Greenback Party

Greenback Party, in U.S. history is a political party formed in 1875, chiefly by midwestern and southern farmers. The primary aims of the party were the adoption of a new national monetary policy based on bimetallism and federal issuance of paper currency, called greenback, not backed by gold.

The party was organized after the depression of the early 1870s, when the indebtedness of farmers to merchants and banks was rising and prices were declining. The farmers believed that adopting the measures they advocated would result in general prosperity for the nation and would also allow them to pay off their debts and to raise the prices of their products.

The Greenbackers decided on the formation of an independent party late in 1874, after they failed to persuade the Democratic party to adopt their views. The first national convention of the Greenback party was held in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1876, and Peter Cooper, a manufacturer and philanthropist, was nominated for the presidency. Cooper received 81,737 popular votes but no electoral votes in the election held that year. In 1878 the Greenback party was dissolved, and its farmer-members united with workers to form the Greenback-Labor party.

Populism

Populism refers to a United States agrarian movement of the late 19th century that developed mainly in the area from Texas to the Dakotas and grew into a Farmer-Labor political coalition. The populist movement began during the economic depression of the 1870s, when there was a sharp decline in the income of farmers at a time when their living and operating costs were rising. The farmers began to organize early in the 1870s, and, during the ensuing two decades, large numbers of them joined such bodies as the National Grange and the Farmers’ Alliances. The latter were cooperative organizations that hoped to lower farmers’ costs by selling supplies at reduced prices, loaning money at rates below those charged by banks, building warehouses to store crops until prices became favorable, and taking political action to achieve these goals. Alliances were popular in the South, where many farmers existed in an almost endless cycle of debt. In some southern states, alliances even embraced black farmers, who had been ostracized from political life there since Reconstruction. By 1891 the movement had gained sufficient strength to warrant a national political party. The alliances joined with the Knights of Labor and other groups to form the People’s Party, whose members were called Populists.

The principal objectives of the Populists were the free coinage of silver and the issuance of large amounts of paper currency; such inflationary measures tended to raise farm prices and enable the farmers to pay off their debts, most of which had been contracted during the period of inflation following the American Civil War. Populists also sought to replicate their cooperative system on a national scale; to lower transportation costs by nationalizing the railroads; to achieve a more equitable distribution of the costs of government by means of a graduated income tax; to institute direct popular elections of U.S. senators; and to inaugurate the 8-hour workday. The results of the first election in which the Populists took part, that of 1892, were promising; the Populist presidential candidate, James B. Weaver, received 1,029,846 votes. Populist influence peaked in 1896 when William Jennings Bryan, a Democrat who sympathized with the Populists’ agenda, won his party’s presidential nomination. The Populists endorsed Bryan, thus sacrificing their independent identity. After he was defeated, the Populist Party faded steadily from the political scene, disappearing about 1908.

Despite the brevity of its existence, the Populist movement exercised a profound influence on subsequent U.S. political life; almost all the original Populist demands, which at one time were widely viewed as radical and contradictory to America’s free enterprise system, were eventually enacted into law giving populism a legal status.

The Functions of Advertising Departments

The Functions of Advertising Departments is usually divided into various segments. Each advertising department has a specific function or assignment. Once one department has completed its work, it hands off the completed assignment to the next department in the advertising process until the ad campaign is completed. The first department that becomes involved in an advertising campaign is the research department. The Functions of Advertising Departments as much as media publishing is concerned is important for shaping what the ads would look like.

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The Balance Sheet

Of the two traditional types of financial statements, the balance sheet relates to an entity’s financial position at a point in time, and the income statement relates to its activity over an interval of time. The balance sheet provides information about an organization’s assets, liabilities, and owners’ equity as of a particular date—namely, the last day of the accounting or fiscal period. The format of the balance sheet reflects the basic accounting equation: Assets equal equities. Assets are economic resources that are expected to provide future service to the organization. Equities consist of the organization’s liabilities, which are its obligations together with the equity interest of its owners. For example, assume that a business owns a building worth $7 million and that the amount left to pay on the mortgage loan is $5 million. On the business’s balance sheet, the building would be considered an asset worth $7 million, the unpaid mortgage loan balance would be considered a liability of $5 million, and the $2-million difference between the value of the building and the outstanding loan would be the business’s equity.

Assets are categorized as current or long-lived. Current assets are usually those that management could reasonably be expected to convert into cash within one year; they include cash, receivables (money due from customers, clients, or borrowers), merchandise inventory, and short-term investments in stocks and bonds. Long-lived assets include the land, buildings, machinery, motor vehicles, computers, furniture, and fixtures belonging to the company. Long-lived assets also include real estate being held for speculation, patents, and trademarks.

Liabilities are obligations that the organization must remit to other parties, such as vendors, creditors, and employees. Current liabilities generally are amounts that are expected to be paid within one year, including salaries and wages, taxes, short-term loans, and money owed to suppliers of goods and services. Noncurrent liabilities include debts that will come due beyond one year, such as bonds, mortgages, and other long-term loans. Whereas liabilities are the claims of outside parties on the assets of the organization, the owners’ equity is the investment interest of the owners in the organization’s assets. When an enterprise is operated as a sole proprietorship or as a partnership, the balance sheet may disclose the amount of each owner’s equity. When the organization is a corporation, the balance sheet shows the equity of the owners (the stockholders) as consisting of two elements. These two elements which constitute the balance sheet are the amount originally invested by the stockholders and the corporation’s cumulative reinvested income, or retained earnings—that is, income not distributed to stockholders as dividends.

The Cultural Impact of Advertising

The Cultural Impact of Advertising has generated some arguments for and against in certain quarters. Some are of the opinion that foreign culture alien to a particular area is imported while others merely see it as a means of learning other people’s way of life. Advertising can affect cultural values. Some advertising messages, for example, encourage aggressive individualism, which may clash with the traditional cultural values of a country where the collective or group is emphasized over the individual or humility or modesty is preferred to aggressiveness. With the globalization of the world economy, multinational corporations often use the same advertising to sell to consumers around the world. Some critics argue that advertising messages are thus helping to break down distinct cultural differences and traditional values, causing the world to become increasingly homogeneous.

Many advertising campaigns, however, have universal appeal, overriding cultural differences, or they contribute to culture in a positive way. Humor in advertising has made many ad campaigns widely popular, in some cases achieving the status of folklore or taking on new life in another arena. For example, a popular ad campaign for a fast-food chain with the slogan “Where’s the beef?” became part of the 1980 Democratic presidential primary campaign between Gary Hart and Walter Mondale. The ad ridiculed a competitor by depicting a small hamburger patty dwarfed by a huge bun. During a primary debate one of the candidates used the ad slogan to suggest that his opponent’s campaign lacked substance. The Cultural Impact of Advertising is however such that when a particular product is advertised the culture of the originators many a time are clearly visible.

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The Economy of Afghanistan

A decade of Soviet occupation, war, and economic manipulation followed by years of civil war left the economy of Afghanistan in shambles. Even in the 1970s, prior to the wars, Afghanistan had one of the lowest standards of living in the world. As the Soviet-Afghan War and its effects spread throughout the country in the early 1980s, two separate economies emerged: the urban financial and industrial facilities, tied especially to the Soviet Union, and the largely independent rural subsistence economy. The production, trafficking, and movement of drugs and weapons became a major hidden part of the economy.

Over the centuries, Afghans have developed a number of different strategies to earn a living from their difficult environment. Most Afghans are settled farmers, herders, or both, depending upon ecological, economic, and political factors. They are usually self-sufficient in foodstuffs and other necessities. Industry and mining developed considerably in the 20th century, but local handicrafts remained important.

In 1956 the government launched the first of several five-year plans. Irrigation efforts and development of a better road and telecommunications network had top priority, with later efforts toward production of textiles, cement, electricity, fertilizer, and grain storage facilities. Progress was made to develop better trade with the outside world, especially with Europe, the United States, and Japan. Major nations aided Afghanistan in building roads, dams, hydroelectric facilities, airports, factories, and irrigation networks. After the Soviet invasion in 1979, development aid from the West ceased, and until 1991 Afghanistan was economically dependent on the USSR. Following the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001, Afghanistan began the reconstruction of its war-ravaged economy with assistance from international financial institutions and individual countries. The Economy of Afghanistan from the foregoing cannot be said to be fully developed due often times to the impact of war and unstable governments.

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The Functions of Advertising Departments: Creative Work

The Functions of Advertising Departments: Creative Work is significant in order to get the widest reach as possible. Once the types of media have been determined, the agency’s creative department develops the presentation of the ads. The principal figures in the creative department are the copywriter and the art director. The copywriter is the person who writes the advertising message. The art director is the person who oversees the design of the ad. The copywriter and the art director work together to find creative ways to deliver the message that research found would have the greatest appeal to the target audience.

The creative team begins by familiarizing itself with the product and the research. Often the creative team will ‘kick around ideas’ or “brainstorm,” a process in which one idea is allowed to stimulate another without reaching a decision about whether any of the ideas are valid. Such free association often leads to unexpected approaches that might never have resulted from more logical thinking.

Once the brainstorming has produced a wide range of ideas, the team then evaluates the various proposals and selects the best to present to the client. For example, if the team selects an idea for a television commercial, they present the idea to the client as a storyboard. The storyboard consists of a sequence of drawings indicating how the TV commercial’s story or action will unfold. Or the team may design print ads for the client as layouts in which the various elements—the headline, photograph or illustration, and body copy—will appear as intended for publication in a magazine or newspaper.

Print ads and television commercials use a variety of techniques to deliver their messages. Testimonials and endorsements can lend both prestige and credibility to a product. Seeing an athletic superstar, for example, endorse a particular brand of athletic shoe makes the brand seem more prestigious and suggests that it must be good because a professional uses it. Superiority is also often demonstrated through product comparisons–for example, by showing that one brand of paper towels absorbs more spilled liquid than another or that in consumer taste tests one beverage is preferred over another. But because more and more competing products are virtually identical to one another, advertisers frequently use image advertising to distinguish their products. Image advertising surrounds the product with a ‘halo of positive associations’ by using the same character or theme year after year.

Most advertising appeals to people’s emotions, particularly the emotional needs for love and belonging, prestige and self-esteem. Manufacturers of luxury and fashion products, for example, frequently appeal to the desire for esteem and prestige. Advertising for a line of clothing, such as Ralph Lauren’s Polo clothes, may associate the product with the lifestyle of wealthy landowners. Those who buy the clothing purchase it, in part, because they want to be identified with that prestigious lifestyle. Makers of personal care products, on the other hand, often suggest that buying their products will enable consumers to experience love and acceptance. Advertising for perfume or cologne conveys the message that the product makes users more sexually attractive. Personal care products such as breath mints and dandruff shampoos, on the other hand, usually play upon consumers’ fears and dramatize the rejection that results from failing to use the product. The implication is that product usage brings love and acceptance. The Functions of Advertising Departments: Creative Work usually determines what the product is likely to look like when used by consumers.

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The Functions of Advertising Departments: Media Buying

The Functions of Advertising Departments: Media Buying is usually handled by the media department. Once the target audience has been identified, an agency’s media department determines the most effective way of delivering the message to that target. The media planner is the person who decides which media will be used. The media planner must consider three factors: (1) the number of people to be exposed to the message, known as the reach, (2) the number of times each person needs to be exposed to the message in order to remember it, known as the frequency, and (3) the costs.

The media planner wants to reach the largest possible percentage of the target audience. To accomplish that goal, the media planner must employ the media that have audiences closely resembling the target audience. If the target is very broad, such as the national market for medium-priced automobiles, the media planner will probably select network television, which has a broad reach. If the target is more narrow and specialized, then the media that reach a more specialized audience, such as magazines, would be selected. Moreover, since not all members of the narrow target audience read the same magazines, the media planner might employ a range of magazines to reach a larger percentage of the intended consumer.

The media planner must also determine how frequently the advertising should run in each medium. Frequency is important because repetition helps the consumer remember both the product and the advertising message.

Finally, because no advertiser has an unlimited amount of money to spend, cost is also a factor. The media planner must choose those media that will enable the advertiser to reach the largest percentage of the target with enough frequency for the message to be remembered without exceeding the advertiser’s budget. Once this media plan has been put together, the agency’s media buyer contacts the media on behalf of the client in order to purchase advertising space or time at the best possible rate.

Often an advertising campaign will employ many types of media. For example, to help advertise a medium-priced automobile, the ad campaign may consist initially of national television advertising to raise brand awareness, followed by local newspaper and radio advertising to reinforce the message and to direct consumers to a special sale at a local dealer. The Functions of Advertising Departments: Media Buying Is usually the final stage after all processes for an advert has been concluded.

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The Functions of Advertising Departments: Production

The Functions of Advertising Departments: Production is the prerogative of the production department. Art directors and copywriters create the concepts behind the ads, but they do not literally make the advertising. Making the ads is the job of the production department. In print advertising, the art director works with the print production manager to hire a photographer or illustrator and then supervises the work. Once the photograph has been taken or the illustration completed, the image is scanned into a computer and placed in the proper position. The art director also selects typefaces for the headline and body copy and then, using the computer, correctly positions the headline and body copy. Once all the elements are in place, the computer file is sent to the newspaper or magazine in which the ad will run. The publication then prints the ad directly from the computer file.

After a client approves a television storyboard, the creative team works with the broadcast producer to hire a director for the commercial. In consultation with the agency and the client, the director selects the actors who will appear in the commercial. The director also hires the crew, including the camera and sound people who will film and record the commercial. After the commercial has been filmed, the creative team works with an editor to put the commercial’s various scenes together. When that task is completed, the copywriter and art director supervise the addition of music and sound effects. Once the ad is completed, numerous videotape copies called dubs are made. A dub is then sent to each television station that will air the commercial. The Functions of Advertising Departments: Production of ads however must pass through some stages before they are finally placed on newspaper or television.

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The Functions of Advertising Departments: Research

The Functions of Advertising Departments: Advertising agencies employ research for both strategic and evaluative purposes. Strategic research enables the agency to better understand how consumers use a product or service and how they regard the product or service. Strategic research also determines the types of people most likely to buy the product. That group of people is called the target market. Advertisers have limited budgets so knowing who is most likely to buy a particular product helps them spend their advertising budget more efficiently. Evaluative research is used after the advertising has run and seeks to determine how well consumers remember the advertising message and how persuasive it was. Evaluative research is expensive, and as a result, many advertisers do not employ it. Instead, they try to measure the advertising’s effectiveness by analyzing sales results.

Agencies use both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Agencies employ qualitative research to gain an initial understanding of the marketing situation (see Marketing). This research method uses open-ended questions that allow consumers to explain their values, beliefs, and behaviors at length. One of the most common qualitative research techniques is the focus group in which a moderator leads a small group of consumers in a candid discussion of a particular product category, service, or marketing situation.

Agencies use quantitative research to determine a final course of action. This type of research uses close-ended questions in which answers are selected from a set list. This enables the researcher to determine the exact percentage of people who answered yes or no to a question or the exact percentage choosing answer a, b, or c. One of the most common quantitative research techniques is the survey in which researchers use a questionnaire to gain information from a large group of people, called a sample. Statistical studies show that if the sample is large enough, about 1,000 people, and is representative of a particular group (for example, working mothers who buy disposable diapers), then the findings from the sample are considered true, or statistically valid, and can be extended to the entire group of consumers in that category. The Functions of Advertising Departments: The findings provided by quantitative research are therefore conclusive in a way that qualitative research cannot be.