PART I. MANAGEMENT

A. Listen to the description of the role and function of four different European institutions. There will be a pause between each description. Decide which of the European institutions is being described in each case.

B. Now listen to the tape again and fill in the blanks in the following text.

The European Council is the most powerful (1)................institution in the European

Union. In December 1974 the common practice of heads of state and their leading ministers meeting to discuss West European affairs was institutionalized. This mee­ting, called the Conseil Europeen by President Giscard d'Estaing, was henceforth to

take place (2)................times a (3)................and was organized on the model of the

French Council of Ministers working under the chairmanship of a (4).................The

latter's term of (5)................is (6)................. .Legislation must be voted either (7) ................ or by a {8) ................ majority. The second form of voting is intended to prevent individual (9)................from blocking legislation, especially on issues such as (10)................. .

The European Commission is the (11)................of the Community. It has at its head

(12)................commissioners that are appointed by member governments for terms

that may be (13) ................ . Commissioners must not only be competent but also

(14)................ - that is to say that they are not merely the delegates of the member

state that appointed them. The Commission, which employs well over (15)................

people in all, (16)................proposals for the Council of Ministers to discuss, acts as

a (17)................when there are conflicts between member states and (18)................

that the decisions of legislation are (19)................. . It also has a (20)................ role,

making sure that the terms of the (21)................are respected.

The European Parliament is a primarily (22)................ body made up of directly

(23) ................ Euro-MPs. The (24) ................ must consult the Parliament on most

main policy areas before accepting the (25)................proposals of the (26)............. .

Parliament may dismiss the Commission by a motion of (27)................passed by a

(28)................majority. It may also adopt or reject a (29)................ or amend certain

types of expenditure. Its powers were considerably increased by the Act of (30)............... .

The European Court of Justice consists of (31) ................ judges elected for a

(32)................term. A judge can only be relieved of his function by a (33)................

vote that he is (34)................to carry out his duties. The (35)................of this court

are secret, even though there are public (36)............... . The Court has extensive judi­cial power since European law takes (37).................. over the national laws of each

(38)............... . The Court may even be required to (39)................against a member state that is a (40) ………….. European law. Its other important functions are (41) ……..disputes between European Institutions and giving preliminary (42) …….. on issues for national courts. Actions may be brought to this Court by both (43) ……. Or (44) persons as well as by member states.

PART I. MANAGEMENT

UNIT 1

BRAND MANAGEMENT

Lead-in

Work with a partner to discuss the following questions:

1. What is the company's main technique for building brand awareness?

2. What is "brand image"?

3. Which brands are you loyal to? Why?

4. What place in the market shelf should brand unit take?

5. What advertisement techniques should be fulfilled to attract customers?

6. How to avoid and control falsification?

Useful language

I. Read the following text and be ready to summarise the main idea.

Text I. Brand Management

Brands are insubstantial things, mere symbols, names, associations. Sometimes they signal real differences between products. Sometimes they are pure illusion. Either way, brands are akin to a product's or company's reputation, and they influence consumers' perceptions. The wearer of a Rolex watch is concerned with more than keeping time; the BMW driver with more than getting from place to place. Brands add value by making customers loyal and, often, are willing to pay more for the things branded. Roses by another name might smell as sweet, but they would no longer fetch $30 a dozen.

Despite the evidence of the value of brands, creating and sustaining that capital are often neglected by consumer-goods companies. Under pressure to make big short-run gains in sales, many brand managers are cavalier about the long-term commercial health of their products. Increasingly they are abandoning brand-building activities, such as advertising, in favour of tactics, especially price promotions, which aim to increase market share quickly. In 1980 promotions accounted for about a third of all spending on marketing, with advertising taking up the rest. Now, remarkable, the promotions have reversed.

A forthcoming book "Managing Brand Equity" by David Aaker, a marketing professor at the University of California at Berkeley, tries to cure brand managers of this myopia. Often, Mr. Aaker argues, managers are not sufficiently aware of the damage the short-term thinking can do to good brands. A marketing plan centred on discounts and promotions, along with corner-cutting on quality, caused Schlitz, an American lager, to lose its position as a premium beer. In just five years, Schlitz went from $48m in net profits to $ 50m in losses.

Rarely can rivals inflict such severe damage. To launch a new consumer product in America can cost $ 75-100m; even then, most fail. At the same time, old favourites become virtually invulnerable. In 19 of 22 standard product categories, today's leading brand was also on top in 1925. In the category of food blenders, consumers were still ranking General electric second — 20 years after the company had stopped making them.

The failure of challengers to overcome the resilience of familiar names has led to another tactic also prone to short-termism: brand-stretching. In their eagerness to extend a popular brand's recognition and reputation to a new type of product, says Mr. Aaker, managers often overlook basic problems with the "fit" between the old name and the new item. Levi Strauss' s attempt to stretch itself to cover a line of smart suits failed dismally. Worse, it hurt the core brand: it took a snappy advertising campaign to get Levi's jeans business back on track.

More perilous still are attempts to milk additional sales from premium brands by taking them downmarket. Cadillac's reputation has still not recovered from its effort to attract lower-income car buyers with its cheaper Cimarron mоdel in the early 1980s. Diluting Cadillac's snob appeal put off image-conscious buyers who might normally have been keen on the car. Undisciplined use of the Gucci name almost brought the company to ruin; at one point there were some 14,000 different Gucci products.

Part of the problem is that the organization of most consumer-goods companies favours short time horizons. Brand managers at firms such as Unilever and Philip Morris usually stay in their jobs for just a year or two. Brand oversight by top management is generally ad hoc.

One solution suggested by Mr. aaker is for companies to hire or appoint people solely to monitor the status of brands. These "brand-equity managers" would be charged with taking a long view on guarding products' images, name associations and perceived quality. They would have the final say over marketing plans and the decisions of ordinary brand managers. Such a system is being tried at Colgate-Palmolive and Canada Dry.

But unless the incentive structure within the consumer-goods companies is changed, "brand-equity" managers will provide little more than another layer of bureaucracy. As Mr. Aaker points out, the main reason for brand-related short-termism is shareholders' expectations of sparkling quarterly earnings. Because brand equity is hard to put a price on, punters must use returns as a guide to future performance. This is the source of pressure on brand managers to turn to promotions to boost sales.

Price promotions can have a dramatic short-term effect on brand's sales, especially for some sorts of good. For fruit drinks, increases of more than 400% during the first week of a promotion are common. But a new study by the London Business School shows that such promotions have no lasting effect on sales or brand loyalty. Some consumers switch temporarily to the promoted brand, but once the promotion ends, almost all of them go back to the one they normally prefer.

Promotions that merely offer a discount or a rebate can cheapen a brand's image. Since price is often a signal to consumers of a product's quality (witness luxury drinks like Chivas Regal), a brand that reinforce the brand's image, such as American Express's leather luggage tags, or increase brand awareness, such as Pillsbury's baking contests.

Similarly, thoughtful brand-stretching cannot only help a new product break into a crowded market but can also enhance the core brand's value. Frozen-juice bars and vitamin-C tableеs have reinforced Sunkist's orange-tinted image of good health. But even a good "fit" has limits. Despite the association of a fruit-processor like Dole with all things tropical, Mr. Aaker says the company would be stretching things too far if it opened a tropical-travel service. His advice to brand managers echoes the words of David Ogilvy, a legendary adman: "The consumer is no moron; she is your wife."

II. Answer the following questions:

1. What are the advantages to a company of building up a brand?

2. What mistake have brand managers been making in their marketing?

3. What do the terms "brand-stretching" and "taking a brand downmarket" mean?

4. Why is it dangerous to take a brand downmarket?

5. What is the thinking behind the appointment of "brand-equity manager"?

6. How effective are price promotions in the short-term? And in the long-term?

7. What negative effect can price promotions have on brands?

8. What benefits can brand-stretching bring?

9. Is it really important to be brand named?

10. Should be brand units sent to stock after creating new collection?

11. How should quality and price of a product be correlated?

12. What are the most popular brands of nowadays?

III. Match each word in the left box with a word in the right box to form ten common marketing expressions. Then use these expressions to complete the sentences that follow. Text 1 will help you.

1. ................ are important brand-building activities.

2. Marketing tactics such as ................. aim to boost sales quickly.

3. Because of their association with quality and status, ........... often cost a bit more.

4. During a sale in a department store, many goods are on ................. .

5. The danger with brand-stretching is the damage that can result to the .......... if it is not successful.

6. A good ............... will guard the long-term interests of the brand it is promoting.

7. Launching a new ................ onto the market is a costly and risky business.

8. Customers who always buy the same brand of goods are showing ........... .

9. .............. is a measure of how well-known a product is in the marketplace.

10 In some sectors, the competition between companies for .............. is fierce.

IV. Complete each sentence with the correct form of the underlined word. In some cases, you will need to use the negative form.

Advertise

1. In our new campaign, our main ........ medium will be television.

2. Benetton produced a series of eye-catching .......... for their products.

Associate

1. Engineering firms often work in .......... with other companies on a major contact.

2. When there is a financial scandal, business people often try to ...... themselves from those involved.

Consume

1. Food, clothing and household products are all examples of ......... goods.

2. Wine ............. is high in France, and on the increase in other European countries.

Market

1. To make money, you don't just need a good product — you also need excellent .......... .

2. Some products are very innovative, but they simply aren't ............ .

Produce

1. Although the meeting went on for hours, it was rather .......... .

2. Since we introduced the new pay structure, ........... .

Profit

1. This line of raincoat is highly ................ — we must discontinue it as soon as possible.

2. If we are serious about improving the .......... of these outlets, we should take a good look at staffing costs.

Promote

1. We expect all our ............... activities to cost around $2 million.

2. ........... is a very important marketing function.

Rival

1. The ........... between soft drinks companies, Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola, is very fierce.

2. Otis is known all over the world as a manufacturer of lifts. Its reputation in the industry is ............. .

Sell

1. Which is your best- ............. product?

2. Our .......... force doubled when we took over our chief competitor.

Value

1. Our stock is so ......... that it cannot be left unguarded.

2. We were most impressed by the consultants we hired - their advice was ......... .

V. Read the text and point out the main ideas which are discussed in it.

Text II. Be Nice and Smile If You Want to Hire a Hungarian Manager

Eastern Europe is no more a block than Western Europe when it comes to the way managers think, according to research by an Anglo-Dutch joint venture. Questionnaires completed by 8,000 managers from 18 European countries — including 400 each from Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany — show that 40 years of Communism has distorted but not overridden national cultures.

For instance, Bulgarians are just as unlikely to help the boss paint his house at the weekend as their UK, Dutch or West German counterparts. But nearly a third of Hungarians, a similar proportion to that in Spain or Italy, would do so. "This should explode the myth of an eastern bloc ¾ all countries are different," says David Wheatley of British-based Employment Conditions abroad, which has developed the original research of Fons Trompenaars of the Centre for International Business Studies in the Netherlands.

Mr. Wheatley believes the research, which he plans to publish soon, should help West European companies employing and doing business with east Europeans. Deep-seated differences in attitude could be crucial to the way companies judge potential recruits, business partners and suppliers, as well as the ability to win business. Unless you recognize and take into account the differences, business relationships will falter or even fail, he says.

A Pole will call you utterly crazy during a meeting without meaning to be personal. Criticism of an idea does not extend to the person any more than it does among the Irish, the research finds. But East Germans and Hungarians are evenly matched between those who can take it and those who fear losing face. But all will take criticism of their plans better than Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards and Italians, the research finds.

A Hungarian manager is as likely to join your company because he likes and respects you, as much as the career opportunity itself. So friendly interviewing might pay off in recruitment. Colder, more formal work relationships — as in West Germany or Austria — might suit East Germans better.

Nine out of ten Hungarians will expect to be judged on the basis of who they are, rather than what they do. Austrians are similar. And in contrast to other East Europeans and his Greek neighbours, the typical Bulgarian expects to be judged more on how he works.

Surprisingly, the research finds East European managers are less collective thinkers than the West Germans, Belgians or French. Individual bonuses might motivate managers from Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and East Germany better than many Westerners.

More than half East German managers questioned thought the overwhelming goal of a company should be profit. This is the greatest proportion of any country — West or East — and compares with only a quarter of West Germans and one in eight Hungarians. And three-quarters of East German managers also believe in getting the job done, no matter how upsetting this may be for employees.

Both these attitudes should bode well for the restructuring of East German industry into a united German economy with its associated redundancies. But West Germans might find East Germans' distrust of 'the system' hard to handle. East Germans would lie to protect their friends rather than follow the rules, and might in turn question the West Germans' own values.

But having ditched the emotional baggage of Communism, other East European managers might still not be left with anything like Anglo-Saxon business values. Hungarian and Polish managers will be much more loathe to sake people to rationalise their industry than East Germans. Three out of five Hungarian managers would favour adjusting their enterprises' objectives, including profits, to spare existing workers. Mr. Wheatley says the more Catholic countries might retain a view of business modelled more around personal relationships than Western business values.

National barriers may well be replaced with cultural ones, the research warns. If that is the case companies should prepare themselves for business values as different as those between Latin and Anglo-Saxon countries in the West.

VI. According to the text, are the following statements true or false?

1. Nearly a third of Hungarians, a similar proportion to that in Spain or Italy, would help their boss paint his house at the weekend.

2. Mr. Wheatley doesn’t believe the research, which he plans to publish soon, should help West European companies employing and doing business with East Europeans.

3. Colder, more formal work relationships — as in West Germany or Austria — might hardly suit East Germans better.

4. More than half East German managers questioned thought the overwhelming goal of a company should be friendly atmosphere in the collective

5. East Germans would never lie to protect their friends rather than follow the rules.

VII. Match the words from the text with their definitions.

VIII. Read Text 2 and be ready to complete the following task:

Ex. lives next to you = a neighbour.

1. does the same job as someone else in a different place or organisation.

2. is from the West, especially Europe or North America.

3. is employed by a company, but who has no management responsibility.

4. is in charge of a business or department.

5. has recently joined a company.

6. sells goods or equipment to a company.

LISTENING

I. Before you listen, discuss this opinion from an executive in the advertising industry.

The purpose of most mass advertising is either to persuade consumers that your product is superior to those of your competitors, or to encourage retailers to give the product shelf space. Major food companies, car firms, banks, detergent manufacturers, and so on, have to spend a lot of money on advertising because there is actually not much difference between their products and those of rival companies. It's because the products are so similar that these companies spend a fortune persuading us that they're different!

II. In this extract from the Channel 4 television programme Design and Tech­nology, Kate Farara, Account Executive at JWT Advertising Agency, and Roger Partington, Marketing Director at Rowntree Mackintosh, discuss advertising in general, and confectionery advertising in particular. Listen and take notes on the key points. Then complete the following programme review.

Review

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 4103