English for Business Studies

Advertising and Promotional tools
Advertising
3. Ways of advertising
a. Vocabulary
(Here is some kinds of advertisements we may know. In the book, they are expressed as pictures, I just type the words here)
- a poster on a hoarding (GB) or billboard (US): A large board out of doors and visible to passers-by, on which the space is rented for advertising purposes; also, the advertising displayed on such a board
- a newspaper ad
- a TV commercial
- a cinema advertisement
- sponsorship: money provided for a sports, an arts or other event or for research, education and training by a person or organization, usually to gain advertising or public approval
- radio commercial
- classified advertisement in newspaper (small ads in a special section of the paper)
- sandwich-board man:
b. Reading
HOW COMPANIES ADVERTISE
Advertising informs consumers about the existence and benefits of products and services, and attempts to persuade them to buy them. The best form of advertising is probadly word-to-mouth advertising, which occurs when people tell their friends about the benefits of products or services that they have purchased. Yet virtually no providers of goods or services rely on this alone, but use paid advertising instead. Indeed, many organizations also use institutional or prestige advertising, which is designed to build up their reputation rather than to sell particular products.

Although large companies could easily set up their own advertising departments, write their own advertisements, and buy media space themselves, they tend to use the services of large advertising agencies. These are likely to have more resources, and more knowledge about all aspects of advertising and advertising media than a single company. The most talented advertising people generally prefer to work for a agencies rather than individual companies as this gives them the chance to work on a variety of advertising accounts (contracts to advertise products or services). It is also easier for a dissatisfied company to give its account to another agency than it would be to hire its own advertising staff.
The client company generally gives the advertising agency an agreed budget; a statement of the objectives of the advertising campaign, known as a brief; and an overall advertising strategy concerning the message to be communicated to the target customers. The agency creates advertisements (the word is often abbreviated to adverts or ads), and develops a media plan specifying which media ?" newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cinema, posters, mail, etc. ?" will be used and in which proportions. (On television and radio, ads are often known as commercials.) Agencies often produce alternative ads or commercials that are pre-tested in newspaper, television stations, etc. in different parts of a country before a final choice is made prior to a national campaign.
The agency?Ts media planners have to decide what percentage of the target market they want to reach (how many people will be exposed to the ads) and the number of times they are likely to see them. Advertising people talk about frequency or ?oOTS? (opprtunites to see) and the threshold effect ?" the point at which advertising becomes effective. The choice of advertising media is generally strongly influenced by the comparative cost of reaching 1,000 members of the target audience, the cost per thousand (often abbreviated to CPM, using the Roman numeral for 1,000). The timing of advertising campaigns depends on factors such as purchasing frequency and buyer turnover (new buyers entering the market).
How much to spend on advertising is always problematic. Some companies use the comparative-parity method ?" they simply match their competitors?Tspending, thereby avoiding advertising wars. Others set their ad budget at a certain percentage of current sales revenue. But both these methods disregard the fact that increased ad spending or counter-cyclical advertising can increase current sales. On the other hand, excessive advertising is counter-productive because after too many exposures people tend to stop noticing ads, or begin to find them irritating. And once the most promising prospective customers have been reached, there are diminishing returns, i.e. an ever-smaller increase in sales in relation to increased advertising spending.
c. Comprehension
(Finish the text? Ok, now answer the following question, contact me if you need the answer)
- What is the best kind of advertising?
- Why do most companies use the advertisng agencies?
- When a company hires an advertising agensy, what are the rules of both parties?
- What is a media plan?
- Why does advertising become ineffective after a certain point?
d. Vocabulary (from the text)
- word-of-mouth advertising: free advertising, when satisfied customers recommend products to their friends
- institutional of prestige advertising: advertising that mentions a company?Ts name but not specific products
- advertising agencies: companies that handle advertising for clients
- an account: a contract with a company to produce its advertising
- an advertising budget: the amount of money a company plans to spend in developing its advertising and buying media time or space
- a brief: the statement of objectives of an adverising campaign that a client works out with an advertising agency
- advertising campaign: the advertising of a particular product or service during a particular period of time
- target customers or target market: a defined set of customers whose needs a company plans to satisfy
- media planners: the people who choose where to advertise, in order to reach the right customers
- the threshold effect: the fact that a certain amount of advertising is necessary to attract a prospective customer?Ts attetion
- the comparative-parity method: choosing to spend the same amount on advertising as onê?Ts competitors
- counter-cyclical advertising: advertising during periods or seasons when sales are normailly relatively poor
e. Discussion
Which of the following claims do you agree with?
- Advertising is essential for business, especially for alunching new consumer products.
- A large reduction of advertising would decrease sales.
- Advertising often persuades people to buy things they don?Tt need/want.
- Advertising lowers the public?Ts taste.
- Advertising raises prices.
- Advertisng doesn?Tt present a true picture of products.
- Advertising has a bad influence on children.
Promotional tools
Companies have to develop good products or service, price them attractively, and make them accessible to their target customers. But this is not enough: they also have to use various promotional tools to generate sales. According to a classification used in most marketing textbooks, advertising is only one of 4 standard promotional tools. The others are sale promotions, public relations, and personal selling.
4. Promotional strategies
a. Reading
THE FOUR MAJOR PROMOTIONAL TOOLS
He basic idea behind the ?omarketing concept? ?" that you make what you can sell rather than what you make ?" does not mean that your product will sell all by itself. Even a good, attractively-priced product than clearly satisfies a need has to be made known to its target customers. During the introduction and growth stages of the standard product life cycle, the producer (or importer, and so on) has to develop product or brand awareness, i.e. inform potential customers (and distributors, dealers and retailers) about the product?Ts existence, its feature, its advantages, and so on.
Accoring to the weel-known ?o4 Ps? formulation of the marketing mix (Product, place, promotion and price), this is clearly a matter of promotion. Since budgets are always limited, marketers usually have to decide which tools ?" advertising, public relations, sales promotions, or personal selling ?" to use, and in what proportion.
Public relations (PR) is concerned with maintaining, improving or protecting the image of a company or product. The most important element of PR is publicity which (as opposed to advertising) is any mention of a company?Ts products that is not paid for, in any medium read, viewed or heard by a company?Ts customers or potential customers, aimed at assisting sales. Many companies attempt to place stories or information in news media to attract attention to a product or service. Publicity can have a huge impact on public awareness that could not be achieved by advertising, or at least not without an enormous cost. A lot of research has shown that people are more likely to read and believe publicity than advertising.
Sales promotions such as free samples, coupons, price reductions, competitions, and so on, are temporary tactics designed to stimulate either earlier or stronger sales of a product. Free samples, for example, (combined with extensive advertising), may generate the initial trial of a new product. But the majority of products available at any given time are of course in the maturity stage of the life cycle. This may last many years, until the product begins to be replaced by new ones and enters the decline stage.During this time, marketers can try out a number of promotional strategies and tactics. Reduced-price packs in supermarkets, for example, can be use to attract price-conscious brand-switchers, and also to counter a promotion by a competitor. Stores also often reduce prices of specific items as loss leaders which bring customers into the shop where they will also buy other goods.
Sales promotions can also be aimed at distributors, dealers and retailers, to encourage them to stock new items or larger quantities, or to encourage off-season buying, or the stocking of items related to an existing product. They might equally be designed to strengthen brand loyalty among retailers, or to gain entry to new markets. Sales promotions can also be aimed at the sales force, encouraging them to increase their activities in selling a particular product.
Personal selling is the most expensive promotional tool, and is generally only used sparingly, e.g. as a complement to advertising. As well as prospecting for customers, spreading information about a company?Ts products and services, selling these products and services, and assisting customers with possible technical problems, salespeople have another important function. Since they are often the only person from a company that customers see, they are an extremely important channel of information. It has been calculated that the majority of new product ideas come from customers via sales representatives.
b. Dicussion
What kind of sales promotions are YOU receptive to?
- Coupons giving a price reduction?
- Free samples?
- Discounts for buying a large quantity?
- Prices reductions in shop?
- Packets offering ?o20% Extrâ??
- Competitions?
c. Vocabulary
There is a logical connection among 3 of the 4 words in each of the following groups. Which is the odd one out, and why? (Contact me if you need the answer )
1. advertising ?" competitors ?" publicity ?" sales promotion
2. advertising agency ?" advertising campaign ?" media plan ?" word-of-mouth advertising
3. advertising manager ?" brand-switcher ?" marketing manager ?" sales rep.
4. after-sales service ?" guarantee ?" optional features ?" points of sale
5. brand awareness ?" brand loyalty ?" brand name ?" brand preference
6. competitions ?" coupons ?" free samples ?" line-stretching
7. cre*** terms ?" discount ?" list price ?" packaging
8. decline ?" growth ?" introduction ?" product improvement
9. focus group interviews ?" internal research ?" media plan ?" questionaire
10. packaging ?" place ?" product ?" promotion
d. Case study
Image that you, in a team of 3 or 4 people, are responsible for promoting one of the following:
- A new taxi company in your town
- A new, up-market health and fitness club
- A new brand of jeans, manufactured by a new (and therefore unknown) company
- A new, fashionable but inexpensive range of quartz watches
- Potatoes, to be sold in supermarkets
Decide exactly what your product is, what is special about it, and which tools you would use to promote it. Imagine that you have a generous budget, and are thus able to employ several different tactics.

FJX,
I know you tried very hard on the topic but this really does not help. Most people are lazy reading long post. Try to make thing short and easy to understand. For example you can post a question like this "what is Mass Marketing" then wait for the answers from everybody. It helps people to get familiar with the Business terms.
Kind regards.

Thanks for ur idea, but my purpose is for....STUDIES, not to discuss. It may be helpful for anyone who studies about Business, like me, don''t you think so? I used to ...wander in some English club but no use, now I''m a volunteer to do that. We are still able to enter to some topics about the lifestyle, the love, the media,..., it''s ok and I will spam all, don''t worry

Thanks FJX for your great supports to SEC like this. Keep going on ! They are really helpful for us.
However, you can also post the exercises first, wait for some responses and give awards for the best response later. That might be 5 stars-vote, or a song, or whatever you think out. It draws more attention, effort, and interactions.
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Regarding your concerns about the section: Production-Product " I really donõ?Tt understand why 1, 4, and 5 can get the answer of E!" .
Question 1 : A long lead time must cost customer a long time to wait until the order finished. If manufacturer has large inventory, products can be stored and thus can be delivered with shorter lead time.
Question 4: Similarly, all customers wants to have products delivered ontime. Increased lead time will let them go with other suppliers. Large inventory helps manufacturers store more materials and finished goods.
Question 5: this might be understood as a result of question 4.Lead time increases and customers go to other suppliers=>lost sale and market share. It is usually permanent so producers have to avoid it. Large inventory will be a great advantage in this case.

Thank you very much! I got it now. Well, vote sis 5*
I was very confused as ...weighing that I should post the question for discussiing, case study or any exercise to the lessons or not. They all make my posts longer, if we don''t print out, we may not know what I did post. The main text is always the reading and vocabulary related, but it doesn''t mean everybody will read it, to understand something, we should have a cursory image of it first.... I didn''t think the exercises are difficult, so I just said: ''Contact me..''. Moreover, at each lesson I want to put it just 1 post, so it won''t be so difficult to look for the information.
Discussing together, your idea is very nice, sis Dimi! So why don''t we open a new topic on it? I''m really bad at writing, if we have a topic for grammar, wrting essay, or..., I think my English writing skill will be improved a lot
Next: Accounting and Financial Statements

Hi FJX,
Your postings look all so great, and I really appreciate them. In order to make this topic more interesting, some SEC members suggested to cut each posting shorter, put something funny into them, create more interactions by awards for correct responses or insert some pictures to make them more lively and attractive,etc.
How about your opinion?
We do need those business postings to study, but we want to make them more and more exciting.
Keep going on, FJX!

Accounting and Financial Statements
1.Types of accounting
a.Vocabulary
1. accounting: keeping financial records, recording income and expen***ure, valuing assets and liabilities, and so on
2. bookkeeping: writing down the details or transactions (debits and cre***s)
3. managerial accounting: preparing budgets and other financial reports necessary for management
4. cost accounting: working out the unit cost of products, including materials, labour and all other expenses
5. tax accounting: calculating an individualâ?Ts or a companyâ?Ts liability for tax
6. au***ing: inspection and evaluation of accounts by a second set of accountants
7. â?ocreative accountingâ?: using all available accounting procedures and tricks to disguise the true financial position of a company
b.Discussion:
1. What particular skills do you think different kinds of accountants need?
2. Do you think you possess these skills? (What are your assets and liabilities?)
3. If you have yet to choose a career, do you think it could be accountancy?
2.Company accounts
a.Vocabulary
1. assets: anything owned by a business (cash investments, buildings, machines, and so on)
2. depreciation: the reduction in value of a fixed asset during the years it is in use (charged against profits)
3. liabilities: all the money that a company will have to pay to someone else in the future, including taxes, debts, and interest and mortgage payments
4. turnover: the amount of business done by a company over a year
5. cre***ors (GB)/ accounts payable (US): sums of money owned by suppliers for purchases made on cre***
6. debtors (GB)/ account receivable (US): sums of money owned by customers for goods or services purchased on cre***
7. overheads (GB)/ overhead (US): the various expenses of operating a business that can not be charged to any one product, process or department
8. revenue or earnings or income: all the money received by a company during a given period
9. shareholders (GB)/ stockholders (US): a companyâ?Ts owners
10. stock (GB)/ inventory (US): (the value of) raw materials, work in progress, and finished products stored ready for sale
b.Reading
ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
In accounting, it is always assumed that a business is a â?ogoing concernâ?, i.e. that it will continue indefinitely into the future, which means that the current market value of its fixed assets is irrelevant, as they are not for sale. Consequently, the most common accounting system is historical cost accounting, which records assets at their original purchase price, minus accumulated depreciation charges. In times of inflation, this understates the value of appreciating assets such as land, but overstates profits as it does not record the replacement cost of plant or stock (or inventory). The value of a businessâ?Ts assets under historical cost accounting â?" purchase price minus depreciation â?" is known as its net book value. Countries with persistently high inflation often prefer to use current cost or replacement cost accounting, which values assets (and related expenses like depreciation) at the price that would have to be paid to replace them (or to buy a more modern equivalent) today.
Company law specifies that shareholders (or stockholders) must be given certain financial information. Companies generally include three financial statements in their annual reports.
The profit and loss account (GB) or income statement (US) shows revenue (or earnings or income) and expen***ure. It usually gives figures for total sales or turnover, and costs and overheads. The first figure should obviously be higher than the second, i.e. there should be a profit. Part of the profit goes to the government in taxation, part is usually distributed to shareholders at a dividend, and part is retained by the company.
The balance sheet shows a companyâ?Ts financial situation on a particular date, generally the last day of the financial year. It lists the companyâ?Ts assets, its liabilities, and shareholdersâ?Ts funds. A businessâ?Ts assets include debtors (or accounts receivable) as it is assumed that these will be paid. Liabilities includes cre***ors (or accounts payable) , as these will have to be paid. Negative items on financial statements, such as cre***ors, taxation, and dividends paid, are usually enclosed in brackets.
In accordance with the principle of double-entry bookkeeping (that all transactions are entered as a cre*** in one account and as a debit in another), the basic accounting equation is Assets = Liabilities + Ownersâ?T (or shareholdersâ?T) Equity. This can be rewritten as Assets â?" Liabilities = Ownersâ?T Equity or Net Assets. This includes share capital (money received from the issue of shares), share premium (GB) or paid-in surplus (US) (any money realized by selling shares at above their nominal value), and the companyâ?Ts reserves, including the yearâ?Ts retained profits. Shareholdersâ?T equity or net assets are generally less than a companyâ?Ts market capitalization (the total value of its shares at any given moment, i.e. the number of shares times their market price), because net assets do not record items such as goodwill.
The third financial statement has various names, including the source and application of funds statement, and the statement of changes in financial position. This shows the flow of cash in and out of the business between balance sheet dates. Sources of funds include trading profits, depreciation provisions, sales of assets, borrowing, and the issuing of shares. Applications of funds include purchases of fixed or financial assets, payment of dividends, repayment of loan, and â?" in a bad year â?" trading losses.
3.Financial statements
(According to the reading, we know what financial statement is. However, itâ?Ts not easy to perform in a certain way. Now I give you an exercise, as examples of financial statements.)
These are 2 financials published in the 1993 â?" 1994 Annual Report of The Arsenal Football Club PLC. (PLC: Public Limited Company)
There are 10 gaps in the 2 statements which follow. According to the information in the text (the reading), decide where the follow headings should appear:


(Notes:
- Unlike most company, but like many football clubs whose shares are owned by the company directors, Arsenal do not pay any dividends. Although they could probadly sell their contracted players for high prices, Arsenal choose not to value them as assets in their balance sheet â?" an extreme example of accounting conservatism.
- The debentures (zero-interest bonds) mentioned in these statements were issued as a way of financing the building of a a new stand. The debentures are repayable in the long term, which is why all the money raised in this way is recorded under a long term cre***ors and deducted from net assets.)
Now I give you the answer of this exercise to check, and â?oAccounting and Financial Statementsâ? is finished here. However, you can continue reading if you are interested in the form of financial statements, just my own explaination. Thanks.(1.Turnover 2.Overheads 3.Depreciation 4.Freehold properties 5.Historical cost 6.Debtors 7.Cash in hand and at bank 8.Corporation tax 9.Net Assets 10. Called-up share capital)

1. The title of each financial report must be included 3 parts:
- Name of Company (Organization,õ?Ư)
- Name of Report
- Date (Period,õ?Ư)
Now look at the Arsenalõ?Ts financial statements, you can see that

2. In fact, there are 4 kinds of financial statements which prepared from the summarized accounting data: (The readingõ?Ts got 3 but itõ?Ts on theory, also caused from 2 sources I have read: oneõ?Ts UK book (for the reading), and otherõ?Ts US accounting)
- The Income Statement: Revenue and Expenses are resulting net income or net loss for a specific period of time
- The Statement of Ownerõ?Ts Equity: changes in ownerõ?Ts equity for a specific period of time
- The Balance Sheet: Assets, Liabilities and Ownerõ?Ts Equity at a specific date
- The Statement of Cash flows: cash inflows (receipts) and outflows (payments) for a specific period of time)
Now back to 2 statements given, what could you name them? Ok, you can easily see that the 2nd one is Balance Sheet. How about the 1st one? Itõ?Ts because of the words they used, back to the reading and you will see. He he

3. Debits and Cre***s:
Well, we got those words in the definition of bookkeeping, right? But do you know what is meant by Debits (Dr.) and Cre***s (Cr.)?
Hm, a little bit of difficulty, but I can explain them in this way:
In the 2 statements above, you may not understand why some figures are in the gaps, itõ?Ts nothing if you studied financial already, but if this is the 1st time, u will not understand, I think. Yeah, the figures in the gaps are understood as negative number, and this is so-called Cre***s. Just understand it in this way (õ?~cos there are some troubles in analysing the transactions and õ?Ư these activities are forõ?Ư.accounting studies, not business studies in the whole, he he). So, the others, are Debits. Remember that Dr. and Cr. are always in couple, Dr. is first, Cr. is the next, and indenting the Cr.

I was.... weighing your idea sis, but I really don''t know how to put it in your way. ....It''s a good idea! However, make it as an exercise or something like that, I have no way. Hm, well, may you take one hand in this job? Just to make my posts more exciting as u expected.
Next: Banking

I have the full of CDs "ENGLISH for BUSINESS with 9 cds. I will try to study it on Tet Holiday. I hope to share a copy with someone, so that we study and discuss together. Who are interest in this, sms to me !! Thanks