If  the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

Source:

http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Mining/More-miners-seeking-wage-hikes-20120822

Miners working in the rock drill platinum mines that are controlled by Royal Bafokeng Platinum, do not believe that they are being payed adequately. Therefore the miners have gone on strike with the hope of getting an increase in salary. These miners then protested in order to be heard and with the hope of having their demands met.

Days before this protest, miners working for Lonmin mining revolted as well for increased salary, as well as for other territorial reasons unrelated to business. During this strike by the Lonmin mine workers,  police force was needed and 34 men were killed with 78 injured.

Thus the protest performed by the Royal Bafokeng Platinum miners was for their fallen equals, and to show that they did not fear and would continue to strike, until their demands were met.

I believe this to be a great example of a stakeholder conflict as it shows the immense range of possibilities that can take place during conflicts and even though it may be in business, it is not always nice and clean. Also this shows the extremities that can take place when things go wrong or out of control.

The fact that over an amount of money, many lives were lost displays the true grittiness of business, business ethics, and the lack of it in many business environments. This truly displays the balance between profitability and ethics that managers in a firm have to make, as a raise in salary would reduce profits, but deaths partially due to the business would not have occurred. Thus a very important question would be: In business, is it worth trying to maximise profits at any cost?

Source:

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/25/17913878-car-maker-hyundai-apologizes-for-commercial-showing-attempted-suicide

The source I chose surrounding this topic was one that revolved around a controversial advertisment that Hyundai created.

The advertisment was of an individual sitting, locked in a Hyundai,in a garage wishing to commit suicide by inhaling the fumes from the cars. Alas he could not achieve his goal, as the car does not release gaseous fumes, just 100% water emissions.

Presumably the main message or point of the advertisement was to present to people that the car is environmentally friendly, therefore influencing people who want to reduce pollution, and those who care about the enviornment to go and purchase such a car.

The video went viral, and Hyundai recieved alot of complaints and critical comments regarding the advertisment,  many found it unacceptable for suicide to be the main theme of the advertisment as many have lost loved ones to suicide, and to use this traumatic act to promote and market enviornmently friendly cars, and in my opinion Hyundai should not be suprised with the criticism received.

From witnessing the reaction and potentially losing customers, Hyundai realised their mistakes and apologized for the advertisment. Personally I believe that the controversial content was what caused the advertisement to go viral, and by apologising, potential customers can understand and realise Hyundai did not intend any harm. Thus with a large audience viewing that Hyundai designed a car with 100% water emissions, and having no emotion against Hyundai as they have apologised. In the long run, the release of the advertisemnt with the added apology is in fact beneficial towards the sales of the car.This from a marketing and business standpoint is rather impressive and almost ingenious.

Source:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f1a02a08-6586-11e4-aba7-00144feabdc0.html

Nike and Adidas have always been major competitors, but currently it may seem that Adidas has an edge over Nike. Many athletes and celebrities are eradicating their Nike sponsorships and moving to Adidas.

The list includes Kanye West, Jeremy Lin who both have a great fan base and following that would potentially move from customers of Nike to customers of Adidas. This change of shoe sponsors is mainly due to the fact that Adidas offers better perks and benefits to those who endorse them when compared to Nike. This proves a great threat to Nike, who in the past years was the leading shoe brand. But now with Adidas taking ex-Nike endorsers as well as the fact that over the past year the Adidas sales have increased, closely matching Nike, the number one shoe brand title may be taken away.

The change Nike is facing will definitely impact the marketing department as well as the research and development department. Firstly new marketing tactics and campaigns will have to be constructed, as well as new products that innovate and appeal to a mass market segment of Nike consumers.

Additionally, those dealing with sponsors will be under tight watch from senior executives and board members, as Nike cannot afford to lose a major sponsor at the moment, so the relations between the athletes and the company will have to be very good.

On a whole, if Nike manages and maintains itself well then they have nothing to fear, as they still have an immense number of customers and consumers, which makes the number of fans of the athletes who left to Adidas seem minimal.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/samsung-mocks-apples-iphone-6-watch-in-new-ads-20140912-10fxp3.html

Samsung and Apple in recent years have become direct competitors in the cell phone market, with the two firms products being the most successful in the market.

In September Apple unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus stating that this is the biggest innovative change in iPhones since the first iPhone was unveiled. The demand for this product was high with people lining for day just to get their hands on the brand new iPhone, but soon after the release of the iPhone 6, many found that the phone in fact bended easily when placed in the pocket.

With this negative publicity due to the fault in the product, Samsung decided to add to that with a series of advertisements parodying the iPhone 6’s and Apple iWatch release. Samsung mocked Apple’s marketing gimmicks such as the phone being thinner and bigger and made it out to seem that the “innovative changes” were not innovative at all.

Although humorous, the statement “there is no such thing as bad publicity” may be appropriate here, as Samsung is indirectly but obviously mocking Apple more than they are promoting their own products in the advertisements, thus the campaign of parodies may in fact help promote Apple’s releases even more, which is irony at its best.

Ultimately both companies produce products with great demand but there is always the design aspect of Apple products that seem to lure in customers, even if Samsung’s products may have superior technology.

Nevertheless, it is always entertaining to see such rivalry on a huge scale and it is apparent with both the companies sales that this will continue as both succeed.

Source:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102020026

In September 2014, a Chinese E-Commerce website IPO’d, becoming a public limited company selling stocks on the international stock exchange.

This IPO just so happened to be the largest one in history, with raised US$25 Billion.

This is very surprising for a website to generate such a large amount being relatively unknown to most. The main selling point that makes Alibaba so unique is the fact that Alibaba owns a numerous number of websites and businesses, the mains one listed below:

Taobao Marketplace: A Chinese online shopping market place that is also the most popular e-commerce application in China.

TMall: The largest retail and brand website in China that sells directly from the brands to the customers.

1688.com: A wholesale website for international customers selling various items from furniture to clothes.

Alipay: An online payment service, much like Paypal.

Aliyun: Cloud services

Overall, Alibaba as a company has innovated, taken inspiration from companies from around the world and brought that all together in China making it an extremely successful corporation, owning many successful businesses, which explains why they IPO did so well. But the one concerning fact is the lack of brand recognition globally considering they are a large company. Although now the company has gained a lot of recognition from the IPO and are expanding globally, so it is apparent that their business model has changed and that the company is bound to be successful.

Source:

https://www.aclu.org/net-neutrality

The basic principles of the issue on net neutrality involve large telecommunication giants that the majority of individuals use to access the internet such as Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, and Charter, having the power to control and manipulate data provided and received by individuals over the internet.

This idea of controlling and manipulating data involves various aspects that would be considered unethical, but mainly the fact that these corporations would be able to speed up the speed and traffic of people accessing websites that pay these corporate giants, as well as slowing down the speeds of competitor websites and other websites that do not pay these corporations.

The removal of net neutrality would allow these telecommunication giants to rapidly increase their revenues and profit heavily from payments from websites, which is beneficial from the perspective of these corporate giants as well as the websites paying these corporations as the speeds would be increased. Although from the perspective of other stakeholders such as websites that cannot afford to pay the telecommunication giants and the various users of the internet that use such service providers, the whole concept of net neutrality is unjust and unfair as the previous notion of internet equality and a medium where businesses can prosper is diminished completely.

Due to the oligopolistic nature of the market it is apparent that the removal of net neutrality may occur as the firms would prosper so potentially the only way for such a unethical business model to be stopped would be from government involvement , but the telecommunication lobby in the government may make that very difficult to do. All we can do is appeal and hope that the freedom of the internet does not end and that it does not become a controlled system by the corporations.

The Ethical Dilemma of Native Advertising:

An example of Native Advertising as seen in “The Atlantic” where there is an article promoting the church of Scientology.

Source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/js-mcdougall/dont-ruin-the-web-two-rul_b_5744140.html

This blog post is a commentary on the article linked above. The article discusses Native Advertising in news websites and the ethical and moral dilemma in such advertising on such sites.

Native advertising is an advertising method where advertisers pay to have an non-intrusive ad-experience in the same form and performing the same function as the entries in the medium it is placed in.

In the case of native advertisement present in online news websites, the ads would take the form of articles. These articles are known as sponsored articles.

The ethical dilemma of this topic is the fact that those who visits such news website are there to be informed, and when there is no distinction between propaganda and information then the sole purpose of visiting such informative websites is abolished.

I believe that there should be a separation and a line between advertising and news because individuals rely on such websites and view them as trustworthy sources of information.  But also, in order to provide the news, such establishments need funding, funding that mainly comes from advertising. Therefore, unless we as readers wish to fund such establishments, this ethical dilemma will continue to exist.

Additional Reading: (Examples of Native Ads)

A Lively Introduction to Native Advertising