Legal Addresses of the Parties

Используя лексику, переведите на английский язык следующие выражения:

Предмет контракта и общая сумма контракта; быть неотъемлемой частью контракта; сопровождение и пуск оборудования; запасные части оборудования; товары, поставляемые согласно настоящему контракту; цена остается неизменной на протяжении всего срока действия контракта; место назначения указано в коносаменте; грузотправитель и грузополучатель; товары должны быть отправлены (to be shipped) из порта с первым же судном (by the first vessel available); срок поставки и дата поставки; товары должны быть поставлены в течение шести месяцев с момента оплаты; дата выдачи сквозного коносамента; обстоятельства непреодолимой силы; контракт становится действительным с момента его подписания; поставка производится на условиях CIF Одесса; Продавец гарантирует, что поставляемое оборудование удовлетворяет требованиям (to meet the requirements) приложения 5; нести ответственность перед Покупателем; маркировка, нанесенная несмываемой краской; оплата производится против предоставления следующих отгрузочных документов; выполнять контрактные обязательства; все споры и разногласия, возникающие при выполнении настоящего Контракта.

HOW COMPANIES ADVERTISE

Advertising informs consumers about the existence and benefits of products and services, and attempts to persuade them to buy them. The best form of advertising is probably word-of-mouth advertising, which occurs when people tell their friends about the benefits of products or services that they have purchased. Yet virtually no providers of goods or services rely on this alone, but use paid advertising instead. Indeed, many organizations also use institutional or prestige advertising, which is designed to build up their reputation rather than to sell particular products.

Although large companies could easily set up their own advertising departments, write their own advertisements, and buy media space themselves, they tend to use the services of large advertising agencies. These are likely to have more resources, and more knowledge about all aspects of advertising and advertising media than a single company. The most talented advertising people generally prefer to work for agencies rather than individual companies as this gives them the chance to work on a variety of advertising accounts (contracts to advertise products or services). It is also easier for a dissatisfied company to give its account to another agency than it would be to fire its own advertising staff.

The client company generally gives the advertising agency an agreed budget; a statement of the objectives of the advertising campaign, known as a brief; and an overall advertising strategy concerning the message to be communicated to the target customers. The agency creates advertisements (the word is often abbreviated to adverts or ads), and develops a media plan specifying which media - newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cinema, posters, mail, etc. - will be used and in which proportions. (On television and radio, ads are often known as commercials.) Agencies often produce alternative ads or commercials that are pre-tested in newspapers, television stations, etc. in different parts of a country before a final choice is made prior to a national campaign.

The agency's media planners have to decide what percentage of the target market they want to reach (how many people will be exposed to the ads) and the number of times they are likely to see them. Advertising people talk about frequency or 'OTS' (opportunities to see) and the threshold effect - the point at which advertising becomes effective. The choice of advertising media is generally strongly influenced by the comparative cost of reaching 1, 000 members of the target audience, the cost per thousand (often abbreviated to CPM, using the Roman numeral for 1, 000). The timing of advertising campaigns depends on factors such as purchasing frequency and buyer turnover (new buyers entering the market).

How much to spend on advertising is always problematic. Some companies use the comparative-parity method - they simply match their competitors' spending, thereby avoiding advertising wars. Others set their ad budget at a certain percentage of current sales revenue. But both these methods disregard the fact that increased ad spending or counter-cyclical advertising can increase current sales. On the other hand, excessive advertising is counter-productive because after too many exposures people tend to stop noticing ads, or begin to find them irritating. And once the most promising prospective customers have been reached, there are diminishing returns, i.e. an ever-smaller increase in sales in relation to increased advertising spending

TYPES OF BANK

1_______________

Commercial or retail banks are businesses that trade in money. They receive and hold deposits, pay money according to customers' instructions, lend money, offer investment advice, exchange foreign currencies, and so on. They make a profit from the difference (known as a spread or a margin) between the interest rates they pay to lenders or depositors and those they charge to borrowers. Banks also create credit, because the money they lend, from their deposits, is generally spent (either on goods or services, or to settle debts), and in this way transferred to another bank account - often by way of a bank transfer or a cheque (check) rather than the use of notes or coins - from where it can be lent to another borrower, and so on. When lending money, bankers have to find a balance between yield and risk, and between liquidity and different maturities.

2_______________

Investment banks, often called merchant banks in Britain, raise funds for industry on the various financial markets, finance international trade, issue and underwrite securities, deal with takeovers and mergers, and issue government bonds. They also generally offer stockbroking and portfolio management services to rich corporate and individual clients. Investment banks make their profits from the fees and commissions they charge for their services.

3________________

In some European countries (notably Germany, Switzerland and Austria) there have always been universal banks combining deposit and loan banking with share and bond dealing and investment services, but for much of the 20th century, American legislation enforced a strict separation between commercial and investment banks. The Glass-Steagall Act, passed during the Depression in 1934, prevented commercial banks from underwriting securities. This act was repealed in 1999. The Japanese equivalent was abolished the previous year, and the banking industry in Britain was also deregulated in the 1990s, and financial conglomerates now combine the services previously offered by banks, stockbrokers, and insurance companies.

4_________________

A country's minimum interest rate is usually fixed by the central bank. This is the discount rate, at which the central bank makes secured loans to commercial banks. Banks lend to blue chip borrowers (very safe large companies) at the base rate or the prime rate; all other borrowers pay more, depending on their credit standing (or credit rating, or creditworthiness): the lender's estimation of their present and future solvency. Borrowers can usually get a lower interest rate if the loan is secured or guaranteed by some kind of asset, known as collateral.

5_________________

In most financial centres, there are also branches of lots of foreign banks, largely doing Eurocurrency business. A Eurocurrency is any currency held outside its country of origin. The first significant Eurocurrency market was for US dollars in Europe, but the name is now used for foreign currencies held anywhere in the world (e.g. yen in the US, euros in Japan). Since the US dollar is the world’s most important trading currency – and because the US for many years had a huge trade deficit - there is a market o many billions of Eurodollars, including the oil-exporting countries' 'petrodollars' Although a central bank can determine the minimum lending rate for its national currency it has no control over foreign currencies. Furthermore, banks are not obliged to deposit any of their Eurocurrency assets at 0% interest with the central bank, which means that they can usually offer better rates to borrowers and depositors than in the home country.

THE FOUR MAJOR PROMOTIONAL TOOLS

advertising aimed awareness channel loyalty maturity

medium tactics target trial

The basic idea behind the 'marketing concept' - that you make what you can sell rather than sell what you make - does not mean that your product will sell all by itself. Even a good, attractively priced product that clearly satisfies a need has to be made known to its (1) ___ customers. During the introduction and growth stages of the standard product life cycle, the producer (or importer, and so on) has to develop product or brand (2) ___, i.e. inform potential customers (and distributors, dealers and retailers) about the product's existence, its features, its advantages, and so on.

According to the well-known 'Four Ps' formulation of the marketing mix (product, place, promotion and price), this is clearly a matter of promotion. Since budgets are always limited, marketers usually have to decide which tools - advertising, public relations, sales promotion, or personal selling - to use, and in what proportion.

Public relations (often abbreviated to PR) is concerned with maintaining, improving or protecting the image of a company or product. The most important element of PR is publicity which (as opposed to advertising) is any mention of a company's products that is not paid for, in any (3) ___ read, viewed or heard by a company's customers or potential customers, aimed at assisting sales. Many companies attempt to place stories or information in news media to attract attention to a product or service. Publicity can have a huge impact on public awareness that could not be achieved by advertising, or at least not without an enormous cost. A lot of research has shown that people are more likely to read and believe publicity than advertising.

Sales promotions such as free samples, coupons, price reductions, competitions, and so on, are temporary (4) ___ designed to stimulate either earlier or stronger sales of a product. Free samples, for example, (combined with extensive advertising), may generate the initial (5) ___ of a new product. But the majority of products available at any given time are of course in the (6) ___ stage of the life cycle. This may last many years, until the product begins to be replaced by new ones and enters the decline stage. During this time, marketers can try out a number of promotional strategies and tactics. Reduced-price packs in supermarkets, for example, can be used to attract price-conscious brand-switchers, and also to counter a promotion by a competitor. Stores also often reduce prices of specific items as loss leaders which bring customers into the shop where they will also buy other goods.

Sales promotions can also be (7) ___ at distributors, dealers and retailers, to encourage them to stock new items or larger quantities, or to encourage off-season buying, or the stocking of items related to an existing product. They might equally be designed to strengthen brand (8) ___ among retailers, or to gain entry to increase their activities in selling a particular product.

Personal selling is the most expensive promotional tool, and is generally only used sparingly, e.g. as a complement to (9) ___. As well as prospecting for customers, spreading information about a company's products and services, selling these products and services, and assisting customers with possible technical problems, salespeople have another important function. Since they are often the only person from a company that customers see, they are an extremely important (10) ___ of information. It has been calculated that the majority of new product ideas come from customers via sales representatives.

HOW MANY Ps?

Although most marketers talk about the four Ps, one marketing research student has suggested that there are in fact eight more. Vivien Keller, an MBA student at Midrand University in South Africa, says that a service-orientated economy requires a marketing mix that also includes:

people - not only human resources and customers, but also non-customers: marketers need to analyse why they are not buying.

process - the way in which a product is delivered can be as important as the product itself; a customer receiving excellent service with an average product is more likely to return than a customer receiving a good product with very bad service.

physical evidence - or the way things look: people expect everything about a company to look good, from its premises to its notepaper.

positioning - situating a product or a brand in relation to others already on the market.

profit - the ultimate judge of a company's marketing efforts and the culmination of all the Ps; marketers cannot just focus on finding and fulfilling customers' needs but must always balance this with contributing to the company's profit.

Keller's other three Ps concern the need for the whole company to understand and practice marketing. Planning involves ensuring that marketing activities are integrated with the rest of the company's activities, which will lead it to formulate the right policies. Finally, probing means developing a marketing information system that is continuously searching for relevant information.

MARKETING

1. Here is a definition of marketing. Complete it by inserting the following verbs in the gaps.

design

develop

identify

influence

modify

persuade

Marketers have to (1) ___ or anticipate a consumer need; (2) ___ a product or service that meets that need better than any competing products or services; (3) ___ target customers to try the product or service; and, in the long term, (4) ___ it to satisfy changes in consumer needs or market conditions. Marketers can (5) ___ particular features, attractive packaging, and effective advertising, that will (6) ___ consumers' wants. Marketing thus begins long before the product or service is put on the market; it combines market research, new product development, distribution, advertising, promotion, product improvement, and so on.

2. Match up the words or expressions with the definitions.

1. distribution channel

2. to launch a product

3. market opportunities

4. market research

5. market segmentation

6. packaging

7. points of sale

8. product concept

9. product features

10. sales representative

A) all the companies or individuals involved in moving a particular good or service from the producer to the consumer

B) an idea for a new product, which is tested with target consumers before the actual product is developed

C) attributes or characteristics of a product: quality, price, reliability, etc.

D) dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers who have different requirements or buying habits

E) places where goods are sold to the public - shops, stores, kiosks, market stalls, etc.

F) possibilities of filling unsatisfied needs in sectors in which a company can profitably produce goods or services

G) someone who contacts existing and potential customers, and tries to persuade them to buy goods or services

H) collecting, analysing and reporting data relevant to a specific marketing situation (such as a proposed new product)

I) to introduce a new product onto the market

J) wrappers and containers in which products are sold

THE CENTRALITY OF MARKETING

Most management and marketing writers now distinguish between selling and marketing. The 'selling concept' assumes that resisting consumers have to be persuaded by vigorous hard-selling techniques to buy non-essential goods or services. Products are sold rather than bought. The 'marketing concept', on the contrary, assumes that the producer's task is to find wants and fill them. In other words, you don't sell what you make, you make what will be bought. As well as satisfying existing needs, marketers can also anticipate and create new ones. The markets for the Walkman, video recorders, videogame consoles, CD players, personal computers, the internet, mobile phones, mountain bikes, snowboards, and genetic engineering, to choose some recent examples, were largely created rather than identified.

Marketers are consequently always looking for market opportunities - profitable possibilities of filling unsatisfied needs or creating new ones in areas in which the company is likely to enjoy a differential advantage, due to its distinctive competencies (the things it does particularly well). Market opportunities are generally isolated by market segmentation. Once a target market has been identified, a company has to decide what goods or service to offer. This means that much of the work of marketing has been done before the final product or service comes into existence. It also means that the marketing concept has to be understood throughout the company, e.g. in the production department of a manufacturing company as much as in the marketing department itself. The company must also take account of the existence of competitors, who always have to be identified, monitored and defeated in the search for loyal customers.

Rather than risk launching a product or service solely on the basis of intuition or guesswork, most companies undertake market research (GB) or marketing research (US). They collect and analyse information about the size of a potential market, about consumers' reactions to particular product or service features, and so on. Sales representatives, who also talk to customers, are another important source of information.

Once the basic offer, e.g. a product concept, has been established, the company has to think about the marketing mix, i.e. all the various elements of a marketing programme, their integration, and the amount of effort that a company can expend on them in order to influence the target market. The best-known classification of these elements is the 'Four Ps': product, place, promotion and price. Aspects to be considered in marketing products include quality, features (standard and optional), style, brand name, size, packaging, services and guarantee. Place in a marketing mix includes such factors as distribution channels, locations of points of sale, transport, inventory size, etc. Promotion groups together advertising, publicity, sales promotion, and personal selling, while price includes the basic list price, discounts, the length of the payment period, possible credit terms, and so on. It is the job of a product manager or a brand manager to look for ways to increase sales by changing the marketing mix.

It must be remembered that quite apart from consumer markets (in which people buy products for direct consumption) there exists an enormous producer or industrial or business market, consisting of all the individuals and organizations that acquire goods and services that are used in the production of other goods, or in the supply of services to others. Few consumers realize that the producer market is actually larger than the consumer market, since it contains all the raw materials, manufactured parts and components that go into consumer goods, plus capital equipment such as buildings and machines, supplies such as energy and pens and paper, and services ranging from cleaning to management consulting, all of which have to be marketed. There is consequently more industrial than consumer marketing, even though ordinary consumers are seldom exposed to it.