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Demographic

Demographic

A demographic or demographic profile is a term used in marketing and broadcasting, to describe a demographic grouping or a market segment. This typically involves age bands (as teenagers do not wish to purchase denture fixant), social class bands (as the rich may want different products than middle and poorer classes and may be willing to pay more) and gender (partially because different physical attributes require different hygiene and clothing products, and partially because of the man/woman mindsets). A demographic can be used to determine when and where advertising should be placed so as to achieve maximum results. In all such cases, it is important that the advertiser get the most results for their money, and so careful research is done to match the demographic profile of the target market to the demographic profile of the advertising medium. A good way to figure out the intended demographic of a television show or magazine is to study the ads that accompany it. For example, in the United States the television program The Price is Right most frequently airs from 11 AM to Noon. The commercials on it (besides the use of product placement in the show itself) are often for things like arthritis pain relievers and diapers. This indicates that the target demographics are senior citizens and mothers with young children, both of which would be home at that time of day and see that show.

See also


- demographics
- demography
- geodemography Category:Consumer behaviour category:Demographics

Marketing

Marketing is the process of planning and executing the pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods, ideas, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals." American Marketing Association. Many companies, particularly prior to the 1970s, were product-focused, employing teams of salespeople to push their products into or onto the market, regardless of market desire. A market-focused, or customer-focused, organization instead first determines what its potential customers desire, and then builds the product. Marketing theory and practice is justified on the belief that customers use a product or service because they have a need, or because a product has perceived benefit. Two major aspects of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships with existing customers (base management). An emerging area of study and practice concerns internal marketing, or how employees are trained and managed to deliver the brand in a way that positively impacts the acquisition and retention of customers. Once a marketer has converted the prospective buyer, base management marketing takes over. The process for base management shifts the marketer to building a relationship, nurturing the links, enhancing the benefits that sold the buyer in the first place and improving the products/service continuously to protect her business from competitive encroachments. Marketing methods are informed by many of the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics. Marketing research underpins these activities. Through advertising, it is also related to many of the creative arts.

Types of markets

The word market originally meant the place where the exchange between seller and buyer took place. Today we speak of a market as either a region where goods are sold and bought or particular types of buyer (summarized from Wells, Burnett, Moriarty, pg. 65–66). When strategizing specialists in marketing comment about markets they are usually referring to the different groups of people and/or organizations. The four major market groups are 1) consumer, 2) business to business, 3) institutional, and 4) reseller.

Product, price, promotion, and placement

In popular usage, the term "marketing" refers to the promotion of products, especially advertising and branding. However, in professional usage the term has a wider meaning that recognizes that marketing is customer centered. Products are often developed to meet the desires of groups of customers or even, in some cases, for specific customers. McCarthy divided marketing into four general sets of activities. His typology has become so universally recognized that his four activity sets, the Four Ps, have passed into the language. The Four Ps are:
- Product: The Product management aspect of marketing deals with the specifications of the actual good or service, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants.
- Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts.
- Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
- Placement or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix. A marketer can use these variables to craft a marketing plan. The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low value consumer products. Industrial products, services, high value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services. Industrial or b2b marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions. Relationship marketing attempts to do this by looking at marketing from a long term relationship perspective rather than individual transactions.

Technique

For a marketing plan to be successful, the mix of the four "p's" must reflect the wants and desires of the consumers in the target market. Trying to convince a market segment to buy something they don't want is extremely expensive and seldom successful. Marketers depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, to determine what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for. Marketers hope that this process will give them a sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing management is the practical application of this process. Most companies today have a customer orientation (also called customer focus). This implies that the company focuses its activities and products on customer needs. Generally there are two ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach and the product innovation approach. In the consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test of consumer research. Every aspect of a market offering, including the nature of the product itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that there is no point spending R&D funds developing products that people will not buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures inspite of being technological breakthroughs. The next big thing is a concept in marketing that refers to a product or idea that will allow for a high amount of sales for that product and related products. Marketers believe that by finding or creating the next big thing they will spark a cultural revolution that results in this sales increase. In a product innovation approach, the company pursues product innovation, then tries to develop a market for the product. Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is conducted primarily to ensure that a profitable market segment(s) exists for the innovation. The rationale is that customers may not know what options will be available to them in the future so we should not expect them to tell us what they will buy in the future. It is claimed that if Thomas Edison depended on marketing research he would have produced larger candles rather than inventing light bulbs. Many firms, such as research and development focused companies, successfully focus on product innovation. Many purists doubt whether this is really a form of marketing orientation at all, because of the ex post status of consumer research. Some even question whether it is marketing. Diffusion of innovations research explores how and why people adopt new products, services and ideas. A relatively new form of marketing uses the Internet and is called internet marketing or more generally e-marketing, affiliate marketing or online marketing. It typically tries to perfect the segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing. It targets its audience more precisely, and is sometimes called personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing.

Criticism of marketing

Some aspects of marketing, especially promotion, are the subject of criticism. See the main article Criticism of marketing.

Related lists

See List of marketing topics for an extensive list of the marketing articles on Wikipedia.
- list of management topics
- list of human resource management topics
- list of economics topics
- list of finance topics
- list of accounting topics
- list of information technology management topics
- list of production topics
- list of business law topics
- list of international trade topics
- list of business ethics, political economy, and philosophy of business topics
- list of business theorists
- list of economists
- list of corporate leaders
- list of companies

External links


- [http://www.knowthis.com KnowThis.com - Marketing Virtual Library] – an extensive marketing reference site
- [http://www.sosig.ac.uk/roads/subject-listing/World-cat/market.html SOSIG Marketing directory] – a directory of marketing topics available on the web
- [http://www.mediapost.com/ Media and Advertising Directory]
- [http://www.tutor2u.net/revision_notes_marketing.asp Study notes on core marketing topics]
- [http://www.knowledge-community.com/Marketing Knowledge-Community.com] - The Community of Knowledge-Workers worldwide Category:Marketing ja:マーケティング

Demographics

Demographics is a shorthand term for 'population characteristics'. Demographics include age, income, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and even location. Distributions of values within a demographic variable, and across households, are both of interest, as well as trends over time. Demographics is used in marketing research, opinion research, political research, the study of consumer behaviour, as well as in straightforward marketing, which is the primary topic of this article.

Demographics is an applied art

The term demographics is often used erroneously for demography, the study of human population and its structure and change. Whereas demography is a descriptive and predictive science, demographics is an applied art and science. In both cases however, the objects of study are the characteristics of human populations. In the case of demography the characteristics being studied tend to emphasize biological processes such as population dynamics, whereas demographics is also concerned with a wide range of economic, social, and cultural characteristics. Demographics is interested in any population characteristic that might be useful in understanding what people think, what they are willing to buy, and how many fit this profile.

Demographic variables

Marketers and other social scientists often group consumers into segments based on demographic variables. The most frequently used demographic variables are:
- age
- sex
- sexual orientation
- family size
- household size
- family life cycle
- income
- occupation
- education
- home ownership
- socioeconomic status
- religion
- nationality In addition to demographic variables, a population can be segmented based on psychographic, geographic, and behavioural variables. See market segment for a list.

Demographic profiles

Marketers typically combine several variables to define a demographic profile. A demographic profile (often shortened to "a demographic") provides enough information about the typical member of this group to create a mental picture of this hypothetical aggregate. For example, a marketer might speak of the single, female, middle-class, age 18 to 24 demographic. Marketing researchers typically have two objectives in this regard: first to determine what segments or subgroups exist in the overall population; and secondly to create a clear and complete picture of the characteristics of a typical member of each of these segments. Once these profiles are constructed, they can be used to develop a marketing strategy and marketing plan.

Demographic trends

Many demographic trends are quite easy to determine. This is due to the predictability of many demographic relationships. If, for example, the birth rate increases during certain years (as indeed happened during the baby boom years), we can determine that there will be an increase in the demand for baby food and diapers. In several years there will be an increase in the demand for toys and children's clothes; after a decade an increased demand for public education, video games and music CDs; after two decades an increased demand for university services, compact automobiles, rental apartments, wedding photographers, and furniture; after four decades an increase in the demand for houses, sedan cars, insurance, weight-loss centres, and investment services; after six decades an increased demand for health-care services and undertakers. Demographic trends have been used to explain everything from the demand for vacation properties, to the tennis craze of the 1970s, to election and stock market results. Of course no social phenomena is so simple as to be explicable with demographics alone, but it is a good start. This is the meaning of professor D. Foot's (1996) often quoted claim that "demographics explains about two-thirds of everything". Dr. Dychtwald (1989) describes the "aging of America" and convincingly argues that the changing age distribution of the American population is "the most important trend in our time". He considers the consequences of demographic facts like: the over 50 age group owns 77% of all financial assets in America, accounts for more than 50% of all new car sales (by value), spends more on travel and recreation than any other age group, etc. He asks what will happen to health care systems and social security entitlements (pension benefits) when the greying of America places additional demands on the system while simultaneously reducing the number of contributors into the system. Sterling and Waite (1998) describe this aging trend in terms of "generational warfare". They ask what will happen to the value of the real estate and financial assets when the aging baby boomers all try to sell them. How will the younger age cohort react to this? Other recent demographic trends include the rise of the two income family, the single parent family, and the nuclear family.

Generational cohorts

A generational cohort has been defined as "the aggregation of individuals (within some population definition) who experience the same event within the same time interval" (Ryder, N., The cohort as a concept in the study of social change, presented at the 1959 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association). The notion of a group of people bound together by the sharing of the experience of common historical events was first introduced by Karl Mannheim in the early 1920s. Today the concept has found its way into popular culture through well known epitomes like "baby boomer" and "gen-Xer". An interesting study by Strauss and Howe (The fourth turning) looked at generational similarities and differences going back to the 15th century and concluded that over 80 year spans, generations proceed through 4 stages of about 20 years each. The first phase consists of times of relative crisis and the people born during this period were called "artists". The next phase was a "high" period and those born in this period were called "prophets". The next phase was an "awakening period" and people born in this period were called "nomads". The final stage was the "unraveling period" and people born in this period were called "heros". The most recent "high period" occurred in the 50s and 60s (hence baby boomers are the most recent crop of "prophets"). The most definitive recent study was done by Schuman and Scott (1989) in 1985 in which a broad sample of adults of all ages were asked, "What world events over the past 50 years were especially important to them?". They found that 33 events were mentioned with great frequency. When the ages of the respondents were correlated with the expressed importance rankings, seven distinct cohorts became evident. Today we use the following descriptors for these cohorts:
- Depression cohort (born from 1912 to 1921)
  - Memorable events : The Great Depression, high levels of unemployment, poverty, lack of creature comforts, financial uncertainty
  - Key characteristics: strive for financial security, risk averse, waste not want not attitude, strive for comfort
- WWII cohort (born from 1922 to 1927)
  - Memorable events: men leaving to go to war and many not returning, the personal experience of the war, women working in factories, focus on defeating a common enemy
  - Key characteristics: the nobility of sacrifice for the common good, patriotism, team player
- Post-war cohort (born from 1928 to 1945)
  - Memorable events: sustained economic growth, social tranquility, The Cold War, McCarthyism
  - Key characteristics: conformity, conservatism, traditional family values
- Baby Boomer cohort #1 (born from 1946 to 1954)
  - Memorable events: assassination of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, political unrest, walk on the moon, Vietnam War, anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, civil rights movement, environmental movement, women's movement, protests and riots, experimentation with various intoxicating recreational substances
  - Key characteristics: experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented
- Baby Boomer cohort #2 (born from 1955 to 1964)
  - Memorable events: Watergate, Nixon resigns, the cold war , the oil embargo, raging inflation, gasoline shortages
  - Key characteristics: less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism
- Generation X cohort (born from 1965 to 1976)
  - Memorable events: Challenger explosion, Iran-Contra, social malaise, Reaganomics, AIDS, safe sex, fall of Berlin Wall, single parent families
  - Key characteristics: quest for emotional security, independent, informality, entrepreneurial
- N Generation cohort also called Generation Y (born from 1983 to 2003 or 2007)
  - Memorable events: rise of the internet, 9-11 terrorist attack, cultural diversity, 2 wars in Iraq
  - Key characteristics: quest for physical security and safety, patriotism, heightened fears, acceptance of change

Demographic birth cohorts

The US Census Bureau considers the following demographic birth cohorts based on birth rate, which is measurable and reproducible:
- Classics (born from 1900 to 1920)
  - (the last American cohort in which the population pyramid takes on the standard "step" form for males and females)
- Baby Bust (I) (born from 1921 to 1945)
  - early cohort (born from 1921 to 1933)
  - late cohort (born from 1934 to 1945)
- Baby Boomers (born from 1946 to 1964)
  - Leading Edge Boomers (born from 1946 to 1957)
  - Trailing Edge Boomers (born from 1958 to 1964)
- Baby Bust (II) (born from 1965 to 1976)
- Echo Boomers (born from 1977 to 1994)
  - Leading Edge (born from 1977 to 1990)
  - Trailing Edge (born from 1991 to 1994)
- Baby Bust (III) (born from 1995 to present) Subdivided groups are present when peak boom years or inverted peak bust years are present, and may be represented by a normal or inverted bell-shaped curve (rather than a straight curve). The subdivided groups may be considered as "pre-peak" and "post-peak". Although post-peak births (such as Trailing Edge Boomers) are in decline, and sometimes referred to as a "bust", there are still a relative large number of births.

Criticisms and qualifications

Demographic profiling is essentially an exercise in making generalizations about groups of people. As with all such generalizations we must be aware that many individuals within these groups will not conform to the profile. Demographic techniques are simplifications of reality and should not blind us to the richness of individual complexity. Most importantly, we must not prejudice our view of specific situations by setting up expectations about individuals based on generalizations about groups that they belong to. Demographic information is aggregate and probabilistic information about groups, not about specific individuals. Most demographic information is culturally specific. The generational cohort information above, for example, applies primarily to North America (and to a lesser extent to Western Europe). Serious errors result when demographic information is applied to groups other than ones similar to those in the original study.

See also


- Marketing
- List of marketing topics
- Consumer behaviour
- Marketing research
- Demographics of Europe

References


- Foot, D. (1996), Boom, Bust and Echo: How to profit from the coming demographic shift, MacFarlane Walter & Rose, Toronto, 1996, ISBN 0-921912-97-8
- Dychtwald, K. (1989), Age Wave: The challenges and opportunities of an aging North America, St. Martins Press, New York, 1989, ISBN 0-87477-441-1
- Klauke, A. (2000) [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9214/coping.htm Coping with Changing Demographics] An analysis of the effect of changing demographic patterns on school enrollments and education.
- Sterling, W. & White, S. (1998), Boomernomics: The future of your money in the upcoming generational warfare, The Library of Contemporary Thought (Ballantine Publishing), New York, 1998, ISBN 0-345-42583-9
- Schuman, H. and Scott, J. (1989), Generations and collective memories, American Psychological Review, vol. 54, 1989, pp. 359-81
- Meredith, G., Schewe, C., and Haim, A. (2002), Managing by defining moments: Innovative strategies for motivating 5 very different generational cohorts, Hungry Minds Inc., New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7645-5412-3

External links


- [http://www.claritas.com/claritas/Default.jsp?ci=3&si=1&pn=demographics Demographics Data]
- category:Consumer behaviourcategory:Marketingcategory:Marketing research

Denture

Dentures, or, more accurately, removable complete dentures are full-mouth false teeth, which are used when a patient has no teeth left on either the mandibular arch, the maxillary arch, or both. Patients can become entirely edentulous (without teeth) either due to ineffective oral hygiene or trauma. Removable complete dentures, can help give the edentulous patient better masticatory (chewing) abilities, as well as enhance the esthetic appeal of their lips in specific and their entire face in general. Removable partial dentures are for patients who are missing only some of their teeth on a particular arch. Fixed partial dentures, better known in lay speech as crowns and bridges, are also for patients missing only some of their teeth, but these are more expensive than removable appliances, and they are contraindicated in certain instances (speak to your dentist, as each situation is different).

Problems associated with Complete Dentures

Problems with dentures include the fact that patients are not used to having something in their mouth that is not food. The brain senses this appliance as "food" and sends messages to the salivary glands to produce more saliva and to secrete it at a higher rate. New dentures will also be the inevitable cause of sore spots as they rub and press on the mucosa. A few denture adjustments for the weeks following insertion of the dentures can take care of this issue. Another problem with dentures is keeping them in place. There are three rules governing the existance of removable oral appliances, and they are support, stability and retention. Support is the principle that describes how well the underlying mucosa (oral tissues, including gums and the vestibules

Target market

A target market is the market segment which a particular product is marketed to. It is often defined by age, gender and/or socio-economic grouping. Targeting strategy is the selection of the customers you wish to service. The decisions involved in targeting strategy include:
- how many segments to target
- which segments to target
- how many products to offer
- which products to offer in which segments There are three steps to targeting:
- market segmentation
- target choice
- product positioning Targeting strategy decisions are influenced by:
- market maturity
- diversity of buyers needs and preferences
- the company's size
- strength of the competition
- the volume of sales required for profitability Targeting can be selective (eg.: focus strategy, market specialization strategy or niche strategy), or extensive (eg.: full coverage, mass marketing, or product specialization). see also: marketing, market segment, positioning, Crossing the Chasm category:Marketingcategory:Strategic management

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Product placement

Product placement is a promotional tactic used by marketers in which characters in a fictional play, feature film, television series, music video, video-game or book use a real commercial product. Typically either the product and logo is shown or favorable qualities of the product are mentioned. The product price is not mentioned nor are any negative features or comparisons to similar products. Very generally, product placement involves placing a product in highly visible situations. The most common form is movie and television placements. Product placement on television dates to its earliest days. Soap operas earned their moniker because they were brought to us by the soap companies. Classic shows such as Bonanza were filmed in color because the show’s sponsor was RCA and they wanted to sell more TV sets. Cigarette companies took advantage of the practice as well. The good guys smoked, not the villains so more cigarettes could be sold. In movies, an early example of product placement is the 1949 film Love Happy, in which Harpo Marx cavorts on a rooftop among various billboards and at one point escapes from the villains on the old Mobil logo, the "Flying Red Horse". A later but better-known instance of product placement can be seen in the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which helped launch Reese's Pieces from Hershey Foods Corporation. The film The Truman Show explores the idea of a 24-hour on-air reality television program funded entirely by product placement. Product placement companies work to ensure that their clients’ products receive maximum screen time and exposure - whether it be the Nokia phone that Agent Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) uses on Alias, the Lacoste polo shirt that Alex Hitchens (Will Smith) wears in the feature film Hitch or the Rimowa pilot case Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) carries as he arrives at crime scenes on CSI. Product placement can be seen as a modern version of the exhibit displays seen at world's fairs, concerts, sporting events, or anywhere that large numbers of potential customers gathered.

Types of product placement

The most basic form of product placement is the inclusion of a product name or logo in the foreground or background of a scene. Payments are based on exposure, including the number of times the product is shown or mentioned, the duration of that exposure, and the degree of inclusion of the product in the story line. If the product is actively used (such as when a leading character can be clearly seen to take a drink from the bottle or can), placement fees may be higher. Other times, product usage is negotiated rather than paid for. Some placements provide productions with below-the-line savings, with products such as props, clothes and cars being loaned for the production’s use, thereby saving them purchase or rental fees. Barter systems (the director/actor/producer wants one for himself) and service deals (cellular phones provided for crew use, for instance) are also common practices. Producers may also seek out companies for product placements as another savings or revenue stream for the movie, with, for example, products used in exchange for help funding advertisements tied-in with a film's release, a show's new season or other event. frame The most common products to be promoted in this way are automobiles. Frequently, all the important vehicles in a movie or television serial will be supplied by one manufacturer. For example, The X-Files used Fords, as do leading characters on 24. The James Bond films were pioneers of such placement: the 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun featured extensive use of AMC cars, even in scenes in Thailand, where AMC cars were not sold, and had the steering wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle for the country's roads. Other times, vehicles or other products take on such key roles in the film it is as if they are another character. Examples of this practice include the placement of Audi in I, Robot and The Transporter 2 or the Nokia phone in Cellular. More recently, Apple Computer frequently places its products in films and on television, where they therefore seem much more common than in most real-world offices and homes. In a twist on traditional product placement, Hewlett-Packard computers now appear exclusively as part of photo layouts in the IKEA catalog in addition to placing plastic models of its computers in IKEA stores—having taken over Apple's similar position in the Swedish furniture retailer's promotional materials several years ago. A variant of product placement is advertisement placement. In this case an advertisement for the product (rather than the product itself) is seen in the movie or television series. Examples include a Lucky Strike cigarette advertisement on a billboard or a truck with a milk advertisement on its trailer. Product placement is also used in books (particularly novels) and video games—where sometimes the economics are reversed, and video game makers pay for the rights to use real sports teams and players. Quantification methods track brand integrations, with both basic quantitative and more demonstrative qualitative systems used to determine the cost and effective media value of a placement. Rating systems measure the type of placement and onscreen exposure is gauged by audience recall rates. Products might be featured but hardly identifiable, clearly identifiable, long or recurrent in exposure, associated with a main character, verbally mentioned and/or they may play a key role in the storyline. Media values are also weighed over time, depending on a specific product’s degree of presence in the market.

Controversy

The James Bond film Licence to Kill featured use of the Lark brand of cigarette, and the producers accepted payment for that product placement. The studio's executives apparently believed that the placement triggered the American warning notice requirement for cigarette advertisements and thus the picture carried the "Surgeon General's Warning" at the end credits of the film. This brought forth calls for banning such cigarette advertisements in future films. Some believe product placement is out of control and has become too pervasive in today's society. One group known as Commercial Alert asks for full disclosure of all product placement arrangements. They feel that most product placements are deceptive and are not fully or clearly disclosed, advocating notification of embedded advertisements before and during a television program. One justification for this is that it allows greater parental control for children, who are said to be influenced greatly by product placement.

Spoofs

The concept of product placement has been spoofed many times. Notable examples include:
- Douglas Coupland's second novel, Shampoo Planet, satirizes product placement by mentioning invented brand names (including their trademark symbols) for a wide variety of products throughout the text.
- David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest, set in the near future, years are not known by numbers but by a brand name such as "Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment". This is known as "Subsidized time".
- The movie Wayne's World has a scene where Wayne and Garth spoof common commercials of the early '90s in the actual film in a way that parodies the way that corporate sponsorship affects television programs (the context of the scene is that they don't want a local arcade to sponsor their public-access cable show). This scene, due to its blatant use of different products (Pizza Hut, Pepsi, Nuprin), is commonly edited out of rebroadcasts of the film.
- The interactive fiction game Coke Is It! consists of excerpts from classic text adventure games (such as Adventure) with humorously exaggerated product placement by The Coca-Cola Company.
- A product non-placement spoof was done in the film Repo Man, in which cans of beer would be labeled simply "BEER", and food containers would be labeled "FOOD".

See also


- Kmart realism
- Publicity
- Undercover marketing
- Promotion
- Advertising
- Marketing
- False advertising
- Advertiser funded programming

External links


- [http://www.commercialalert.org/ Commercial Alert]
- [http://www.propagandagem.com/ Propaganda Global Entertainment Marketing]
- [http://www.jeffgreenfield.com/ Jeff Greenfield] and his [http://www.productplacement.biz/ Hollywood Product Placement News] website
- [http://www.hollywoodprops.com/ Hollywood International Placements, Inc.] Category:Marketing category:Promotion and marketing communications Category:Film Category:Television terminology

Diaper

:This article is about the garment. Diapering is also a term in Heraldry and in decorative art generally for an all-over repeating pattern. For the geological term, see diapir. diapir A diaper (NAE) or nappy (CE) is an absorbent garment worn by individuals who are incontinent, that is lack control over bladder or bowel movements, or who are unable to reach the toilet when needed. This group includes primarily infants and young children, as well as the elderly and the physically challenged.

Word origin

The word diaper originally referred to the type of cloth rather than its use. Diaper cloth was originally linen. The first known reference is in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew: "Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper". This usage stuck in the United States and Canada, but in Britain the word nappy (short for baby napkin) took its place.

Adult usage

Diapers are occasionally worn by adults who are unable or not allowed to reach a toilet for longer than their bladders can hold out. Examples are:
- People suffering from incontinence.
- Guards who must remain on duty; this is sometimes called the "watchman's urinal".
- A person diving in a diving suit (in former times often a standard diving dress) continuously for several hours.
- Astronauts during liftoff and landing who must remain at a post for hours for safety, and also during an extra-vehicular activity.
- A woman who is pregnant and must urinate very frequently, and urgently.
- Legislators in the midst of a filibuster (an activity often referred to as "taking to the diaper")[http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3474915/]
- Some Death Row inmates who are to about to be executed wear an "execution diaper" to collect body fluids expelled during the exeuction and after the prisoner is dead.

Types

Diapers may be made of absorbent layers of cloth or terry towelling fabric, or of disposable absorbent materials. The choice to use either cloth or disposable diapers is controversial. While cloth diapers are certainly cheaper than disposables over time, environmental impact, health and convenience also play a role in the decision. However, all of the studies which started the controversy in the early 1990s were funded by Procter & Gamble, which manufactures the vast majority of disposable diapers, and was facing growing criticism at that time.

Cloth

Cloth diapers are washable and reusable and place less stress on landfills. To clean them, people use laundry detergent and water. Users of top-loading washers may use 20,000 US gallons (76 m³) of water in a 2.5 year period, whereas users of front-loading machines may use 10,000 US gallons (38 m³).[http://www.punkinbutt.com/diaper_dilemma_the_environment.asp] Cloth diaper-wearing children tend to toilet train earlier, because the cloth retains moisture, which allows the child to feel when he or she is wet and/or dirty and associate the feeling with elimination. Cloth diaper-wearing children go through about 6,000 diaper changes.[http://www.punkinbutt.com/diaper_dilemma_the_environment.asp] If thrown into a landfill, cotton diapers decompose within six months.[http://www.punkinbutt.com/diaper_dilemma_the_environment.asp] Cloth diapers have become more user friendly in recent years. Pre-formed cloth diapers with snaps or Velcro and all-in-one diapers with wet-proofed exteriors are now available, in addition to the older pre-fold and pin variety. Increasingly popular are "pocket" or "stuffable" diapers, which consist of a water-resistant outer shell sewn on three sides to a stay-dry liner. Pocket diapers are stuffed with a folded absorbent towel. Some find pocket diapers to combine the ease of use of an all-in-one with the rinsability and quick drying of a flat. Some cities offer a cloth diapering service which delivers clean diapers and picks up soiled ones for a fee. Cloth diapers may be used in conjunction with elimination communication as a back-up in case of an accident. Incontinent persons able to change their own diapers and caregivers of incontinent persons who cannot often find that cloth diapers are more cost effective and comfortable when in the home.

Disposable

Modern disposable diapers are generally made of a cloth-like waterproof exterior, a moisture-wicking inside layer, and an absorbent inner core (in modern diapers usually a dried hydrogel). The first mention of the disposable diaper was made by PauliStrǒm in Sweden, in 1942. The early disposable diapers had an inner of many layers of tissue paper, and were able to hold 100cc of urine, which is approximately one wetting. In the 1960's, a pulp mill was used for the absorbent core, and the disposable diaper became much more popular for the families who could afford them. Disposable diapers have overtaken the cloth diaper market and put many diaper services out of business due to their convenience and relatively small bulk on the baby. Approximately 18 billion units of disposable diapers were sold in the US in 2004. Disposable diapers take a great deal of processing and their materials remain intact in landfills for many years -- some reports estimate 500 years.[http://www.punkinbutt.com/diaper_dilemma_the_environment.asp] Because disposable diapers wick moisture away from the child's body, children tend not to realize they are wet, which may be the reason that disposable diaper-wearing children toilet train after the age of three. As a result, these children may require 8,000 disposable diapers before they are toilet trained. The result is that, while a cloth diaper costs more per unit, a disposable diaper will cost considerably more over time, as a cloth diaper can be laundered and re-used, whereas a disposable cannot. Disposable diapers are laced with chemicals obtained unintentionally in production, as well as intentionally in order to improve absorbancy and pull wetness away from the skin. While this system works well in keeping skin dry, it also provides a potential skin irritant. Cloth diapers are most commonly made of industrial cotton, which is grown in conjunction with the heavy use of pesticides. The fabric is also usually bleached white. Alternative materials which are grown without pesticides, such as unbleached hemp and organic cotton exist. However, the inherent convenience factor of being able to simply throw away a soiled diaper, rather than undertake the rather unpleasant chore of washing it, has led to disposable diapers dominating the diaper marketplace for both children and adults.

Other

A recent development is a hybrid reusable / disposable system, with an outer plastic part which is re-used, and an interior absorbent part which is disposed and is fully biodegradable. In former times in some areas, a wad of sphagnum moss was often used as a disposable diaper. Traditional baby care practices similar to elimination communication are used instead of diapering in most third world countries. In industrialized countries, elimination communication is sometimes used to reduce dependence on diapers for infant care.

Length of use

While awake, most children no longer need diapers when past one-and-a-half to four years of age, depending on culture, diaper type, parental habits, and the child's personality. However, some children have problems with daytime or more commonly nocturnal bladder control until eight years or older. This may occur for a variety of reasons, the most common being the as yet insufficient production of ADH in the young child's body. Other reasons include the difficulty managing a small bladder and emotional issues (but emotional issues are a less common reason than generally believed). Some older children also need diapers while travelling. These children may use standard but larger size diapers (youth diapers) or special diapers which mimic underwear and do not require pinning or adult assistance.

Frequency of changing

When to change a diaper is the decision of the caregiver. Some people believe that diapers should be changed at fixed times of the day for a routine, such as after naps and after meals. Other people believe that diapers should be changed when they feel a change is needed regardless of timing, and even other people believe a diaper should be changed immediately upon wetting or soiling. To avoid skin irritation commonly referred to as diaper rash, the diaper should be changed as soon as possible after it is soiled (especially by fecal matter). During the change, after the buttocks are cleaned and dried, some people use baby oil, barrier creme or baby powder to reduce the possibility of irritation. The most effective means to prevent and treat diaper rash is to expose the buttocks to air and sunshine as often as possible. There are also drying cremes based on such ingredients as zinc oxide which can be used to treat diaper rash. Before disposing of a diaper, either in a diaper pail for washing or the garbage, fecal matter should be removed as much as possible and placed in a toilet to avoid landfill and ground water contamination. Category:Underwear Category:Infancy ja:おむつ

Demographics

Demographics is a shorthand term for 'population characteristics'. Demographics include age, income, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and even location. Distributions of values within a demographic variable, and across households, are both of interest, as well as trends over time. Demographics is used in marketing research, opinion research, political research, the study