X. Answer the following questions.

1. What is marketing?

2. What is the connection between marketing and management?

3. What is called “marketing mix”?

4. What do the product aspects of marketing deal with?

5. What is price in the “marketing mix”?

6. What does place in the “marketing mix” mean?

7. What activities does promotion involve?

8. What is the difference between marketing and production orientations of a company?

XI. Find some additional information and prepare short reports on the following topics:

• market research;

• marketing research;

• distribution channels;

• marketing strategies.

XII. Read the text about advertising and be ready to answer the questions after it. To make your understanding clearer some vocabulary notes are given below.

benefit _v – извлекать пользу

embed _v – вставлять

persuade _v – убеждать

Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication used to help sell products and services. Usually it contains a message including the name of the product or service and how that product or service could potentially benefit the consumer. But, in fact, advertising typically try to persuade potential customers to buy or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service.

Many advertisements are made to generate increased consumption of the products and services through the creation and reinvention of the «brand image». For these purposes, advertisements sometimes complete their persuasive message with factual information. There are many ways to deliver these messages, including traditional media such as television, radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers, video games, the carrier bags, billboards, mail or post and Internet marketing. Advertising is often placed by an advertising agency on behalf of a company or organization.

Advertising is sometimes aimed at selling what is not, strictly speaking, a product or service. Such organizations as political parties, interest groups, religious organizations, and military recruiters use advertising to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues, such as HIV/AIDS, political ideology, religious recruitment, energy conservation, deforestation etc. Non-commercial advertising is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences.

Advertising has become increasingly prevalent in modern society. It is also increasingly being criticized. A person is now always subject to advertising. Advertising occupies public space and invades the private sphere of people. Unwanted Commercial Email and other forms of spam have become prevalent: they have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on Internet service providers. In addition, advertising frequently uses psychological pressure (for example, appealing to feelings of inadequacy) on the intended consumer, which may be harmful.

The children’s market, where resistance to advertising is the weakest, is the leader in ad invasion. Kids are among the most sophisticated observers of ads. They can sing the jingles and identify the logos, and they often have strong feelings about products.

Advertising increasingly tries to transform youth into a consumer. The key to reach the next generation of consumers is the rising independence of young people which advertising messages exploit. Advertising is used not only to sell goods, also it inspires ideas: how we should behave, what rules are important, who we should respect and what we should value.

A great part of advertising touches the promotion of products to improve the appearance of people, mainly for women (in the past almost only for women). Women are generally portrayed as sex symbols who are ultra slim. Thus, because of the media girls and women are under high pressure to compare themselves with a propagated ideal beauty. Consequences of this are low self-esteem, eating disorders, self mutilations, beauty operations etc. The EU parliament passed a resolution in 2008 that advertising may not be discriminating and degrading. This shows that politics is increasingly concerned about the negative aspects of advertising.

Questions

• What are advertisements made for?

• What are advertisements about?

• What are the main advantages and disadvantages of advertisement?

• What are the target groups of advertising?

• What is your attitude to advertisements?