2009年12月26日星期六

Hot shopping on Boxing day

Today is the annual Boxing day for all the British people after Christmas.


All the notice saying “sales”, and “up to 50%” are almost everywhere.


The main shopping area in London, SOHO, was full of people from all over the country, which made Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Bond Street much more crowded than usual.


Selfridges, which is one of the most important shopping destinations, almost attracted everyone’s attention.


People all rushed into this shopping mall at the time it opened. Soon, it was hard for customers to move their steps freely, even in the same counter.


The products at the sale were quickly snapped up. In the afternoon, some counters were almost empty, such as Vivian Westwood, Marc by Marc Jacobs, and Chloé.


People were waiting in long queues for some big international brands, especially for Gucci.


Till eight o’clock in the evening, one hour before Selfridges’ closing, there were still dozens of people waiting for Gucci in the light rain.


Many customers said that boxing day had the biggest sale of the year, and London had the most plentiful goods, which drove them to the exciting shopping activity, especially for those non-Londoners.


VAT increasing in 2010 is another reason for hot shopping.

2009年12月14日星期一

New media's effect on consumers

New media technologies have a great effect on consumers.

Firstly, consumers get richer information.

There emerge various products through diverse vehicles twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, which is helpful to widen consumers’ knowledge of various products.

They begin to participate in the searching and interacting actions with advertisers rather than just being told originally, especially with the help of internet.

Consumers could visit websites with comparative product and ask questions, read reviews and communicate with other massive users that is called ‘word-of-mouth’ to get much more information to know the actual facts of the product or service all sidedly.

However, plentiful information also results in daily interruption and difficult selection from the perspective of consumers.

Every time people go on-line, there must be numerous burdensome pop-up advertisements.

The high frequency of junk e-mails and mussy advertisements in mobile phones is quite annoying as well.

In respect of difficult selection, for example, the advertisements of coke from both Pepsi and Coca Cola show to consumers very similar items.

Similar price, similar appearance, similar taste, similar reputation, and even similar advertisement design, which is really hard for consumers to make a choice except for those who have a preference brand.

The second considerable effect on consumers is database.

Now many on-line businesses ask consumers to provide personal information including name, birthday, address, and phone number to build databases and store information for advertisers.

The advertisers can contact with consumers through many ways.

They can send consumers a greeting card or wish lists of desired gifts via e-mails as an efficient marketing strategy, which usually makes consumers feel intimate.

In one word, database can help build closer and deeper relationships with consumers.

However, there raise significant privacy issues at the same time.

Along with the rampancy of computer viruses and hackers, these personal information can possibly be stolen and published in public, which is obviously threatening the privacy of consumers.

2009年12月13日星期日

New media's effect on advertising industry

New media technologies have a great impact on today’s advertising industry.

First of all, there are multiple advertising platforms resulting from new media.

On one hand, there are more chances for advertisers to spread their advertisements to reach various audiences.

For example, at present, KFC advertisements can be found almost everywhere including TV, newspapers, bill boards, and internet to show its wide impact.

Traditional media such as newspapers and television are either space bound or time bound, while new media like internet and mobile phones span time and space.

Besides, what is another unique promotional strategy to the internet is the participation sites—chat rooms and blogs.

Some are constructed by companies to discuss their products, while some are established by individuals or groups to exchange their comments.

On the other hand, the marketing strategies might be more complex and the effectiveness might be uncertain as a result of so many platform options.

The platforms are growing in number, and the fragmentation of the media audience is also increasing.

It is a big challenge for advertisers to make right marketing strategies which vehicle they should focus on more and how in the new media environment.

Even some targeted audiences receive the advertisements, they might ignore them at once as there are so many fake advertisements on various platforms, especially internet and mobile phones, and they have already been tired of checking their accuracy.

Secondly, brand culture is another important effect on the advertising industry.

New media allow advertisers to communicate ‘with’ consumers rather than the traditional ones of talking ‘to’ them to build strong brand relationships more effectively.

However, the advertiser is faced with a big challenge of catering to diverse cultural groups in a global extent at the same time.

For example, “Kodak film and your family happiness” is a popular advertisement in China, while the American edition is “a picture of one boy holding ponchos in one hand, and the other standing on a sward with the statement: he just killed his last dragon”.

This difference is based on different cultural perceptions of ‘family’ for Chinese while ‘independence’ for Americans.

Therefore, advertisers should well understand distinct cultures to avoid taboos and make suitable advertisements for diverse cultural groups.

Thirdly, it is more convenient and efficient for advertisers in this new media age.

Previously, it always took a long time to illustrate advertising copies.

While in new media age, only with clicks of the right buttons, the copy is illustrated rather quickly.

Now old files can be kept in memory of the computer instead of filing cabinets under databases, which does bring in great convenience and efficiency to advertising industry.

Fourthly, advertisers usually create unnecessary wants and sponsor irrationality to consumers.

The story of advertisements made always involve magic, such as superman, gorgeous women, and extraordinarily effective products.

However, these ‘wonderful’ information are really unnecessary, even a waste sometimes.

For example, one beautiful slim woman shown in the advertisement, a large quantity of women chase for the product she shows to lose weight including many ordinary or even thin women, which probably results in a waste of time and money, and even cause indisposition and illness.

2009年12月11日星期五

Is studying abroad really beneficial?

It was November in Australia, bright sunshine, beautiful seascape, and verdant rain forest. But none of them brought You Li happiness. On the contrary, this Chinese girl was fretting with the increasing temperature, and got annoyed.

As a student of Meridian International Design School which went bankrupt lately, just two weeks before her graduation, this girl found herself the most unlucky person in the world.

“Australia is a hell for me. I thought it was a heaven. After coming here, I realized life of study abroad was not that easy. Finally, I thought I could proudly go back to China soon as a returned student, and find a job with a decent salary.

“But now my dream is totally broken, I don’t know what to do next. I paid money, and spent time, but I got nothing at last. I couldn't believe it,” she said sadly.

As a matter of fact, not only for You Li, it has been a particularly tough weekend for another 3,000 international students including more than 1,200 Chinese as indicated by Chinese embassy in Australia as well. They all have been strongly affected by the closure of four schools in Australia recently.


Australian Global Campus Management Group declared its bankruptcy on 5 Nov due to some financial problems, which resulted in the closure of its owning schools in both Sydney and Melbourne named Meridian International School, International Design School, International College of Creative Arts and ESMOD Australia.

This incident has aroused strong repercussions in the public in China, whether studying abroad is beneficial to people becomes a controversial topic again in the society.

In recent years in China, there is an increasing number of people who go abroad for studying including UK, US, Canada, Australia, etc., and those people are becoming younger and younger.

According to Report on Chinese studying abroad during last ten years released in October this year, the number is dramatically increasing from 39,000 in 2000 to 179,800 in 2008, and the total number is 1.09 million for last ten years, between 1999 to 2009. So far, there has been over 1.39 million people who have been abroad for studying.

Wenru Dai, a final year undergraduate student in China is now applying to several American universities for her master degree. “I do want to go abroad for studying because I want to experience different cultures myself rather than being taught from the books only as international communication is so important nowadays,

“Besides, I can have the best learning resources in the university with a high reputation in the world, and I can learn to be independent as well,” she said happily, and denied any effects the bankruptcy had on her decision.

Apart from students themselves, more parents think high of studying abroad as well.

One couple said: “education is a life-time investment, those developed countries always have better learning resources, so we decide to send our son to study in UK rather than buying a house, which we can purchase later. Under such a high employment pressure in China at present, you must have some outstanding features.”

They firmly believed that their son would be more competitive with an oversea experience; although they also indicated that they would be very careful at selecting schools to avoid the same tragedy happened in Australia.

Jie Lin, one of the consultants in UKEAS studying abroad agency said: “we will provide our clients with different studying options in terms of their own situation,

“Moreover, we will not only pay attention to their current study, but also to their future occupational planning, so what we will do is to select the most suitable major and school to them based on course structures and career prospects.”

Although more and more students and parents become fairly interested in overseas studying, some experts and professors still remind people of the risk of studying abroad, and give suggestions on their decision-making.

Paul Gladstone, the professor in the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China indicated that studying abroad should be completely based on a personal will in the first place, neither being forced by others or following the popular trend simply. Otherwise, you would get nothing but a waste of time and money.

“Language is very important for both studying and living in a foreign country. It can help you to understand better what the teacher says in the class, and also make it easier for you to enter into a different culture.

“In addition, you should always have a mental preparation for studying in a foreign country, such as solving any problems by yourself.”

2009年12月9日星期三

Carnaby Street

Carnaby Street is a pedestrianised shopping street in London, located in the Soho district, near Oxford Street and Regent Street.


It consists of twelve pedestrianised streets with numerous fashion and lifesyle retailers, including a large number of independent fashion boutiques.


Entering in Carnaby Street, you will find it quite different from the rest in the Soho district because of its special street ornamentation.


There is a huge wall painting at the entrance of Carnaby Street summarizing various activities in Soho district. It’s a cobblestone street rather than the normal concrete one.


There are diverse shapes of balloons hanging over the streets including hearts, reindeers, and trees.


There are also some street artists from all over the world showing their different performs. There’s even a young guy from South America playing diabolo, a traditional Chinese performance.


The retailers on each side of the street are all well designed as well. Take Diesel for example, the storefront is made like a big radio.


Kingly Court is another fasinating building with three floors. It is not that prominnet at first sight. But when you go into the building, you will find all the interesting products there.


For instance, there is one bag boutique. The boss goes to China to select jade for decorating the bags.


Walking in Carnaby Street, you will find all art cells in your body are saying “hello” to the walls and shopwindows.

2009年12月8日星期二

Luxury fever among young people in China

Purchasing luxury goods among young generation in China has been a new popular phenomenon nowadays, especially in some urban areas.

According to Mysite, China had already become the world’s second largest luxury market, with a trend of younger luxury consumers in particular.

Referring to the causes and motivations contributed to those young people’s luxury consumption, there are three common psychological values overall.

First of all, they regard luxury goods as a fulfilment of their dreams of living a ‘quality life’.

Secondly, they are under a great influence of Western culture, hence to enjoy current life as much as possible is what they firmly believe under hedonism.

Thirdly, since most young people are the only child in the family, they use luxuries to call for attention in the society.

2009年12月6日星期日

2012, a touching disaster movie

Spectacular stunts and touching stories are what you can expect from the movie 2012.

This movie is a disaster movie, which is directed by Roland Emmerich.

The story is mainly around what human beings will do on the doomsday in terms of several small stories, expressing humanity when facing death.

The movie scenes are fabulous and true to life. No matter the flood or the collapse of buildings, both of them will make you feel like a real world.

Apart from the great pictures, what is more impressive is the plot.

The audiences can find many plots so touching.

No matter Jackson, the hero in the movie was almost dead when he tried to get the map for his ex-wife and children, or the president of the US told his people the truth of doomsday’s coming, they both could win your tears.

“At least if they know, families can say goodbye to each other, mother can comfort her children, and father can ask his daughter for forgiveness.”

It is one of the most touching parts in the movie when the president of the US giving the last call to his daughter after he decided to give up his chance to live, but to stay with his people for death.

Actualy, living or dying is far less important than living or dying with whom.

2009年12月5日星期六

The sexiest Chicago

Having received more than 50 international awards, playing in more than 200 cities all over the world, and around 18 million people have seen it. Chicago is already one of the world’s most classical musicals.


Dressed in highheels, black fishnets, stocking and suspenders while singing and dancing, here comes the sexiest musical in the world, Chicago.

Plot

It tells the story of Roxie Hart, a woman with great ambition to be famous, while being sent to prison because she killed her lover; and Velma Kelly, a vaudeville star who shot her husband and sister after catching them in bed together. Both of them compete for their place in the spotlight.

Scenery

The stage scenery is pretty simple, which makes the performance itself even more prominent. The orchestra made up of 15 members is sitting on stage for the entire show facing the audiences.

Music

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a story of murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery. All those things we hold near and dear to our hearts." The show starts with a fascinating introduction to attract every audience’s full attention..

The music
itself is really great. The first thrilling moment is “Cell Block Tango”, when those six “merry murderesses” tell the story one by one of how they were sent to prison, full of repression and anger.

There are only six chairs as the props. Every “merry murderess” defend herself for killing her husband singly at first, and then they shout their great anger together. It is simple, but strong enough to shock all the audiences, which led to thunderous applause.

Roxie” is Roxie’s starring moment in the show, when she lives in her fantasy about her own vaudeville act with a group of boys revolving around her all the time. Roxie always calls them “my boys” with a flirtatious glance.

Every boy bends over backwards to please her. No matter whispering or shouting, the only word comes out of their mouths is “Roxie”. The fantasy ends up with Roxie holding a piece of newspaper entitled with “Roxie rocks Chicago” as the top story.

Amos Hart, Roxie’s husband singing “Mr. Cellophane” is another most impressive moment. He gives such a big surprise to the audiences as he is so ordinary at the beginning.

The fatty actor stands in the middle of the stage, singing and waggling like a lovely non-downable doll, but his face shows his fear and tension.

Along with the words, he waves his hands in white gloves gently. It looks like he wants to attract someone’s attention. But when the audiences were all overwhelmed by his great singing, he turns into real Mr. Cellophane again as he finds it uncomfortable.

Dark humour, great songs, fantastic dancing, interesting plot, and sexy costume, anyway, you will find your reason to go for Chicago.