English for Economists

Ex. 5. Match the words in column A with their synonyms in column B:

	A		B
1)	identify	a)	commodity
2)	item	b)	producer
3)	product	c)	buyer/client
4)	manufacturer	d)	estimate
5)	customer	e)	article

Ex. 6. Fill in the gaps using the words given below. Some words are to be used twice:

1.Marketing has become a … factor in business success.

2.One of the advantages of … marketing is the possibility of becoming the leader in a specific market … .

3.Modern marketing is most simply defined as the process of … the flow of … from … to … .

4.Today’s companies … increasingly stiff … , and the rewards will go to those who can best … customer.

Words for reference: segment, customer, competition, key, identify, producer, face, directing, goods, needs, target.

Comprehension

Ex. 1. Complete the sentences using information from the text:

1.A market is the place where the seller meets buyer to exchange … … … .

2.Market research estimates …… , describes ………., and measures …….

3.Marketing encompasses a broad range of activities including………

4.One of the advantages of target marketing is the possibility of ….

Ex. 2. Find information in the text to answer the following questions.

1.What factors are required for marketing to occur?

2.What kind of decisions is required to implement a marketing strategy?

3.What is the “marketing mix”?

4.Why are firms becoming more custom-oriented?

5.Whatdoes afirmusuallycarryoutbefore itintroducesaproductontothe market?

6.What kind of relationship does a marketing research study?

7.What is the difference between macroand micromarketing?

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Text 2

As you read the text underline the main ideas and supporting information and explain how to build and achieve a strong brand.

Building a Brand

The term brand derives from the mark made on cattle to signify identification and ownership. At its simplest, a brand is a proper noun and that noun could relate, for example, to a product, service, company, country or other destination, political party, person or sports team. A more complex view of a brand is that it consists of a set of values, some functional and emotional benefits and even the type of customers to whom the brand appeals. Sometimes the essence of the brand can be captured in a slogan. Examples include BMW’s ‘the ultimate driving machine’, and the BBC Horizon programme’s, ‘pure science, sheer drama’. Building strong brands is a key task for marketers. How this is achieved is likely to vary from case to case but there are some general principles.

The brand name

Firstly and, according to some marketers, most importantly of all, is the brand name itself. Brand names can sometimes be abstract, like Kodak, or redolent of the product, such as Swatch, or simply based on the name of the brand owner e.g. Ford.

Being around for a long time and being first

Being around for a long time and being first often helps. Many of today’s top brands were introduced a long time ago. Levi’s were first worn in 1872.

The core promise

The core promise could be the quality of the product, or a unique feature. Often it is a bundle of values and benefits that have become integral to the core product or service. The highly successful Levi’s 501 jeans were associated with a mixture of rebelliousness, originality, freedom and American culture – all this on top of a quality product.

Consistency and contemporaneity

Those brands that have survived a long time have generally kept their core promise consistent over time but have been able to present it in a way that is in tune with changing times.

Effective marketing communications

Effective marketing communications are key to building strong brands. Some brands do this by investing heavily in media advertising campaigns. Others prefer to use different communication channels such as public relations, direct mail campaigns or text messaging. In a world where consumers are bombarded with messages, it is difficult for any one brand to break through.

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Organisational culture

Lastly, but very significantly, increasing attention is being paid to the development of an organisational culture and a set of organisational values that support the brand values. Brand owners should consider the need to build genuine corporate social responsibility into their organisation’s values.

CASE STUDY

A. Introduction to the problem.

Top-selling Levi’s jeans have remained almost the same since they were created over 100 years ago. What makes these jeans so popular all over the world? Consider fabric, price, style, quality, fit, durability, etc.

What brand of jeans do you prefer to wear? Why?

If you owned such an old company as Levi Strauss & Co., what managerial decisions would you make to maintain in a stiff competitive market?

B. Scanning for Information

Work in groups of three. Each person should scan one of the three articles on Levi Strauss & Co. and take notes in the appropriate section of the outline after the articles. Then, share information so that everyone in your group has the same data and can fill in the Levi Strauss & Co. Product History outline completely. Then be ready to answer the questions:

–How did the original Mr. Levi Strauss create jeans?

–What new Levi products have succeeded or failed in recent years?

–Why does Levi Strauss and Co. continue to develop new products?

Text A

The Creation of Levi Jeans

The life of Levi Strauss is a U.S. success story. A German who immigrated to America in 1847 at age twenty, Levi Strauss began by selling needles, thread, and buttons in New York. On the invitation of his brother-in-law, he sailed to San Francisco in 1853.

Gold had been discovered in California a few years before, and the Gold Rush had begun. The population exploded as more and more people came to try to get rich overnight. Suddenly, thousands of people started mining for gold. Strauss noticed that the miners complained that their pants were always tearing easily and that the pockets ripped apart as soon as one put a few nuggets1 in them.

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Strauss saw a business opportunity. He began making pants out of some heavy brown canvas he had brought to use for tents or wagon covers. These new pants were stiff, but they sold briskly. When the original fabric was used up, Strauss sent to Europe for more. What he got was a lighter, more flexible fabric from Nimes, France, called "serge de Nimes." This cloth, which became known as denim, proved even more useful for pants, since it was just as strong but much more comfortable. With indigo, the pants were dyed the familiar blue colour.

Miners still complained of problems with their pockets. On the advice of Nevada tailor Jacob Davis, Strauss went to a blacksmith and had the jeans pockets reinforced with metal rivets. In 1873 they patented2 the popular innovation. The rivets, along with the patterned stitching on the hip pockets, became Levi trademarks.

Levi Strauss & Co. has continued to flourish. Since those early days, it has been a leader in the garment industry. Jeans have become desirable and even fashionable clothing for not only miners, farmers, and cowboys, but also for movie stars, executives, women, children, and teenagers from all over the world. The company is still run by descendants of Levi Strauss. Robert Haas, who heads up the Tailored Classics division, is the great-great-grandnephew of the founder. The company now markets a wide range of clothing and accessories, all under the brand name Levi's. Many new Levi products have been launched over the years. The company is still best known, however, as the maker of Levi jeans, the pants that are guaranteed to shrink3 wrinkle, and fade4.

Notes:

8.small lumps of rock with gold;

9.legally registered as company property;

10.become smaller after washing;

11.lose colour.

Text B

Other Levi Strauss Products

The original and most famous Levi Strauss product is blue jeans. Throughout its history, however, the company has researched and developed a number of other products. Some of these have succeeded beautifully, but others have flopped completely.

In 1954, flushed with the success of the cotton pants it had introduced a few years earlier, Levi brought out a line of permanent press (no-iron) trousers (slacks). Within six months, 5 out of every 100 pairs sold had been returned, and Levi had to admit it didn't have the right fabric for permanent press. Fifteen years later, as the company was planning its major expansion, it hit on a couple

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of equally dramatic flops. First was the denim bathing suit—which, when wet, weighed the wearer down to the point of imminent drowning. Next was a line of disposable (throw-away) sheets and towels. These, Levi discovered, were not high on the consumer's list of priorities. Unable to interest hotels in the product, the company was saved when the factory that made the sheets burned down. Levi absorbed the $250,000 loss.

Eventually Levi created six new divisions, ranging from jeans to accessories and including women's sportswear, Levi's for Girls. The diversification1 worked. In the mid-1970s Levi's sales hit the billion-dollar mark, having taken 125 years to reach that milestone. Four years later sales hit $2-billion. In 1979 the company ranked 167 on Fortune's2 list of the 500 largest industrial corporations, and 20 in net profits.3 Between 1970 and 1980 Levi had grown an average of 23 percent a year. In 1979 alone it sold 143 million garments.

In menswear, though, all Levi products had been aimed at the middle of the market. The company had brought out a line of moderately dressy slacks and polyester leisure suits—the Action Slack and Action Suit—and was doing a brisk business with them. But the tempting upper end of the market remained untouched.

“If we want to grow we're probably going to have to go to upper moderate price points,” one Levi official explained, “and somewhat higher taste levels for our products.” In short, they needed to sell more expensive clothes like the Tailored Classic. If Levi could sell sport coats, dress slacks, and suits, a whole new market would open up. The Tailored Classic might make money all by itself. But even more important, it would get Levi into the business of producing fancier and costlier clothing. The consumer would come to think of it as a manufacturer of dress and it could spin off4 many more such lines in the future.

Notes:

1.production of very different kinds of products;

2.an important U.S. business magazine;

3.profits after the company pays income taxes;

4.create (other related products).

Text C

Why New Products Are Needed

Why, with such a record of success, would any comрапу be worrying about making new-products? Part of the answer, obviously, is the sheer riskiness of depending so heavily on a single-item. The boom in jeans was in many ways a historical accident, and what history has given it can also take away.

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Then, too, the demographics of the marketplace were already beginning to change. Jeans were no longer the exclusive province of youth: baby boomers1 who had grown up on Levi's kept on wearing them. But they would no longer be wearing them everywhere and all the time, as they did when they were teenagers. And the next generation of adolescents was not so numerous. The birth rate had peaked in 1957; by 1964, demographers agreed, the baby boom in the United States was over. The bulge in the population that the boom had created would soon be moving into a world of casual slacks, leisure suits, and coats and ties. From a marketing point of view, that's where the action would be.

Finally, the competition had been gearing up. Levi’s had always shared the market with Blue Bell's Wranglers and other national brands: Blue, Lee. But now everyone seemed to be selling jeans. Back in 1970 Levi probably couldn't have foreseen the popularity of "designer" jeans. But they could certainly anticipate that cut-rate models will become unpopular. To sell their wares, Levi knew, retailers would have to slash prices. The profit outlook in a competitive marketplace like this was bleak.

Note:

1. U.S. citizens born immediately after World War II (a period of high population growth).

Levi Strauss & Co. Product History

1.	The Creation of Levi	2.	Other	Levi Strauss	3.	Why	New	Products
Jeans		Products			Are Needed
A. Levi Strauss's Early		A. Flops			A. Single-Item Risk
Years		1.	No-iron slacks		1.	Jeans
1.	New York
2.	San Francisco	2.	Bathing suits
		3.	Sheets and towels
B. A Business Opportunity		B. Successes			B. Demographic Changes
1.	Brown canvas	1.	Women's sportswear		in U.S.
					1.	Aging	baby	boomer
					generation
2.	Blue denim	2.	Growth rate		2.	Lower birth rate
3.	Rivets	3.Men's		moderately
		dressy slacks and suits

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C. The Business Grows		C. More Product Ideas		C.	Increased Competition
1.	New customers	1.	Men's dressy slacks and	1.	National brands
		suits
2.	New products	2.	Other dressy apparel	2.	Designer brands
				3.	Cut-rate brands

C. Discussion

Work in small groups. Read the questions below. Discuss your answers with your group mates. Give your arguments. There is no one right answer.

1.Levi Strauss & Co. should stick to manufacturing menswear products.

2.Levi Strauss & Co. is known as a clothing company, so any new product should be clothing, too.

3.Levi Strauss & Co. should work on varying its jeans to expand the market. For example, it should bring out a line of designer jeans with a special fit and fabric.

4.The Levi Company has been so successful selling jeans that it should just be content and stop trying to grow.

5.In order to expand, Levi Strauss & Co. should create a new brand name. The company would manufacture the products, but they would not be called Levi's.

6.Would you recommend to Levi Strauss & Co. if they decide to enter the market in your country?

7.Write a business plan for Levi Strauss & Co.

WRITING

As you read the passage, underline the main ideas and supporting information. Then write an abstract of it. Dwell on the author’s tone and attitude.

Marketing Information System

In carrying out marketing analysis, planning, implementation, and control, marketing managers need information at almost every turn. They need information about customers, competitors, dealers, and other forces in the marketplace. While incomes increase and buyers become more selective, sales managers need better information about how buyers respond to different products and appeals.

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As a growing business faces more competition and uses more complex marketing approaches, they need information on the effectiveness of their marketing tools. If companies become national or international in scope, they need more information on larger, more distant markets. Finally, in today’s more rapidly changing environments, managers need more up-to-date information to take timely decisions. One marketing executive put it this way: “To manage a business well is to manage its future; and to manage the future is to manage information.”

The supply of information has also increased greatly. The United States is said to be undergoing a “megashift” from an industrial to an information-based economy. Over 65% of the U.S. workforce is now employed in producing or processing information, compared with only 17% in 1950. Using IT systems, companies can now provide information in great quantities. In fact, today’s managers sometimes receive too much information. As one theorist pointed out: “Running out of information isnotaproblem, but drowning initis.”

TRANSLATION

A. Translate from English into Russian.

Marketing Research can be defined as the function that links the customer to the marketer through information – information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems: to generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; to monitor marketing performance; and to improve understanding of the marketing process.

The marketing research process involves, usually, the four steps.

Defining the problem and research objectives is often the hardest step in research process. When the problem has been carefully defined, the manager and researcher must set the research objectives. A marketing research project might have one of three types of objectives. Sometimes the objective is exploratory – to gather preliminary information that will help to better define the problem. Sometimes the objective is descriptive – to describe things such as the market potential for a product or the demographics and attitudes of customers who buy the product. Sometimes it is casual – to test hypothesis about cause-and-effect relationships.

The second step of the marketing research process is developing a plan for collecting the information needed. To meet the manager’s information needs, the researcher can gather secondary data, primary data or both. Secondary data consist of information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose. Primary data consist of information collected for the specific purpose.

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The stage of implementing the research plan involves collecting, processing and analysing the information.

The last phase is interpretation and reporting. The researcher should try not to overwhelm manager with statistics, but to present the major findings that are useful in the decisions faced by the management.

Most large companies have their own marketing research departments. A company with no research department will have to buy the services of research firms.

B. Translate from Russian into English.

Исследователи рынка определяют потенциальных потребителей товара, т.е. лиц, которые, как они полагают, будут покупать его. Маркетинговое исследование проводится с целью определения наиболее подходящего сочетания элементов маркетинговой программы. После тщательного исследования каждого из четырёх составляющих маркетинговой программы вырабатывается стратегия маркетинговой деятельности. Если специалистом по маркетингу проведена хорошая работа по определению потребностей покупателя, разработке привлекательного продукта, установлению конкурентоспособной цены, нахождению удобных каналов распределения и продвижения товара, то такой продукт будет распродаваться успешно. Маркетинг является ключевым фактором в успехе бизнеса в условиях жёсткой конкуренции.

LISTENING

Listen to Steve Moody, the manager of the Marks & Spencer store in Cambridge, giving a hypothetical example of a marketing failure – a product that reaches the shops but fails to sell.

Note down your answers to these questions:

1.What does Steve Moody say is the role of Marks & Spencer’s head office?

2.What is the example of a product that fails to sell?

3.In these circumstances, whose fault would it be that the product failed? What had not been done properly, before the product was delivered to the stores?

4.Who would be the only people in the company that would be able to find out what is wrong?

5.What action could Marks & Spencer take?

6.How does Steve Moody describe the relationship between head office and the individual stores?

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SPEAKING

A.

You are discussing a new product with your marketing manager. You may use the dialogue below as a model.

Emily: We need to position (devise a careful marketing strategy) the new line (product) of our Hair Care for Men very carefully because it could turn out to be a real cash cow (money-maker), even though the product is somewhat gender-biased. Since the aims of this product are primarily yuppies (young urban professionals), we need to come up with ideas for a new image as well as effective ways to target this market.

Roger: What if we start by counter-marketing (convincing the public not to buy) other products like it? After all, it’s supposedly the best on the market and it uses the best hair care technology. In fact, we test-marketed the products and everyone in the test group loved them!

Irene: Once we get a good hook (attractive advertisement), we should begin a marketing blitz (extremely aggressive marketing campaign) to move the product. I think we should start by contacting a list broker (someone who can sell us a list of potential customers) and get names of men who subscribe to fashion magazines. Then we may call them and offer a rebate (partial refund) if they order now.

Jack: It may also be a good idea to launch (introduce to the public) the product in December.

B.

Summarize the information of the Unit to be ready to speak on Marketing. Use the following prompts as a plan.

–definitions of marketing;

–market segmentation;

–target market;

–marketing mix (the four Ps);

–relations of marketing to other social sciences;

–need in marketing information;

–Marketing Information System (MIS);

–steps in marketing research.

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