Celebrity Endorsement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Celebrity Endorsement - Essay Example Indeed, trademark or brand name is a term that is used to define entities with unique credibility and attraction levels. They are used to drive marketing activities in various jurisdictions due to their influential nature. Companies prefer using strong brands names to endorse their product to improve sales units. The institutions use the trademarks due to the financial implications that arise from such endorsements. In particular, strong trade marks results to high sales that in turn lead to improved financial performance. . Evaluation The journal is selected based on the insightful information that it holds that create awareness on the financial implications that the use of strong trademarks or strong celebrity endorsement earns various corporations. The article evaluates the significance of using strong brand trademarks in executing marketing or product promotion activities. It details the impact of strong trademark or celebrity endorsement that is becoming popular in most settings . The practice is gaining momentum since strong brand identities hold great influence and attraction that compels individuals to associating with their ideals or choices. High profile brands or trademarks are used due to their financial implications. ... Managers assert that use of high profile trademarks in the advertisement packets is conventional and beneficial.Author Biography Lan Luo, Jeanie Han, C. Whan Park. (2008). Dilution and Enhancement of Celebrity Brands through Sequential Movie Releases. Journal of Marketing Research, 47, 6, 1114-1128. Summary The article discusses celebrity branding that has provides information leading to erosion or development of the influential nature of celebrities. Celebrities are influential individuals who can shape a product’s perception and individual’s prospects. Their influential nature can transform the perception of various individuals. However, celebrities can dilute their status and influence negatively if they engage in incredible practices. The dilution of character and credibility through the adoption of unconventional activities may render them in any promotional activity. However, they can use their skills to build a strong brand identity and boost promotional activiti es. They can achieve this through appearance and development of a sequence of movies or promotional activities. Evaluation The article is selected based on the need for stakeholders in the marketing industry to understand the influence of dilution and celebrity brand enhancement on product performance. The information is significant because it ensures that corporations appoint credible celebrities to drive their promotional activities. Dilution and enhancement of celebrity endorsement hold far-reaching effects on product promotion. The variations lead to low product sales or high sales volume depending on the celebrity status. It is recognizable the celebrity endorsement hold immense relations with product brand

All for Show †The Post-Petrarchan Poetry of Wyatt, Sidney, and Spenser

The difficulty of discussing the representation of women in the work of sixteenth century English poets like Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser is the need to address authorial intent in its historical context. As a critic, one cannot attribute to words what the author did not intend; however, one can attribute intentions that the author did not word. For example, it is easy to justify the objectification and subordination of women in the English-Petrarchan sonnet tradition but is it entirely factual? Does object of desire necessarily mean desired object? Does such a designation deny the agency or even apply to the beloved? The question to ask is whether contemporary criticism can be applied retroactively; that is, whether theories concerning objectification or ‘othering’ are relevant merely because they fit. The real challenge is to decide if evidence of objectification can be discovered or simply applied to a text that has no concept of it. It is p articularly disconcerting that much of the modern renaissance criticism researched for this essay sees no possible contradiction in linking rhetorical evidence to intent; that is to say, they show little evidence of investigating the possible discrepancies between treating objectification as ahistorical and socially contextual, even when they argue for the historically situated nature of identity. One must also consider the fact that theories of objectification interpret and interrogate the text, not the author; that is unless one presumes they are the same thing. To do so, however, commits one to a series of requisite and problematic assumptions. The first of these is the exchange of mimesis for art as an imitation of the author, a shadow of a shadow. Speaking his... ...ing Astrophil and Stella to implode under its own contradictions Sidney ensures that its only lasting consequence is the affect it has on the beloved. In the same way Spenser tries to forge a tangible bond between himself and the beloved by rendering them both physically present in the words of Amoretti, Sidney tries to promote his signifiers to signifieds in an effort to exchange â€Å"semiological [intimacy] for sexual desire† (Stephens 93). The difference is that Spenser offers the beloved a shared space while Sidney seeks exclusive control of the courtship. Much like Wyatt tries to have the last word in Whoso List to Hunt, Sidney and Spenser write their sonnets in anticipation of the beloved’s response. As their efforts to adapt her subjectivity show, all three poets recognize the beloved as powerful, but is this the power of a reader or a social and sexual equal?

English Literature Essay

Gender as reflected in literature gives readers pictures that apply, illustrate and reinforce norms and values accepted by society. Authors, whether they are aware of it or not, are themselves socialized into gender systems that are reflected in the themes, characters and plots of their texts. Toni Morrison’s â€Å"The Bluest Eye† presents gender as a theme that cuts across many social constructions in society. She does not stop at the conventional and surface definition of gender as a social construction of the roles and norms of male and female, but shows how class, race and even gender subgroups deepen the hierarchies and power relations between different people in society. Though the main focus of her novel is the concept of beauty, the writer posits that beauty is determined by gender subgroups, race and class. In this essay, it is proposed that the concept beauty is a tool used by Morrison to illustrate the hierarchies and values created by race, class and gender. To show the impact of race, class and gender on both the psyche of the individual and the collective consciousness of society, Morrison uses young black girls as protagonists and narrates their family experiences, making sure to highlight experiences which involve discrimination and oppression by gender, class and race. Though her narratives constantly switch personas, the writer notes that the first person narrative belongs to Claudia, who is often seen to defy the norms and values that Morrison presents. The former is seen to defy the socialization of young girls into motherhood through the gifting of dolls, â€Å"I had no interest in babies or the concept of motherhood† (Morrison 15). Claudia also defies the convention of beauty, of fair-skinned girls with curly blond hair and blue eyes such as Shirley Temple, often despising the latter with a cruel and furious hatred, as seen in her treatment of the doll she received as a gift. Through this, a gender subgroup is shown, or perhaps, even a category which cuts across gender, which is race. The novel illustrates the presence of gender and class hierarchies that may be structured on the basis of race or gender. Distinctions of white male, white female, black male, black female, white child and black child are presented. Hierarchies are illustrated and the relationships these subgroups have to one another are presented. Seen through the eyes of Pauline Breedlove, the black female is shown to serve almost all of them, â€Å"‘White women said, â€Å"Do this. † White children said, â€Å"Give me that. White men said, â€Å"Come here. † Black men said, â€Å"Lay down. † (Morrison 93). The character continued to infer black women’s only power, which is as a parent to a child, â€Å"The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other† (Morrison 93). Gender systems and hierarchies denote a set of norms and values that all these subgroups adhere to. For women, roles are the embodiment of these norms and valu es. Age, class and race are the determinants of such roles. A young girl is expected to protect her virtue and help her mother. A housewife is expected to be faithful to her husband, perform domestic work, responsible for child-rearing, able to earn additional income for the family and continue the virtues she learned as a young girl. If a female would somehow not fit within the previously-stated norms, such as the case of Frieda, Claudia’s sister, she would be labeled deviant or, in Morrison’s work, ruined. Frieda relates the stigma and fear this label entails in her conversation with Claudia: Miss Dunion came in after everybody was quiet, and Mama and Daddy was fussing about who let Mr. Henry in anyway, and she said that Mama should take me to the doctor, because I might be ruined, and Mama started screaming all over again†¦But why were you crying? I don’t want to be ruined. (Morrison 67) The image of ‘ruined’ in Morrison’s work is a source of so much anxiety for Frieda because of their perception of a ‘ruined’ woman, where here, Claudia shares the anxiety and fear in an image of her own, â€Å" An image of Frieda, big and fat, came to mind. Her thin legs swollen, her face surrounded by layers of rouged skin† (Morrison 67). Frieda is so terribly distressed at being ‘ruined’ that she and her sister strive to find ways to counteract this status or perhaps medicate it. She and Claudia urgently think, â€Å"But Frieda, you could exercise and not eat†¦Besides what about China and Poland, They’re ruined too, aren’t they? And they ain’t fat. That’s because they drink whiskey. Mama says whiskey are them up. You could drink whiskey† (Morrison 67). In Morrison’s novel, being ‘ruined’ is equivalent to being a whore or prostitute, a woman generally frowned upon by society because of her type of work and her non-adherence to the values of virtue and chastity expected of women. This is illustrated through a reference to the character the Maginot Line, Poland and China, or to Pecola’s ignorance of their true profession, Miss Marie, Miss Poland and Miss China. The value of virtue and chastity that women are prescribed to is embodied in the role of a virgin or legitimate wife, which the previously-mentioned women are most certainly not and are consequently stigmatized by the community. However, these women are aware and accept the stigma and fully understand their role prescription and label of ‘ruined’ as a choice they made, characterizing themselves as â€Å"whores in whores’ clothing, whores who had never been young and had no word for innocence† (Morrison 42). Despite their self-prescription, stigma and community perceptions, these women are aware of their deviance and accept it, implying that they are aware and accept what is proper and appropriate, Their only respect was for what they would have described as ‘good Christian colored women. ’ The woman whose reputation was spotless, and who tended to her family, who didn’t drink or smoke or run around. These women had their undying, if covert, affection. † (Morrison 41-42) Other works by female authors present this image of ‘good women’. Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman’s â€Å"A New England Nun† shows Louisa Ellis, who waits for Joe Dagget for 15 years to marry him and stays at home, sews and does housework all day and performs domestic work. She is characterized as meek, stiff, peaceful and virtuous (Freeman). Here, Louisa Ellis performs all the roles and tasks ascribed to a single woman. â€Å"A White Heron† also shows an image of a ‘good girl’ in the character of Sylvia, who follows her grandmother’s instructions, is quiet and complacent towards older men and keeps a secret within her girl’s heart (Jewett). It must be noted however, that this image uses only gender as a category for prescription. This image is elevated to the level of race as a gender subgroup through Pecola Breedlove who alludes to her fondest dream of blue eyes (Morrison). The dimensions of this dream and how it is shaped by the previously-mentioned gender systems to the point of oppression and revulsion for oneself is almost horrific and pitiful. Langston Hughes’ â€Å"Harlem† may describe Pecola’s dream as one that: â€Å"Fester(s) like a sore— / and then run? (4-5), showing how much pain Pecola feels and experiences because of her unfulfilled dream. She considers her brown eyes a sore, for the absence of her fulfilled dream of blue eyes is the presence of her brown eyes. The horror of her wish and the desperation of her yearning is expressed at the end of Morrison’s work, when all these gender systems, roles and values bear down upon her because of her father’s impregnating her. Her split personality or other voice in her head accompanies her new perception of having blue eyes, the bluest eyes, which makes her feel that she is above everyone else. She no longer hides behind her ugliness as she did before (Morrison 28), but sees people unable to bear their own in the presence of the ultimate symbol and sign of beauty, that she alone possesses, the bluest eyes. Essay 1 Reflection When I gave into my emotions and intellect for this essay, I found myself to feel very strongly about Pecola’s situation and her perception of her own appearance and beauty. To think that she conceives the disdain and disgust that other feel for her and is able to project it within herself is almost traumatizing for me especially since I know how young she is. Compounded oppression, bad family situation and victimization are features of her life that may make one almost think that her fate was horribly inescapable and her desire for blue eyes one that elicits deep sympathy. Discussing this with others and presenting my ideas on gender and how deep the scars of gender-based violence may run has given me insight on the historical and cultural relevance of Morrison’s work and how others’ works like Kate Chopin, Jewett and Freeman reflect this type violence. I would consider Pecola’s perception as an effect of violence. Thinking about the story, I would think that Pecola’s innocence was still intact even after she was raped by her father perhaps through her own mind’s fierce denial, but her psyche was totally shattered when she received her wish of blue eyes. Relating this text to my courses on women studies and feminism, a deeper analysis would have shown the intricacies of race, class and gender and how the hierarchies created by these three based solely on oppressive social constructions can destroy whole countries, whole peoples of color and at the individual level, complete psyches and perceptions. The scope and range of feminism tends to question everything and I wanted to do that but felt limited by the number of pages allowed. When someone would read my essay, I would hope that it would spark a little interest in re-examining texts and even his/her own perceptions on race, class and gender. I would say that my essay’s goal would be to spark insight in my reader about the world and society in terms of the three social constructions I mentioned.

Caribbean Diaspora - 3821 Words

History Paper on Caribbean Diaspora Decendents of the Caribbean Diaspora are located in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and countries that were previously colonial empires. The inhabited islands that are in the Caribbean are not only geographical regions, but also regions of the imagination, lived cultural experiences and are an interesting study in religious identity as well (Harry:2).† Colonized by European powers from the sixteenth century, the Caribbean islands have become a mixture of cultures from Europe, Africa, and India, as well as from the original inhabitants of the islands. Harry Goulbourne and John Solomos in there article â€Å"Ethnic and Racial Studies† says that the â€Å"History of the Caribbean has been shaped for a†¦show more content†¦This was a time for growth in the United States, often referred to as the Industrial Age. This time period was an exciting period because of the fact that there is another revolution going on in the workplace. As technology started to c hange and bloom, everything around it started to transform and more jobs were created. As a result, the Industrial Revolution affected the whole stability of a nation, not only the economy. It affected the relationships between classes, and also the relationships between countries and gave those individuals who migrated over to the United States a chance at a prosperous life without slavery. With many Africans migrating to the United States there were those who decided to go back to the Caribbean and continue their traditional cultural ways. In the late eighteenth century, written reports discovered a cultural tradition of masking by Africans in various parts of the Caribbean: Belize, Bermuda, Haiti, Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Kitts, Nevis, Guyana, Grenada, and Trinidad. These masking activities were called by several names like gumbe, jonkonu, or kambula, however today it is referred to as Carnival. 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