5. How have Wal-Mart and Target stores performed lately?

Wal-Mart Stores is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large, discount department stores. It is the world's largest public corporation by revenue.It is the largest private employer in the world and the fourth largest utility or commercial employer. Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer in the United States.

On September 12, 2007, Wal-Mart introduced new advertising with the slogan, "Save Money Live Better," replacing the "Always Low Prices, Always" slogan, which it had used for the previous 19 years.

Global Insight, which conducted the research that supported the ads, found that Wal-Mart's price level reduction resulted in savings for consumers.

Saving people money to help them live better is the goal of Wal-Mart. It’s the focus that underlies everything at Wal-Mart. And for the millions of customers who shop in these stores it means a lot. By offering the best possible prices on the products customers need, Wal-Mart can help them afford something a little extra.

Target Corporation's main retailing subsidiary, Target Stores, is a United States discount retail chain consisting of 1,591(more than 1500) stores. It has units in all states except for Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont, operating under the heads of Target, Target Greatland, and SuperTarget. Target Corporation has aggressive plans to have 2,000 stores open by the year 2010, including expanding to Alaska and Hawaii.

Target stores tend to attract younger and more educated and affluent customers than its competitors.

Target has cultivated a more upmarket and style-conscious image than other discount retailers. It is the third-largest general retailer in the US by revenues.

Unit 6. Advertising.

1. What forms of advertising do you know?

2. Explain the meaning of 'direct marketing'. Why is it considered targeted means of advertising?

3. What is the difference between 'product placement' and 'product endorsement'?

4. What makes Mike's advertising tick?

5. How should you plan an advertising campaign?

6. Give examples of good and bad advertisements.

1. What forms of advertising do you know?

The main form of advertising is media. It can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture

components, printed flyers, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, mobile telephone screens, magazines, newspapers, sides of buses or cars, and so on. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising. So you can see a lot of advertising in the streets.

Another famous type of advertising nowadays is product placement. It is when a product or brand is noticed in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand. It is very popular nowadays for cars, watches, clothes.For example, product placement for Ford, BMW and Aston-Martin cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably Casino Royale.

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format, as is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. For example, football. Increasingly, other media are overtaking television because of more consumer's usage of the internet.

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.

E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is known as "spam". So these are the most famous forms of advertising nowadays to my mind.