Pure Pakistani » Education

Should Students and Teachers Have a Facebook Friendship?

Sidrah Zaheer — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 07:05:00 +0000

In one of the states of America, Missouri, the court had made it illegal for a Facebook friendship between a teacher and a student. The teachers complained regarding the ban saying that it is unconstitutional. Facebook can be used as a good educational tool for the kids as they like spending time on the social network. It will give them a happy environment to learn new things. Finally, Missouri has taken back its “Facebook Law” and allowed teachers and students to be in contact on Facebook.

Now, with such permission also comes responsibility. There are many universities, colleges, schools and other educational institutions which have their own groups and pages on Facebook, where users get together and have a healthy exchange of information. For this very ability, Facebook does provide one of the fastest and most effective means of coordination and communication.

A lot of the teachers and students believe that they could interact on Facebook better then they get a chance in a school. It both saves time, energy and is more direct. Facebook has evolved into a great social media platform for businesses and brands to target their audience through advertisements and promotional packages.

If companies could utilize Facebook for their commercial reasons, why should not the education community use it for their advantage? Teachers and students should interact online through social networking that will give an organized method to their work. In Pakistan, it could work successfully where there are not many sessions held for teacher-student coordination.

TETRA PAK Media Awards 2011

Umer Kayani — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:12:05 +0000

As a socially responsible corporate entity, Tetra Pak Pakistan has a commitment towards the people of Pakistan. Be it health, environment or food safety the company has supported causes, highlighted issues and created awareness where it was lacking; and provided practical solutions where it was required.

Among other collaborators, the Pakistani media has been an indispensable partner in this campaign with Tetra Pak, and has played a vital role in highlighting the company’s role as an entity that promotes different causes, striving towards achieving a better tomorrow for the people of the country.

To acknowledge this support and to further encourage the media to increasingly report on key environmental and food safety issues for creating larger public awareness, Tetra Pak Pakistan has instituted the Tetra Pak Media Awards. These accolades will be awarded to journalists who participate in the Awards scheme by submitting their entries on environment and food safety. A fully transparent and credible process will be followed in selecting the winners.

Objectives:

Create awareness of food safety and environment issues in Pakistan
Encourage journalists to actively report on environmental and food safety issues
Inspire socially responsible corporate citizens to join this public awareness campaign

The Categories For The 20011 Tetra Pak Media Awards:

Awards will be distributed in the following broad categories:

Environment
Food Safety

With separate awards for the following subcategories:

Photography
Electronic media
Print media
Online media

Winners will receive commemorative trophies as well as the below cash prizes for their submissions.

1st Prize: Rs. 50,000.00 for each category
2nd Prize: Rs. 30,000.00 for each category
3rd Prize: Rs. 20,000.00 for each category

Important Dates:

October 24, 2011 : Registration opens at www.tetrapak.com/pk

December 24, 2011 : Last day for submission of entries

January 24, 2011 : Award distribution ceremony

Virtual University of Pakistan

Sidrah Zaheer — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:33:56 +0000

The Virtual University of Pakistan, which started in 2002, is the first of its kind and is based on modern information and communication technologies. It is a public-sector, not-for-profit institution, recognized both nationally and internationally that provides affordable standard education to students from all over the country.

It uses free-to-air satellite television broadcasts and the internet to teach enrolled students its various programs. The VU courses are also available in multimedia CDs and they can be streamed from VU’s servers. This gives its student an advantage of learning any time unlike in the conventional universities. There is a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) hosted on the VU web servers that can be accessed through the internet. There are discussion boards for interaction as well for the VU community.

The University fulfills the requirement of qualified professionals needed for Pakistan’s growth and also deals with the issue of shortage of capacity. Qualified professors from the recognized institutions develop and deliver various designed courses. Through Virtual University, those students enrolled in other universities can also take benefit of studying. So far, 60 cities have provided infrastructural support to the University for its students, which work as examination centers for the students.

There are many overseas Pakistanis who are also enrolled under its various educational programs. The various academic programs offered at the Virtual University are as following:

MS in Computer Science
Masters Programs
BS and B.Ed (Hons) Programs
2-Years Bachelors Programs
Diploma Program
Certificate Courses
Zero Semester
Specialization Certificate

PTCL Will Provide ICT Services to Eight Punjab Boards

Sidrah Zaheer — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:28:55 +0000

Recently, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) won a bid for providing all the eight educational boards of intermediate and secondary education (BISEs) in Punjab with latest information and communication technology (ICT) services. These eight educational boards include Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Multan, Bahawalpur and DG Khan Boards.

PTCL will give data center based hosting services for customized application software of the boards, countrywide IP based access to students and citizens and secure access to the hosting servers for the customer Network Operation Centers (NOCs). This will let BISEs to get hosting services for their various websites. Along with this, they will get online registration and issuance of registration card, submission of online admission forms and access to the results, retrieval and printing of roll number slips, interface for affiliated schools and colleges and any other services that BISEs want.

This is something that has long been going on since there has been an internet service in many developed countries around the world. The students should get an opportunity to have smart operational capabilities to deal with their frequent issues with educational boards. This will lessen the paper work and give more efficiency in dealing with a large number of students. The staff will also be provided by PTCL to work these systems. PTCL’s “Tier 3 certified Data Center” Lahore will provide for the management of the services with proper infrastructure.

PM Approves National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy after 16 Years

Sidrah Zaheer — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 05:03:00 +0000

Recently, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani gave approval to National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy for 2011. The policy will serve in the country’s socio-economic development. According to the policy, at least 1% of the GDP by 2015 and 2% of the GDP by 2020 should be reserved for development of scientific and technological research in Pakistan.

The focus is on environmental sciences, bio-technology, energy, water, mineral, ocean sciences, engineering fields and other areas that will assist in economic growth for the nation. Even though that only one percent is to be allocated for scientific development, it is still a pleasant news considering that such a policy has come forward after a gap of 16 years. This means that Pakistani scientists living in the country have to catch up on all those years remaining within the facilities they have been provided with. It is to expand on this very thing that they would have to put their efforts.

The Institute of Information Technology at Chak Shahzad, Islamabad is one of the leading institutes in the country built at the cost of the Federal Government’s Rs.1.2 billion, where almost 5000 students are studying different subjects related to science and technology. The Prime Minister has simply asked that this initiative should be supported completely by proper funding to sustain its growth. The PM directed the Ministry of Science and Technology to the Ministry of Information Technology for the necessary funds required to do the needful.

Pakistani Students Take Top Honors in the ThinkQuest International Competition 2011

Umer Kayani — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:35:00 +0000

Two teams comprising of seven Pakistani students have taken top honors among more than 33,000 participants from 52 countries in the largest ThinkQuest International Competition to date, sponsored by the Oracle Education Foundation (OEF).

ThinkQuest International Competition challenges students to solve a real problem using their critical thinking, communication and technology skills and the students presented solutions using a variety of technologies, including online applications and games, websites, photo essays, online blogs/journals, animations, and videos.

Pakistani students were part of two award-winning teams; six local students Sania, Sadia, Narmeen, Iflah, Rohan, and Ahmed of Generations School created an entry called “Mini Mentors” in coaching of Ms. Aniqa Masroor. While another local student, Taleaa of Generations School, teamed up with students from Singapore to help create an entry called “Obesity.”

“Mini Mentors” was awarded 3rd place in the ThinkQuest Projects event, 12 & under age division. The entry focused on how ants can teach us to deal with problems as a community, through dedicated team work, organization and perseverance.

“Obesity” was awarded 2nd place in the Application Development event, 19 & under age division. The entry focused on raising awareness around weight issues and providing online tools to help people manage diet and general health.

“I would like to congratulate the winners of the ThinkQuest International Competition from Pakistan. It’s a pleasure to see these students being recognized for their hard work in creating projects that address key social issues,” said Ahsen Javed, Managing Director, Oracle South Asia Growth Economies – West.

“It’s been a splendid experience working on this project with the students. They were particularly excited about exploring the wondrous world of ants, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves in the process.” said Ms. Aniqa Masroor, Generations School. “ThinkQuest has truly managed to engage children in positive learning activities by stimulating their creativity and critical thinking skills.”

“The Oracle Education Foundation is please to recognize all ThinkQuest International Competition participants for their outstanding achievements,” said Brad Saffer, Vice President, Oracle Corporate Citizenship. “These students identified real-world problems and accepted the challenge to solve them through innovative, thought provoking solutions. Throughout the process, these students developed skills that will position them for success in the classroom and workplace.”

The winners were selected from among 7,603 teams and represented China, Great Britain, Greece, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Moldova, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and the United States.

Prizes for the winners include laptop computers, school grants, and a trip to ThinkQuest Live, the inspirational awards event in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Supporting Resources

• ThinkQuest

• Oracle Education Foundation

Punjab Board SSC Part 1 & 2, 2011 Results will be announced on 4th Aug & 27th July Respectively

Umer Kayani — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 11:00:06 +0000

All eight educational board of intermediate and secondary education punjab will announce (ssc part 1 & 2) results for year 2011 on 27th july and 4th August.

Part 1 Final Exams result will be declared on 4th August and for part 2 , it will be announced on July 27th , 2011.

Punjab University Announces B.Com Part 1 2010 Result

Umer Kayani — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 09:26:34 +0000

Today, Punjab University has declared results for B.Com part 1. Though there are many students trying to connect to results, resulting into down time of the system.

B.Com Part I Results 2010

Please note that this online result is being provided through Punjab University online results system. Any delay you may find is due to overloading of Punjab University result system

Best of luck!

Nokia Hires Microsoft’s Elop as CEO

Umer Kayani — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 14:47:26 +0000

HELSINKI – Nokia Corp. is replacing CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo with Microsoft executive Stephen Elop as the world’s top maker of mobile phones aims to regain lost ground in the fiercely competitive smart phone market.

The choice of a North American executive to lead a Finnish company reflects the increasing dominance of U.S. and Canadian companies in the evolution of the phone business.

Apple Inc.’s iPhone has set the standard for today’s smart phones, while Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerrys are the favorite of the corporate set. More recently, Google Inc.’s Android software has emerged as the choice for phone makers that want to challenge the iPhone.

Analysts welcomed the choice of the 46-year-old Canadian, who has worked closely with Nokia at Microsoft and at Macromedia Inc. developing software for Nokia phones. He has also held top posts at Juniper Networks Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. At Microsoft, he headed the Business division, which makes Office software.

He takes over Sept. 21, Nokia said Friday.

The company’s share price jumped more than 6 percent on the news, but closed up only about 1 percent at euro7.79 ($9.91) on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.

It was the first time that Nokia, considered by many as part of the Finnish national identity, chose a non-Finn to lead the company that grew from producing rubber boots to leading the world in making handsets.

Elop, observing that Canadians and Finns both hail from northern climes, was quick to allay fears he might move company headquarters abroad. Nokia is an outsized part of the small Nordic country’s economy — and self-image.

“This is the home of Nokia, it will continue to be the home of Nokia, and I just love being in these facilities,” Elop said. “At the same time recognizing that while it is a Finnish company it is also a global company and there are employees and partners and customers of Nokia all over the world.”

Finnish Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi and Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen expressed satisfaction that Nokia was not planning to move.

“We have know-how, research and product development here. We also have an integrated and stable society to offer,” Kiviniemi said.

Nokia accounts for 1.5 percent of the small country’s gross domestic product and provides employment, including through subsidiaries, for some 60,000 workers in the country of 5.3 million.

Katainen said it was up to the company to decide on executive matters, including location of headquarters, adding that “what’s good for Finland is that Nokia is successful.”

With Nokia stock down more than 20 percent this year after two profit warnings, Nokia veteran Kallasvuo had come under increasing pressure.

Jorma Ollila, chairman of the board and former CEO credited with developing the Finnish company to an international leader in mobile phones, said Elop has “a strong software background and proven record in change management” to help Nokia meet new challenges.

In high-end phones, the hardware is becoming uniform, so the software is increasingly the ingredient that makes a difference.

Here, Nokia is trailing badly. It uses the Symbian operating system for its smart phones, which is older than Apple’s software and wasn’t designed from the ground up for touch screen phones. Other manufacturers that used Symbian have mainly jumped ship to Android.

“The Android camp is in the process of flooding the market with relatively cheap smart phones (that) knock the socks off Nokia’s current user experience,” Nomura analyst Richard Windsor wrote recently.

Symbian phones had 41 percent of the worldwide smart phone market in the second quarter, according to research firm Gartner, compared with 51 percent a year ago. Android phones, meanwhile grew to 17.2 percent from 1.8 percent. In the trendsetting U.S. market, Android was already the dominant software, according to NPD, another research firm.

Elop’s appearance at a news conference announcing the appointment was in striking contrast to Kallasvuo’s stiff press meetings made in halting English. Elop discussed ice hockey — close to both Canadian and Finnish hearts — and even jested about Finnish licorice candy he didn’t like.

“My job is to take this organization though a period of disruption,” Elop told reporters. “Nokia has many great assets in smart phone arena. It’s about the entire experience, it’s about the platform, it’s about the applications, it’s about the services.”

Elop, 46, joined Microsoft in January 2008. Microsoft hired him away from the network equipment maker Juniper, where he served for a year as chief operating officer.

“It seems that Nokia is now ready for an international charismatic leader,” said Microsoft Finland CEO Ari Rahkonen. “He is an international leader with broad international networks, a very charismatic performer and very keen on technology.”

In 2005, Elop became CEO of Macromedia, maker of Flash software, just months before Adobe bought the company. Flash allows people to use their Web browsers to watch Internet video and animation, and the software is now increasingly used on mobile phones

He is a computer engineering and management graduate from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and also served as a systems executive at Boston Chicken, Inc.

Elop has played a role in the growing cooperation between Nokia and Microsoft in recent years. In 2009, Nokia launched its first laptop, a netbook with a 10-inch screen that runs on Microsoft’s Windows 7 software. Previously, access to some of Microsoft’s most popular Web services, such as Hotmail and instant messaging, have been built into Nokia phone models.

The 57-year-old Kallasvuo, who joined the company in 1982, will leave as president and CEO on Sept. 20. Elop will replace Kallasvuo on Nokia’s board, though Kallasvuo will continue to chair the board of the Nokia Siemens Networks unit in a non-executive capacity. Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia’s joint venture with Siemens AG of Germany, makes networking equipment.

Investors have long been expecting something fresh and new from the company that once had the innovative edge in the industry. That has not happened since Kallasvuo took over in 2006. He has also been unable to tackle problems in the North American market, the company’s worst performer, despite a pledge to make it a top priority.

Nokia also has predicted that while global mobile market will grow 10 percent this year, its own growth will remain flat, and its ailing Nokia Siemens unit continues to see revenue fall.

Nokia, based in Espoo near Helsinki, employs 130,000 people worldwide.

Source:By MATTI HUUHTANEN, Associated Press Writer.

Today SSC Results 2010 will be declared in punjab

Umer Kayani — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 05:50:25 +0000

Today all eight educational board of intermediate and secondary education in punjab will announce matric(ssc) result of year 2010.

How and Why Culture and Nature of Culture is Important?

Umer Kayani — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:47:22 +0000

Culture

Culture is the most all-encompassing aspect of our social environment. It has been defined as “a complex of values, ideas, attitudes, and other meaningful symbols created by f human beings] to shape human behavior and the artifacts of that behavior as they are transmitted from one generation to the next.”⁹As such, culture is the basic determinant of much of our decision-making and buying behavior. It has a lot to do with why some people prefer Lay’s Potato Chips and others prefer Ruffles.

Each of us belongs to several cultural groups . We are also members of smaller groups, subcultures within the larger society. These often reflect geographic, religious, or ethnic differences. For example, there are regional differences in taste for beer: New Yorkers seem to prefer a somewhat bitter beer, Californians like a lighter beer, and Texans prefer their beer chilled to 32 degrees.

Frito-Lay spends a great deal of time tailoring products and their distribution to the preferences of different regional subcultures. Vinegar-flavored chips sell in the Northeast, mesquite-flavored chips sell in the Southwest, and s our cream-flavored chips sell in the Midwest. This marketing approach might be viewed as simple opportunism—if a discrete regional market can be developed through regional product development and marketing, Frito-Lay can make more money and protect its market position better. But it also can be put into the context of the movement toward more customer-oriented marketing and management, a move that is beginning to change everything from manufacturing quality to customer service—and is bringing the customer into the loop earlier in the product development and planning process so that more focused offerings are now practical, even for behemoths such as Frito-Lay and its parent, PepsiCo.

Taken one step further, marketers can focus on subcultures as small as the neighborhood around a single grocery store. Firms such as Frito-Lay are now experimenting with customized product selections and in-store displays and promotions based on careful analysis of a store’s neighborhood. The detailed data from scanners at checkout give companies the ability to see whether their experiments work.Kraft also studies the purchases of individual households in search of interesting patterns. The data reveal “clusters of brands that are bought by segments of households,” according to Lorraine Scarpa, senior vice president of marketing services at Kraft General Foods.¹’ It also reveals other patterns—some likely the result of micro-cultures that can be reflected in decisions about which Kraft products to stock in which neighborhoods. Scarpa explains,

In a group of 90 Kroger stores in Columbus, we looked at SKU [stock-keeping-unit] movement over a one-month period. The average stores stocked about 23,000 SKUs. 6,700 of those SKUs sold on a given day. 13,600 sold in a week. 17,500 sold in a month and 5,500 did not sell even once in 30 days! Are they the same 5,500 across the 90 stores? No! But a lot are, and when you manage your stores locally, you don’t care that much—you just want them off your shelf.

We’ve all noted the variations in what different grocery stores stock—sometimes it’s a source of frustration that you can’t find something that your local store stocks when you visit a store in a different town. Such variations might seem accidental to the consumer, but in fact they reflect the careful analysis of store-specific data.

The research firm Market Metrics in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, gathers data that include economic, social, and ethnic profiles; traffic patterns; per capita food expenditures; and information on store sales for each of 3,000 supermarkets.’³Now marketers can take the kind of personality profiles that Tracy-Locke developed for Frito-Lay and match them with individual stores. For example, Coors Light Beer is targeted toward 21- to 34-year-old, male, middle to upper income, suburban or urban heads of households who belong to a health club, buy rock music, travel hy plane, give parties and cookouts, rent videos, and are heavy television sports viewers.’⁴This description is so specific that you could probably pick them out just by their clothing, as Howard Davis can with his potato chip profiles. The combination of this profile and store-specific information allows Coors to identify, for example, the three top stores for Coors Light: the Food Emporiums at 1498 York Avenue and First & 72nd Street, and the Gristedes Supermarket at 350 East 86th, all in New York City. This is a subculture of importance to Coors, but one that sociologists might find a bit odd because it is identified primarily by its preference for a specific brand of beer. From a marketing perspective, however, it is just as legitimate as any regional or ethnic subculture—and probably much more useful.

The Nature of Culture

Culture develops because we live together with other people in a society. Living with others creates the need to determine what behaviors are acceptable to all members of the group. To meet this need, groups develop rules of conduct, or norms. Norms are situation specific—they inform the members of a particular cultural group what behavior is correct in certain situations. For the Ruffles customer Howard Davis pegged in the article’s opening quote, for example, wearing boat shoes with blue socks, khaki pants, and a red tie is no doubt accepted within his reference group or subculture, although it might be considered odd by other groups.

Underlying cultural norms are values, the deeply held beliefs and attitudes of the members of a particular society. Values give direction to the development of norms.

The process by which an individual learns cultural values and norms is called socialization or enculturation. We absorb cultural values, ideas, and attitudes primarily from our families, but also through the educational process and religious training. In later years, our behavior is refined by the influence of friends, peers, and the culture at large—everything from fine art to television—and even by marketers as they present ideas through their promotional campaigns. The constellation of attitudes and preferences that go into one of Frito-Lay’s brand-user profiles reflects a common history of family, educational, and social influences. This constellation has a certain stability-they are a real reflection of our culture as experienced by a certain group of people.
Cultural norms are a shifting landscape. Today, the Ruffles consumer may wear blue socks with his boat shoes; tomorrow, boat shoes may be out and loafers in. However, the underlying values are more constant. The Ruffles eater’s attitudes toward the importance of work, for example, are unlikely to change dramatically when he changes his shoes.

Although these values are more constant, they are not unchanging. When cultural values do shift, the impact on society, and on businesses in particular, is dramatic. And values do shift, only it happens so gradually that many marketers fail to take notice. One way to tune into the slower pace of value shifts is to track values by decade, rather than by year. What values were dominant in the 1960s? How do they compare with those of the 1950s—or with today’s values? When looked at that way, values certainly do change.

Take Americans’ attitudes toward luxury living and conspicuous consumption. It seems like a love of luxury alternates with a more frugal love of the simple life from decade to decade. And this swing of the value pendulum is reflected in a host of purchase preferences.

Two snapshots of U.S. consumers serve to illustrate this point. In the first snapshot, taken at the beginning of the 1990s, we see a shift away from luxury and self-indulgence as consumers begin to embrace the “simple life.” Time magazine reported in the spring of 1991 that the United States was shifting toward simpler, home and family-oriented values; Time’s shopping list for the new simple life of the 1990s illustrates the impact of these values on marketers:

Macaroni and cheese. Timex watches. Volunteer work. Insulated underwear. Savings accounts. Roseanne. Domestic beer. Local activism. Sleds. Pajamas. Sentimental movies. Primary colors. Mixed-breed dogs. Bicycles. Cloth diapers. Shopping at Wal-Mart. Small-town ways. Iceberg lettuce. Family reunions. Board games. Hang-it-yourself wallpaper. Push-it-yourself lawn mowers. Silly Putty.

Behind these commercial symbols were a fundamental and significant change in values and lifestyles. Thousands of “dropout” managers such as Peter Lynch, who left his star position at Fidelity for family life, and Barry Blake, who left an executive position in the liquor industry to run an apple winery in Vermont, gave up the corporate chase of the 1980s for a more meaningful lifestyle.

What did this value shift mean for marketers? The researchers at ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding did not know, but they were determined to find out. To do so, they have moved undercover investigators into a small town in the Midwest (they won’t say which one) to observe the simple life firsthand. According to one report, the researchers “are eavesdropping at school-board meetings, at the local cafe, and even at funerals (they say eulogies really sum up the town’s values).”¹⁶According to Dan Fox, the project’s director, they learned that “Everything that is important seems to be tied directly to children. And helping one’s neighbors is not just something do-gooders do. It’s all-pervasive.”

But now let’s flash-forward to another snapshot, this one taken in 1997. It reveals that the number of U.S. households with a net worth of at least $1 million rose 118 percent from 1992 to 1996.17 There are more wealthy people every day, and they are getting richer. And these people like their luxuries. An annual survey of these rich consumers called the Mendelson Affluent Survey (by Mendelson Media Research, Inc.) finds that rich consumers are living the good life. They are far more likely to participate in activities such as tennis, sailing, and skiing, and to buy the expensive equipment these sports require. Other reports indicate that the BMW Z3 roadster, a flashy $35,000 two-seater nobody would describe as practical, is chocking up record sales.

Another study (by the NDP Group, Inc. of Port Washington, New York) finds that growth in spending by people with incomes of $70,000 or more outpaces spending growth in the rest of the U.S. population. In other words, not only are the rich getting richer, but they are also spending more each year.

Perhaps this is why some marketers declared that “status was back” by the mid1990s. It seemed that the quest for the simple life was giving way again to the quest for the “finer” things of life. A Brandweek article declared that, “After years of retreat, affluent consumers are coming out of hibernation to indulge their appetites for the finer things.”

To kick off this seemingly major value shift, Fortune magazine did a story on “The Return of Luxury,” citing rising sales for products like Dior Perfume (at $200 per ounce) and a Louis Vuitton Attaché case that retails for $1,660.

Is the simple life now out again, and luxury back? Luxury products continue to sell well. But so do simple-life goods and services. One hypothesis is that the values in question are both on the upswing in the United States because of a growing economic disparity between the rich and the rest of us. If you take out the wealthy from demographic statistics, you find that household income for everybody else in the United States tends to stay steady or even fall from year to year. And if you are trying to raise a family on a falling income, you are more likely to see the appeal of a back-to-basics ethic than to pursue conspicuous consumption.

On the other hand, the pursuit of luxury may prove to be more democratic than we now think. It took more than millionaires to fuel the rapid growth of the gourmet coffee market, for example. Perhaps the free-spending ways of the wealthy are rubbing off on everybody else, and the United States will re-embrace luxury during the first decade of the new century. An alternative hypothesis is that the simple 1990s are out and a pursuit of luxury will dominate consumer spending in the next decade.

Which hypothesis is right? Such are the questions marketers must ask themselves in order to anticipate consumer tastes. We aren’t sure, but we have a suspicion that the second hypothesis is the best bet—that the pursuit of luxury will gain in popularity among consumers, regardless of their incomes. Why? Well, it’s that mysterious Midwestern town. You see, while we can’t swear to it, we suspect the researchers from Foote, Cone & Belding might have been studying the denizens of Wichita, Kansas. (If not, surely it was a town a lot like this one.) And if you haven’t visited Wichita lately, you might not realize that it was featured in a 1997 USA Today cover story headlined, “Cigar-and-martini town echoes nation’s prosperity.”

It seems that ordinary folk are packing into Mort’s Cigar Bar nightly (it wasn’t even in business back in 1991), and buying BMW roadsters from the local dealer at an amazing clip. Prosperity seems to have seized this dusty old town by the neck and tossed it into a new era. Perhaps the rest of the nation will follow.

Another, more long-term and predictable value shift of importance to U.S. businesses is the change in sexual mores. Society definitely views sex differently today than it did 40 years ago. Whereas in the past, sex was viewed primarily in terms of reproduction, this aspect of sex is given less attention today, and attitudes toward sexuality have become far less strict. Sexual values have changed in part as a result of birth control products, which, incidentally, are an excellent example of how products can and do drive even the most fundamental of cultural values. In the marketplace, these changes are reflected both in the goods and services offered, and in the promotional activities related to them. Few would argue that marketers have not kept pace with these changes in cultural values. Some marketers have used subtle sexual overtones to their advertising, such as the appeal, “All my men wear English Leather—or nothing at all.” Other marketers test the outer limits of the U.S. value system: The highly suggestive and controversial Obsession perfume ads are examples. But these ads are probably not popular in Foote, Cone & Belding’s secret Midwestern village. It will be interesting to see what impact the emerging constellation of simple-life values will have on the use of sex in advertising during the next decade.

In some cultures, the use of sex in advertising is more blatant. In Brazil, risqué advertising is the norm: In commercials for Playboy shampoo, a young couple is shown in bed, whereas another television ad shows two women talking about why people think they are homosexuals. In Japan, sexy ads are commonplace. Only three unwritten taboos exist: no frontal nudity, no depiction of sexual acts, and no advertising using sexual themes during the hours that children watch television. In Sweden, frontal nudity in ads is not only acceptable, but common. Yet the Swedish government, which distills and sells vodka nationwide, bans any form of advertising of hard liquor. In sharp contrast, in Malaysia, ads cannot show bare shoulders or armpits on female models, or touching, kissing, sexy clothing—or even blue jeans. Although the logic of cultural values sometimes escapes marketers, we must acknowledge the values nonetheless.

Sales Promotion Tactics: How Companies Cheat You

Understanding Exchange Behavior of People

Umer Kayani — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:55:43 +0000

The exchange process is involving two parties, each having an unsatisfied want or need and something to exchange. Frequently, however, there are more than two parties involved in an exchange. Instead of only one receiving party, as many as six parties, each with a different role, may be involved:

Initiator—The person who first recognizes an unsatisfied want or need.
Influencer—The individual who provides information about how the want or need may be satisfied.
Decider—The person who finally chooses an alternative that will satisfy the want or need.
Buyer—The purchaser of the product.
Consumer—The user of the product.
Evaluator—The individual who provides feedback on the chosen product’s ability to satisfy.

Sometimes all these roles are filled by one person; at other times, different people enter the picture at each stage in the exchange process. Marketers must identify all the important people in any given purchase situation. (By the way, rather than trying to memorize terms such as these, try to use them. For example, think of cases in which you play each of these roles as consumers. You will find you have become familiar with the terms and remember them painlessly as a result. Now if you could only figure out how to create this kind of involvement among readers or viewers of your company’s advertising!)

Understanding that modern-day mothers increasingly are working outside the home rather than in it, General Foods, a subsidiary of Philip Morris Company, is directing more of its marketing of food products toward children. A marketing manager told The Wall Street Journal, because “kids have more and more influence over food purchases, we felt we had to market increasingly toward children. In one year’s time, the proportion of Kool-Aid’s advertising devoted to children jumped 200 percent. In addition to the time-honored roles of initiating, influencing, and evaluating, children are taking an increasing role in buying.

A kid-oriented promotion from H.J. Heinz Co., the ketchup makers, illustrates the incredible power children have gained over household purchases in the last decade. Their research showed that children are now dominating purchase decisions for their products, so they decided to reach out to children and increase their involvement with the company’s Heinz Ketchup brand. Here’s what they did. Heinz sponsored a contest in which children submitted designs for product labels. The contest was announced through print ads in magazines that used the headline, “Hey kids, wanna be famous?” Heinz also sent posters announcing the contest to art instructors at U.S. schools. The response? Approximately 60,000 children sent in submissions, and some now appear on Heinz products.

Understanding Buyer Behavior – Customer on the Couch

Umer Kayani — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:40:16 +0000

The human being is a wanting animal and rarely reaches a state of complete satisfaction except for a short time. As one desire is satisfied, another pops up to take its place. When this is satisfied, still another comes into the foreground and so on. It is a characteristic of human beings throughout their whole lives that they are practically always desiring something.

—Abraham II. Maslow

The more you know about the customer the better. You never know when a small fact might lead to a better product.

—R. Stephen Fountaine. vice president of market research.
Kimberly-Clark Corporation

You’re somewhat in the Ruffles camp. You must have confidence to dress that way, so flat chips aren’t for you. You aren’t taking a trip on the wild side, though; not exciting enough for jalapeno-flavored. Maybe on a Friday night you’ll try cheddar to really step out. Bean dip too if you loosen up.

—Howard Davis. chairman of Frito-Lay’s advertising agency,
Tracy-Locke

Imagine this. Your target customer is a female baby boomer, a women of 40 years of age who juggles a management job and family. You have designed a product line just right for her household. And now you have a chance to make the sale, because she is on her lunch break, shopping for a gift for her husband’s birthday.

She has given herself a half-hour today to visit the mall nearest her office building. That’s less than half the 66 minutes spent by visitors to U.S. shopping malls on average. Will she manage to find her way into the right store, right aisle, and right display, in order to find the product you market and select it for purchase? You hope so!

All goes well at first. She notices the appealing window displays and signs outside the store, and turns in to examine the merchandise. Browsing her way down an aisle, she encounters your product display and stops, interested. “Ah, I bet he’d like one of these!” she says to herself, leaning forward to examine a sample. But then something goes terribly wrong. It’s hardly noticeable to the average observer, but more than enough to interrupt your customer’s concentration. What happens is this. Another customer wanders down the same aisle and, because the aisle is so narrow, accidentally brushes against your target’s rear end. Distracted, your would-be buyer begins to move down the aisle again, looking for other items. Then she glances at her watch, mutters “Darn, I’m going to be late for the staff meeting,” and heads for the door.

No sale. Sorry. Another marketing exchange falls prey to consumer behavior. This particular problem—one of a seemingly infinite number of things that can go wrong—happens to be well studied by Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell, a New York-based retail consulting firm. In thousands of hours of videotapes of shopper behavior, Underhill has identified a great many facts of relevance to marketers, including the observation that a woman shopper’s probability of being converted from a browser to a buyer is inversely proportional to the likelihood of her being bumped while examining the merchandise.

How could you have made that sale? Well, you might give more attention to where and how your products are displayed in retail stores. If aisles are narrow and crowded, then perhaps a free-standing island rack or an end-of-aisle display would eliminate what Underhill terms le facteur bousculade. And how about selecting a display location that is to the right of the doorway on the way into the store—since Underhill’s research shows shoppers almost always turn right upon entering a store. Oh, but don’t let them display your products too close to the door. If they fall into the shopper’s decompression zone, the area just inside the door where shoppers slow down and refocus before beginning their shopping, then the displays will probably be ignored.

If demographics and forecasting are all about identifying the customer, consumer behavior is all about understanding that customer. And customer behavior can be remarkably complex, as our brief observations of this lunch-time shopper revealed. In many ways, understanding customer behavior is a far more difficult task than simply identifying your target customers. As the psychologist Abraham Maslow observed, people practically always desire something. But it takes a great deal of insight to know what they desire, when, and where.

Howard Davis has a clear understanding of chip desires. It comes from hundreds of hours of thought and research on the topic. In his lesson-opening quote, he is sizing up a visitor to his office at the ad agency Tracy-Locke based on a quick assessment of the man’s clothing and appearance. Clues like boat shoes, khaki pants, red tie, plain blue shirt, navy socks, and a matching plastic pen provide the raw material for his Sherlock Holmes-style deductions. He thinks he can narrow down the visitor’s preferences to only a few of Frito-Lay’s 85 varieties of corn and potato chips. Is he right? Unfortunately, the journalist who reported this conversation did not say.

But the odds of being right are strongly in Davis’ favor because Tracy-Locke goes to incredible lengths to understand the personalities of each Frito-Lay brand and its users. The agency gets a head start from Frito-Lay, which operates an elaborate laboratory near Dallas dubbed the Potato Chip Pentagon. Staffed with close to 500 psychologists, chemists, and engineers, the lab studies everything from chip thickness to flavor patterns. For example, researchers have learned that people prefer their chips to break under approximately four pounds of pressure per square inch, and that they do not like the “Frito Breath” and “Dorito Breath” that people have after eating these chips. (Incidentally, Frito-Lay is experimenting with ways to reduce this effect.) The reason Frito-Lay invests so much in chip research comes down to a startlingly simple observation of human behavior. As Dennis Heard, senior vice president of technology, explains, “We have to be perfect; after all, no one really needs a potato chip.”

Nonetheless, Howard Davis is determined to find out who wants chips, and which chips they want. To start with, the agency does consumer surveys to find out what people say they want (Frito-Lay’s research queried a total of 500,000 people in a single year). But for some reason, people rarely tell the truth about their chip passions. Davis explains that “a lot of people who say they feed their families only alfalfa sprouts also eat potato chips.” And careful tests have revealed that consumers actually eat about a third more chips at one sitting than they say they do. (How did they find this out? By giving people pre-measured large bags of chips at a movie theater, then measuring the leftover chips afterward.) Perhaps people are not entirely honest about their chip behavior because chips are, with all that salt and fat, a somewhat unhealthy indulgence. And chip consumption is essentially a private affair—research shows that 65 percent of all chips are eaten in private.

Thus, Frito-Lay’s survey research, psychographics, and other standard research must be supplemented with creative insight. The insight starts with projective research designed to learn more about consumers than they know about themselves. Respondents are shown photographs, for example, each depicting different people in different situations. Questions such as “Is this person likely to eat potato chips?” are used to get at underlying attitudes and values. (Some of the results are amusing: Someone with an umbrella is not likely to eat chips, whereas someone watching TV is very likely to.) Tracy-Locke combines the insights from this qualitative research with the mass of survey research to develop personality profiles, and then prepares videotapes portraying the types of people whom they expect to eat various types of chips. Each of these tapes comprises images collected from modern culture—bits of ads, movies, and television shows. The videos are then kept strictly under wraps, for use only by the agency’s copywriters.

The public will never see these videos, but thanks to the diligence of a Wall Street Journal reporter, we can at least read a quick review of them:

The videos reflect distinct personality differences among eaters of various snacks. Some examples: Lay’s Potato Chips Consumers of these flat chips are seen as “affectionate, irresistible, casual and a fun member of the family.” Scenes show bubbling streams, puppies, flowers, a couple exchanging wedding vows, a farmer driving mules and a little girl stroking a cat. The music theme is the soft rock “Little Pink Houses” by John Cougar Mellencamp.

Ruffles Potato Chips Customers are depicted as ‘expressive, aware, confident enough to make a personal statement. Scenes show people getting into a BMW and other new cars, a man opening champagne, wind surfers, and a woman working out in a fashionable outfit. The music is from the fast-paced soundtrack from “Caddyshack.”

These videos are the culmination of an incredible effort to understand the people who eat chips. We don’t even want to think about how much this effort costs Frito-Lay, and Frito-Lay does not want to reveal how much it costs either. But the results of the research pay handsomely. Americans eat more than six pounds of chips each in the average year, spending more than $4 billion in the process. And Frito-Lay’s share of the market has grown from 25 percent a decade ago to 40 percent at present.6 With pretax profit close to 20 percent of retail sales, it is difficult to visualize the potential earnings from this market! For example, a 1-percent gain in Frito-Lay’s market share would be worth about $8 million in profits. The value of knowing your consumer’s behavior a little better than the competitors can be incredibly high.

Young Mobile Phone Addicts ‘Have Slower Minds and Weak Memory’

Umer Kayani — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:56:35 +0000

Recent studies have shown that young heavy mobile phone users have slower minds and poorer memory capacities in comparison with those who use the mobile phone moderately. They show slower responses and are also are likely to commit more mistakes.

A study involving a sample of 300 young students aged between 12 and 14 from around 20 private and public schools in Melbourne was conducted to prove this fact. It was conducted by a team of researchers from Monash University.

Dr. Geza Benke, one of the authors of the report said, “We took into account age, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status in our research,”.

The outcome of the experiment showed that kids with excessive use of mobile phones were much faster but not as accurate as their counterparts. According to Dr. Benke, this trend is likely to be manifested in the normal day to day life of the young people and can be translated to their adulthood.

Pakistani ‘Genius Cyber Kid’ Babar Iqbal Attends National Assembly Session

Umer Kayani — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:58:19 +0000

Islamabad, Wednesday, August 05, 2009: Babar Iqbal a young genius cyber kid was on Tuesday honored by the National Assembly in Islamabad where he had been invited for a session at the Lower House of Parliament. Babar is the world’s youngest Microsoft professional.

The 12-year old youngster from Dera Ismail Khan was given a place on the visitor’s gallery of parliament. Introducing the boy to the MNAs, the Minister for Parliament Affairs Dr. Babar Awan praised the boy for his great achievement which he said is an honor to the entire nation. He went ahead to state that Microsoft founder Bill Gates had personally recognized the boy’s unique potential and had offered him a chance to become a member of Microsoft Corporation.

Babar has set four world records in the computer and Information Technology fields. Apart from being the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) he holds other various certifications. He is a Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA) which he attained while aged 9, Certified Web Professional Associate (CIWA) that he got at age 10. At the age of 12, he participated in a Dubai competition where he became the youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS). The most amazing thing is that this competition was actually open to persons aged 20-35.

“The boy in this age has won laurels for the country and deserves appreciation and encouragement,” said Dr. Babar Awan.

The government was urged to ensure that Babar and others with similar potential got the best education by offering them scholarships to further their studies. Some who gave their remarks included MNAs Prince Mohiyuiddin, Khurshid Shah Sheikh Aftab, Dr. Doniya Aziz and Maulana Fazlur Rehman among others.

Five Million Rupees Awarded to Youngest IT Professional, Babar Iqbal

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