IKEA in Australia

As a part of International Advertising ADV301 we were assigned to research an advertising campaign for a product or brand that is marketed locally as well as internationally. To write a report comparing and contrasting the actual advertisements/commercials and campaigns taking various factors into account. The following report will examine the world’s largest furniture retailer Ikea. By studying Ikea’s global strategy as well as the national strategies and the different advertisement internationally and domestically one will get a deeper understanding of their marketing and advertising executions. The advertisements that will be reviewed in this report are two TV commercial, one from Australia and one from the UK. I chose Australia and UK just to show that even countries with similar cultural preferences can have very different approaches. Background A Swedish man named Ingvar Kamprad in a small town called Älmhult, Sweden, founded Ikea in 1943. The company distributes its products through its retail outlets located in over 39 countries. As of October 2010, the chain has 313 stores, most of them in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia (Ikea, 2010). Ikea’s vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people (Ikea, 2010). Their business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of high quality, well designed and functional home furnishing products to low prices so that as many people will be able to afford them as possible. Ikea has made this possible by using inexpensive materials in a novel way and minimizing production, distribution and retail costs. IKEA and Advertising IKEA’s positioning statement is â€Å"Your partner in better living. We do our part, you do yours. Together we save money†, referring to the ready-to-assemble furniture. The brand image is the result of over 50 years work by Ikea’s co-workers at all levels all over the world. The actions done, things being said, the products offered, the low prices, presentation of product range and the information provided to customers all contributes to the overall image. Ikea has a long tradition of marketing communication and has upon till recently mainly focused on print media, which has shown to be successful. However in the last five years additionally media have been used to an extended degree including TV, radio and Internet (Wise, J., 2000) During the years Ikea has had a number of controversial TV commercial, some have even been banned form certain countries throughout the world. However Ikea believes that their controversy is what makes them stand out and separate them from their primary competitors. The marketing department means that if you like it or not it engages people, it provokes conversation and debate, which successfully results in raising awareness of the brand and increasing sales (Wise, J., 2000). Ikea uses advertising to support many different areas of the business including brand awareness, store themes, catalogue drops and store openings. Every year Ikea publish a free catalogue distributed both in stores and by mail. The catalogue is published in over 36 countries and translated into 27 languages worldwide. The catalogue consumes 70% of the company’s annual marketing budget and is considered to be the main marketing tool of the retail giant. 110 million catalogues were circulated last year – three times higher than that of the Bible, with 13 million of these being available in the UK (Ikea, 2010) Advertising strategy IKEA’s target audience is the same in each country they are situated in and is roughly described as â€Å"everyone† but mainly focusing on young families and couples starting out. â€Å"You have more ideas and ambitions than you have a thick wallet during that period of your life, we think Ikea fits in mostly there† says Christer Granstrand, head of Ikea's international marketing department (Wise, J., 2000). However the target audiences differ from country to country in terms of how they perceive or interpret symbols or stimuli, respond to humor or emotional appeals, as well as in levels of literacy and languages spoken. Most of Ikea’s ads are known to have a sense of simplicity, practicality, rebelliousness and the unexpected. Ikea has managed to maintain a kind of overall brand personality across the markets, even if the company is split by country into franchises operating with almost complete autonomy, including setting its own advertising budget and developing its own marketing initiatives (Wise, J., 2000). This means that the decision process is centralized but the advertising approach is regional (Mueller, B. 2006). Campaigns are based around the unique marketing conditions and cultural sensibilities of each country. Ikea realized that to strengthen its presence in the global market it was necessary to localize. They have over the year worked with different advertising agencies to bring out some of the most creative and unconventional television spots across the globe. Ikea uses a standardized strategy with modified executions. Within a homogeneous environment advertising standardization is recommendable. If, on the contrary, environmental variables across markets are heterogeneous, customized advertising should be favored (Oboulo, 2010). Some studies argue that a standardized advertising strategy is the most desirable option when consumer needs are universal, while others argue that adaptation of the advertising strategy across boundaries is more appropriate due to differing consumer buying motives and cultures. Languages barriers, media limitation and culture diversity are three major factors that need to be taken in to consideration when developing a strategy. Language is one of the major barriers to effective communication through advertising. The problem involves different languages of different countries, different languages or dialects within one country. Communication is impeded by the great diversity of cultural heritage and education which exists within countries and which causes varying interpretations of even single sentences and simple concept (Payne, N., 2009) Even the simplest and most taken for granted aspects of advertising need to be carefully researched. Colors, numbers, symbols and images do not all translate well across cultures. Ikea sells home furnishing products, but not just products but also a way of life, they sell a lifestyle. The lifestyle we have and the way we live differs enormously between cultures and that insight is something Ikea has taken into account not only by tailoring the product range depending on the market but also adapting the advertising execution accordingly. For example, European spots, particularly those in the UK, are more in your face than those in North America, which tend to be more comedic. However Ikea has in general over the last years moved towards idea advertising and away from product and price spots that define many of the chain's competitors (Wise, J., 2000). A reason for Ikea’s international marketing success is that executives from Sweden are located wherever Ikea has a head office such as across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, which helps to carry forward the company’s corporate culture (Wise, J., 2000). The international marketing department develops common strategies during meetings with local marketing managers where they look at common values, ideas and how they would fit with the traditional vision of Ikea.

How Litigation and Court System Affect Immigration Research Paper

How Litigation and Court System Affect Immigration - Research Paper Example The Centre for Public Studies also reported that the United Nations in 2005 found that there were at least 191 million migrants of international descent across the globe. This represents about 3% of the total world populations and is mostly from the developing nations. The numbers of people living in their countries of birth are expected to dwindle in the near future since there is an increasing influx of individuals who seek residence outside their countries of origin mainly for financial reasons. In the current day of world economic recession, influxes of immigrants are posing financial/economic, safety and population challenges in the countries that host immigrants. The increases in population are rising faster than economic growth. Given that most countries are putting down strict laws where immigrants and refugees are concerned, most immigrants are finding â€Å"underhand ways of becoming citizens of the countries† that they desire thereby raising diplomatic and legal con cerns in the countries affected (Romero and Hing 230). The problems that have accompanied the influx of immigrants are not limited to logistical issues on housing and economy, but also on fraud and security issues. Among the most significant questions that have been raised are the employment of non-immigrant citizens, government provision of infrastructure and the longtime change of culture and ways of life of the people; which adversely affects the citizens. For the stated reasons, many governments have developed different policies and laws that govern the acceptance and handling of immigrants. Wexler widely studied that the laws vary from one country to another and the judicial involvement in cases pertaining to such topics also varies from one country to another (1). The politics of immigration in the present day is however increasingly revolving around issues like terrorism and national security. For example, the Australian public policy debates on immigration have been based on the burdens that result from populations surges may have on the infrastructure, public services and the natural environment. There is increasingly a high level of political sensitivity on uncontrolled entry of migrants and the risk of ethnic and racial tensions that might result from such associations. Wexler stated that judicial power has been invoked in the concern for immigration issues and parliament has over time tried to confine the area of operation of the judicial review and the jurisdiction of courts (1). In the United States, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 forms the basic body of immigration law in the country. This Act is also contained in the United States Code (U.S.C.) which contains all the laws of the United States of America. This Act has undergone several amendments so as to reach several current requirements in immigration. In the 1990 Immigration and Nationality Act, an amendment was done to change the preference and level of admission of immigrants into the United States. It was also meant to provide administrative naturalization among other functions.  

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Economic Analysis Project - Research Paper Example The overall national income of United States of America is being decreased. Highest concern has been raised about the job or labor market of the country. There are number of people who are looking for suitable jobs and are not able to find one. On the other hand the average take home wages have been decreasing considerably (Pear, 2011). This all results in further increasing the issues and problems for the economists and policy makers, who are in search of different ways to come out of the after affects of the economic recession. Government of United States of America along with other policy makers are busy in devising such a policy or strategy which facilitates them in the process of recovering. Different policies and initiatives are being taken by the officials and policy makers, but despite of this there has been continuous decrease in the overall income and output level of the economy. It has been reported that the national income of United States of America decreased by almost 9 .8 percent after the recession till June this year. According to different economics analysts, this is one of the largest decline in past few decades (Pear, 2011). Despite of the little improvement in overall unemployment rate, the average wage rate is reporting constant decline (Pear, 2011). This issue is not only of high importance for the job seekers, but also for job providers and the government of United States of America. As it has direct link with the overall economic condition of the country. And there is a high need of coming up with some effective strategy in order to overcome this problem. In order to solve this issue or problem, it is necessary to first identify the reasons and causes behind it. This is possible only through a proper and thorough applied economic analysis. APPLIED ECONOMIC ANALYSIS FOR IDENTIFYING MAIN REASONS BEHIND THE ISSUE AND COMING UP WITH EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES: In order to better understand the overall situation it is important to have a look at th e basic elements and factors which are directly related to the issue. First step in this regard is to identify and explore the reasons and factors behind the constant decrease in the wage rates and also in the overall national income of the country (Pear, 2011). Different analysts have presented several elements which are responsible for this. One of the main factor for this declining wage rate is high unemployment rate. There are several people who are in search of job, who are also ready to work at nominal hourly rates. Along with this, employees cannot demand high salary because of the increasing unemployment. It will be easy to understand these factors by applying the concept of supply and demand. In a normal market prices and level of output are decided by the forces of supply and demand. Similarly, in labor market wage rates are decided by the supply and demand of the labor. The concept of Marginal Productivity, tried to explain the relationship between the wage rate and deman d of the labor. According to this concept the wage rates are directly related to the demand of the labor. If there is more demand of labor the average wage rates will also increase. Whereas the there is an inverse relationship between the supply of labor and wage rates. If the supply of labor exceeds the demand of labor, then there is a significant decrease in th

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