Steps in Building a Brand Name Product or Service
At times, organizations are often inspired by a variety of ideas to create products and services which can be offered locally or globally. Generally, such products or services require the establishment of a brand or company name. Often these brands include both logo and lettering and can do a long way in advertising such products […]
Marketing Mix – Meaning and its Elements
Neil Borden in the year 1953 introduced the term Marketing mix, an extension of the work done by one of his associates James Culliton in 1948. Marketing Mix – A mixture of several ideas and plans followed by a marketing representative to promote a particular product or brand is called marketing mix. Several concepts and […]
Designing and Managing Services
The art of brand building is through creating strong brand image and brand awareness with customer. However, the brand building process continues even after the product is sold to the customer. Company can come out to be a winner by showcasing differentiation in services at the point of sell and after sell customer service. Furthermore, […]
Emergence of International Retailing
The growth of international retailing business has been a field of study by the academic researchers for the past four decades. Various academicians like Alexander and Kacker have been trying to understand the factors that led to the development of internationalisation of retail business since 1990s. By international retailing we are referring to both the […]
The Need for Product Management in Organizations
More often than not, organizations spend a fortune on marketing and product development separately. This is the case with many companies that have different departments dealing with marketing and product development without any coordination. It is left to each of the departments to try and understand what the others are saying to form a cohesive […]
In recent years, the concept of paid news and advertorials that are a combination of editorials and advertisements have become commonplace around the world. While the media always had a cozy relationship with the advertisers because both depend on each other for sustenance, the recent trends indicate that this relationship has now transformed itself into a full-blown public relations exercise by the media on behalf of the corporates.
One cannot deny the fact that the media is dependent on the corporates for advertisements since the media houses have to sustain themselves monetarily. However, the fact that the line between friendly pieces in newspapers and strategically placed interviews and programs on TV and the need to inform and educate the public rather than indulge in advertisement has been breached.
In other words, the media is no longer reporting the stories in an objective and unbiased manner. Rather, they have become the mouthpieces of corporates and anyone with enough money to dictate terms to them.
The point here is that the media must not forget its primary function of being a watchdog of democracy and propagating the public good. In the pursuit of advertising Dollars, the media seems to have forgotten this cardinal rule of journalism and instead, have become the paid servants of big business houses and political parties.
In the United States, the media has always taken a pro-business line in its reporting. Inconvenient facts about big businesses have been ignored or swept away under the carpet and to satisfy their conscience, some minor news items have appeared from time to time.
However, in recent years, the media in the US has transformed itself into being the dedicated public relations units of corporates and big business houses. This can be seen in the way the media has reported news items related to the big oil, big Pharma, and big financial conglomerates.
Indeed, if the media had done its investigative work properly and paid heed to the numerous whistleblowers who were warning about the impending financial crisis, then the readers would have had time to prepare and protect themselves from the impact of the financial crisis.
The fact that in the run up to the crisis, the media were going all out proclaiming that the economy was doing fine is a sad commentary on the way the media has been co-opted by big business. Though there were a few stray voices here and there warning of catastrophe, they were either ignored or given some minor coverage, which meant that when the crisis struck, the impact was severe because the average citizen did not have any inkling about the severity of the problem.
The next aspect that has become apparent is that in the US and the UK, the media is now focusing on becoming a paid advertiser for the corporate interests.
Considering the fact that the media around the world follow the lead set by these countries, in developing countries and the Third World, it has become commonplace for media houses to blur the distinction between news and advertisements. The situation has become so dire that entire segments in TV and entire pages in newspapers are now devoted to covering corporates in a friendly manner without criticizing them or pointing out flaws and controversies in their operations.
As mentioned earlier, this is a worrisome trend as the developing countries like India have long cherished the independence of the media and the fact that the media in India has always been critical of the wrongdoings of the status quo powers. The reversal of this trend and the co-opting of the media in third world countries have meant that big business houses can do what they want and get away with it.
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