busy housewife, who looks after her children, and there is also a hint of comedy as the shop assistant scans the baby. Now, the audience has been introduced to two more of the main characters. After that, it changes to a shot of the school band. They start off by playing together but one girl starts to play her own, fabulous tune on the saxophone. When the teacher points to the door, she walks out, untroubled, and this gives you the impression that she is very passionate about her music. The audience have now beenShow MoreRelatedPostmodernism and the Simpsons10775 Words   |  44 PagesHugvà ­sindadeild Postmodernism and The Simpsons Intertextuality, Hyperreality and Critique of Metanarratives Ritgerà ° til B.A.-prà ³fs Bjà ¶rn Erlingur Flà ³ki Bjà ¶rnsson bjornfloki@gmail.com Kt. 110982-5779 Maà ­ 2006 Abstract This essay offers a postmodernist reading of the popular television program The Simpsons, with special regard to the postmodern theories of intertexuality, hyperreality, and metanarratives. Before delving into The Simpsons, some major theoretical aspects of postmodernism in aesthetic