Case Study: The Body Shop’s Ruby Ad Campaign

In 1976, when the cosmetics industry was making exaggerated claims about scientific advancements in skin care, Anita Roddick opened a store, The Body Shop, in a seaside town on the southern coast of England. Her product line, based on natural ingredients and age-old beauty secrets from Polynesia and the Amazon rain-forest, was a vast departure from the patented laboratory-created, animal-tested products that promised to stop the aging process, eradicate dark circles under the eyes, and otherwise correct a woman’s flaws. The products were plainly packaged, and they were not tested on animals and not promoted through extravagant advertising campaigns. Her company’s refusal to test products on animals, along with an insistence on non-exploitative labor practices among suppliers around the world, appealed especially to upscale, mainly middle-class women, who were and have continued to be the company’s primary market. Part of the secret of The Body Shop’s early success was that Continue reading

The Objective of Financial Reporting

The main objective of financial reporting is to provide financial information to current capital provides to make decisions. This information might also be useful to users who are not capital providers. The general purpose financial reporting develops superior reporting standards to help in the efficient functioning of economies and the efficient allocation of resources in capital markets. General purpose financial reporting focuses on an extensive range of users’ needs that lack the ability to obtain financial information needed from the entity. It should be broad enough to comprehend information for the various users. Therefore, the financial report is where they depend on to acquire information. Diverse users may require different information which might go beyond the scope of general purpose financial reporting. The financial reports are prepared from the entity’s perspective (deemed to have substance on its own, spate from that of its owners), instead of the entity’s capital providers. Continue reading

Recruitment Process

It is very important for an employer to design a recruitment process for hiring the best professionals within a given time frame. Though the process of recruitment may differ from organization to organization, it has more or less similar steps. Recruitment refers to the process of identifying and attracting job seekers so as to build a pool of qualified job applicants. The recruitment process comprises five interrelated stages, viz, Planning. Strategy development. Searching. Screening. Evaluation and control. The ideal recruitment programme is the one that attracts a relatively larger number of qualified applicants who will survive the screening process and accept positions with the organisation, when offered. Recruitment programmes can miss the ideal in many ways i.e. by failing to attract an adequate applicant pool, by under/over selling the organisation or by inadequate screening applicants before they enter the selection process. Thus, to approach the ideal, individuals responsible for the Continue reading

Retail Formats or Classification of Retail Firms

Retailing is to provide services and products and at a profit. Retailing consists of the sale of goods for personal or household consumption operating from an appropriate location offering wide range of access to its target audience. There are immense ways and places in which retail may be conducting in current business environment, however the aim of all types of retails is to engage with customer effectively and achieve the organization aims and objectives through the various strategies that may suit them.  Regardless of the particular type of retailer (such as a supermarket or a department store), retailers can be categorized by (a) Ownership, (b) Store strategy mix, and (c) Non store operations. 1. Form of Ownership A retail business like any other type of business, can be owned by a sole proprietor, partners or a corporation. A majority of retail business in India are sole proprietorships and partnerships. Independent Continue reading

Quality Management Tools: Pareto Analysis

Pareto analysis is a very simple technique that helps a manager to choose the most effective changes to make. It is represented as a bar graph used to arrange information in such a way that priorities for process improvement can be established. Pareto charts are constructed to provide a before-and-after comparison of the effect of control or quality improvement measures. The Pareto Effect The 80:20 theory was first developed in 1906, by an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who observed an unequal distribution of wealth and power in a relatively small proportion of the total population. This fact gave rise to the Pareto effect or Pareto’s law: a small proportion of causes produce a large proportion of results. Thus frequently a vital few causes may need special attention wile the trivial many may warrant very little. It is this phrase that is most commonly used in talking about the Pareto effect Continue reading

The Benefits and Harms of Advertising

The Benefits of Advertising Enormous human and material resources are devoted to advertising. Advertising is everywhere in today’s world, so that, as Pope Paul VI remarked, “No one now can escape the influence of advertising.” Even people who are not themselves exposed to particular forms of advertising confront a society, a culture – other people – affected for good or ill by advertising messages and techniques of every sort. Some critics view this state of affairs in unrelieved negative terms. They condemn advertising as a waste of time, talent and money – an essentially parasitic activity. In this view, not only does advertising have no value of its own, but also its influence is entirely harmful and corrupting for individuals and society. But advertising also has significant potential for good, and sometimes it is realized. Here are some of the ways that happens. Economic Benefits of Advertising Advertising can play Continue reading