1 Term paper On Top 10 brands in the world

Submitted to: Sayed Parvej Khan, Lecturer Department of Business Administration University of Information Technology and Sciences

Submitted by: Section B BBA 9th semester

Group members: Al-Amin Sikder Ariful Islam Jamal Uddin Masoom 10410239 10410141 10410399

31th March, 2013

Letter of transmittal 31th March, 2013 Sayed Parvej Khan Lecturer, Dept. of BBA University of information technology and sciences

Dear Sir, We, the students of BBA, University of information technology and sciences , members of section-B, were asked to submit an Term paper on Top10 brand in the world . The information related to our Term paper was available. However, we tried our best to collect the information and represent our Term paper as realistic as possible based on the collected information. Dear Sir, it is necessary to mention here that it was the second analytical task for us. So there may be some mistakes. We hope that you will take them as our mistake of learning efforts. And we also hope that you will encourage us to conduct such study in future that will improve our efficiency in professional career.

Yours truly, Al-Amin Sikder On behalf of the group members BBA, 9th Semester University of information technology and sciences (UITS)

Acknowledgement First of all, we are grateful to our almighty Allah for keeping us able to conduct this Term paper and to submit this paper at last. Then we would like to thank Sayed Parvej Khan our honorable teacher of Product and Brand Management, for encouraging us to conduct such an extra curriculum activity as an essential part of our academic study and also for helping us by providing necessary materials supportive to conduct the study.

4 TABLE OF CONTENT

SAMSUNG

Samsung is one of the world's largest technology providers. It started out as trading company exporting various products from South Korea to Beijing, China. Founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938, Samsung gradually developed into the multinational corporation that it is today. The word Samsung means "three stars" in Korean. It became the name associated with different types of business establishments in South Korea and in various parts of the world. Internationally, people associate the name with electronics, information technology and development. In 1969, Samsung Electronics was born. From there, the company started acquiring and creating different business establishments including a hospital, paper manufacturing plant, life insurance company, department stores and many others. The company was destined to become a household name starting in its mother country and spanning its reach to many other cities internationally. Samsung Electronics started catering to the international market in the seventies kicking off with the corporation's acquisition of half of Korea Semiconductor which made it the leading electronics manufacturer in the country. The success of Samsung as a technology provider continues to grow through the eighties as Samsung Electronics was merged with Samsung Semiconductors and Telecommunications. This paved the way towards a stronger hold on the international market with high-tech products that will become a staple in every home. This development continued on through the next decade as Samsung kept on going beyond its boundaries and restructuring its business plan to accommodate the global scene. Adopting a new form of management proved to be a wise move for the company as its products made their way on the list of top must-haves in their various fields. TV-LCD's, picture tubes, Samsung printers and other high-tech products became popular acquisitions due to their high quality. When Samsung ventured into the LCD industry in 1993, it became the world's best. The company's excellent method of quality control is what makes it successful in providing only the best products to the whole world. It applies a "Line Stop" system wherein anybody can stop the process of production in the event that substandard products are discovered. To date, Samsung continues to maintain its status as the "world's best" technology provider. Its highly qualified workforce is still striving for excellence in their respective fields making the whole company a huge success in the making. The secret to the company's continuous success is in the constant improvement of its management structure and the application of its philosophies: "We will devote our human resources and technology to create superior products and services, thereby contributing to a better global society."

The General Electric The General Electric Company, commonly abbreviated simply to GE, is a major technology conglomerate based in the United States. General Electric was founded in Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1878, by Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. It has gone on to become one of the most powerful and dynamic corporations in the world, and as of 2008 was the tenth-largest company on Earth in terms of market capitalization. It is viewed by many as being the single most successful conglomerate, and was a conglomerate long before the practice became commonplace in the 1960s. Thomas Edison is widely hailed as a genius, both as an inventor and as a businessman, and it was his vision that laid the groundwork for General Electric. In 1876 he opened his first real workshop in Menlo Park, where he set about exploring the possibilities of many different inventions he had seen at that years Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. This workshop would eventually yield arguably one of the most important inventions of the modern age: the electric light. In 1890, Edison started a company to bring together his various businesses all under one roof, and called it the Edison General Electric Company. Two years later Edison merged with his primary competitor, the Thomas-Houston Company, and they called the new company the General Electric Company. The move was largely a bid to combine their various patents, to allow for more profitability on both of their parts, as it allowed them to freely use the many smaller inventions each inventor had created in their larger projects. Over the years, General Electric continued to grow and produce different products for a wide range of applications. Many of Edisons early inventions formed the backbone of various General Electric lines through the 19th century, the 20th century, and down to the present day. Electric lighting, power transmission, medical equipment, and transportation were all areas in which Edison held patents and had formed small companies, and are all areas in which General Electric today has large holdings. Over the years General Electric continued to innovate in a huge range of fields, and opened divisions specializing in everything from plastics to airplanes to electric fans. At the beginning of the 20th century General Electric had the first voice radio broadcast in the world, the first electric toaster, and began work on vacuum tubes that would herald the dawn of the electronic age. In the 1910s and 1920s General Electric continued to innovate, setting a new altitude record with an airplane, making the

7 refrigerator a common household word, and building the worlds largest electrical facility on the Panama Canal. Through the Great Depression, General Electric continued to innovate in other ways, introducing a Consumer Finance system to allow consumers to buy appliances for the home even in hard times. In the era of World War II, General Electric assisted with the war effort, innovating in radar technology, and creating the first jet engine. From the 1950s through to the new millennium, General Electric continued to grow, tapping into emerging markets and investing massive resources in pushing the bounds of technologies across every sector. To this day they remain one of the largest investors in invention in the world, and use their massive size and power to shape policy across the globe.

Amazon.com. In a world where anyone can purchase just about anything online, it can be difficult to start and maintain a business selling goods online. Media such as CDs, books, and movies is a common ware being sold on the Internet. Over the last decade, online stores have come and gone so often, many people scoff at their inception. But Amazon.com is not such a company. It is one of the largest Internet sellers of media in the world today, and has expanded its selections to include clothing, beauty products, house wares, and thousands of other items. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994. Originally the business was based out of his garage in his Bellevue, Washington home. A businessman by the name of Nick Hanauer believed in Bezos' idea and decided to invest $40,000 in the venture. When Amazon first decided to go online, its layout was not as flashy as it is today. In fact, the site looked very plain and unattractive to most visitors, causing the business to start out on shaky ground. A man by the name of Tom Alburg decided to invest $100,000 in Amazon in 1995, which helped the company fund a better looking website and hosting capabilities. When people began purchasing books from Amazon, Bezos was in awe that he had customers from all over the country, not just Washington State, purchasing books. Bezos decided that he had to create more than just a bookstore if he wanted people to come back as customers. He added the option of buyers to write their own book reviews, which is a huge credit to Amazon.com's success. People began to look at Amazon as more of an online community and not just a place to purchase things. By 1997, Amazon.com had generated $15.7 million in revenue. Once the company went public the same year, they decided to add CDs and movies to the website. In 1998, Amazon added some new items to the roster: software, electronics, video games, toys, and home improvement items. Once the company began showing signs of success, people became skeptic and claimed that Amazon was getting too large in too short an amount of time. At the end of 1999, Amazon had raked in over a billion dollars in sales. It seemed as though the profit would never cease. However, in 2001, Amazon reported a fiscal loss of $1.4 billion, and had laid off over 200 workers in the last year. The beginning of 2001 found Amazon laying off even more workers, totaling over 1000. Instead of giving up, Bezos had an idea: recruit other companies to sell their products online through Amazon as well. The idea worked. Companies such as Target, Toys R Us, Old Navy, and many others have agreed to sell their items through Amazon. Although Amazon is not

8 directly responsible for inventory through these companies, they do get part of the sales, creating a profit for all involved. Since the inception of the idea, Amazon is now back on its feet and remains one of the most popular online vendors in the world today.

Vodafone Vodafone is the world's largest mobile telecommunications community, employing over 65,000 staff and with over 130 million customers. The business operates in 26 countries worldwide. Vodafone is a public limited company with listings on the London and New York stock exchanges. Global recognition of the Vodafone brand is growing as the company rolls out its identity into new markets. However, it retains local names and images in markets where this is essential to maintaining the trust of customers. To help promote its image worldwide, Vodafone uses leading sports stars from high profile global sports, including David Beckham, Michael Schumacher and Manchester United Vodafone has to be highly visible as 'the brand to buy', in order to be the best. Effective marketing is the key to this high visibility. Marketing involves anticipating customers' needs and finding the right product or service to meet those needs, thereby encouraging high sales levels. Vodafone goes further by looking to impress on its customers not merely. This involves effective communication. There is a slowdown in sales of mobile handsets, in some markets like the UK, as the mature part of the product lifecycle is reached. Customers are exposed to a group of different images and messages by mobile phone companies, as the competition gets tougher. Vodafone appeals to new customers and aims to keep its existing ones. History of Vodafone Vodafone was formed in 1984 as a subsidiary of Racal Electronics Plc. Then known as Racal Telecom Limited, approximately 20% of the company's capital was offered to the public in October 1988. It was fully demerged from Racal Electronics Plc and became an independent company in September 1991, at which time it changed its name to Vodafone Group Plc. The network was the largest company in Europe and the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. By the turn of the century, almost every second UK citizen had a mobile and a third of them were connected to Vodafone. The Vodafone story is one of investment, innovation and award-winning customer service. Above all, its one of growth and the ability to deliver the tremendous benefits of mobile communications, not just in the UK but worldwide. Following its merger with Air Touch Communications, the company changed its name to Vodafone Air Touch Plc on 29 June 1999 and, following approval by the shareholders in General Meeting, reverted to its former name, Vodafone Group Plc., on 28 July 2000. Vodafone Group Plc is the world's leading mobile telecommunications company, with a significant presence in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the United States through the Company's subsidiary undertakings, joint ventures, associated undertakings and investments. The Group's mobile subsidiaries operate under the brand name 'Vodafone'. In the United States the Group's associated undertaking operates as Venison Wireless. During the last two financial years, the

9 Group has also entered into arrangements with network operators in countries where the Group does not hold an equity stake. Under the terms of these Partner Network Agreements, the Group and its partner networks co-operate in the development and marketing of global services under dual brand logos. At 31 December 2008, based on the registered customers of mobile telecommunications ventures in which it had ownership interests at that date, the Group had 289 million customers, excluding paging customers, calculated on a proportionate basis in accordance with the Company's percentage interest in these ventures. The Company's ordinary shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Company's American Depositary Shares ('ADSs') are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The Company had a total market capitalization of approximately 74 billion at 31 December 2008. Vodafone Group Plc is a public limited company incorporated.

Google Google, the leading search engine worldwide, was founded in 1998 by Stanford University graduate students Larry Page and Sergei Brin. While at Stanford in 1996, Page and Brin began developing a search engine they eventually entitled BackRub. This search engine was designed to look at the connecting links between web pages in order to determine a site's authority. In 1998, Page and Brin set up their first data center in Page's dorm. With the encouragement of fellow Stanford alum David Filo, who started Yahoo a few years earlier, Page and Brin decided to start a company and started looking for investors to back them. Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, invested $100,000 in the company after receiving a demo of their search technology. Eventually the pair raised over $1M. Google, Inc. was established on September 7, 1998 in a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. Page and Brin hired their first employee, Craig Silverstein, who was later to become Google's Director of Technology. In their humble beginnings, Google served over 10,000 queries a day and quickly gained a reputation as a trustworthy source of information. By 1999, it was serving 500,000 queries a day and the company moved from the unassuming four walls of a garage to the now mega Googolplex headquarters in Mountain View, California. Google achieved praise and publicity as news spread rapidly through online and offline media as well as their receipt of numerous awards and recommendations. Their audience continued to grow along with their reputation for effectiveness, relevance, speed and reliability. In 2000, Google replaced Yahoo's own internal search engine as the provider of supplementary search results on Yahoo. Now, with more than 50% share of the total search market, Google provides search results for numerous search engines on the web. Google has become all-important to both search engines and search engine optimization specialists alike. The other search engines have a tendency to mimic any algorithmic changes made by Google. Likewise, search engine optimization specialists continually study the changes as well in order to provide their clients with the best search engine rankings. Google is the one to watch.

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The History Of Microsoft Microsoft was formed by a Harvard College Dropout called Bill Gates. Bill Gates was born William Henry Gates III on October 28, 1955. He was born to a family that was successful in business, living a comfortable upper middle class life in Seattle, Washington. Early in his elementary school days, Bill Gates quickly shot to the head of the class, consistently outscoring his peers in most subjects, but especially math and science. His parents soon enrolled him in Lakeside Prep School, where the atmosphere was intellectual enough to stimulate the young Gates. This move to Lakeside would prove historic, for it was here, in the spring of 1968, that he was introduced to computers. At that time, computers were still too large and expensive for the school to purchase one of its own. Over the next ten months or so, the school struck agreements with various corporations who allowed the students to use their computers. Bill Gates, his buddy Paul Allen and a handful of others quickly took to computing. In fact, they began to skip classes, opting instead to stay in the computer room and write programs, read computer books and find out exactly how these machines worked. They soon learned to hack the system, and altered and crashed valuable files until they were banned from the computer. Soon, however, Bill and his friends were actually hired by the computer company to find bugs and explore weaknesses in the system, which kept causing the computers to crash. Instead of paying the boys for their time, they were granted something even better--unlimited computer time. Gates has been quoted as saying that that was the time when he got into computers fulltime. "I mean, then I became hardcore. It was day and night," he said. The boys used their time eating, drinking and breathing computers. They studied manuals, explored the system, and hounded the employees with questions until they had formed a base of knowledge that would eventually lead to the formation of Microsoft. The computer company that was hiring the group went out of business in 1970, and the boys had to find alternate sources for computer time. They were soon hired by Information Sciences Inc. to write a program for payroll. This time they actually earned money as well as enjoying the unlimited computer time. It was during this time that the group gained notoriety for their skill in computer programming. They were hired or contracted by various organizations to find bugs and fix them. Each job helped Gates and his friends learn their skill and delve ever deeper into the world of programming. In the fall of 1973, Gates left for Harvard University. He enrolled as a prelaw student, but spent most of his time in the campus computer center, programming away. He stayed in touch with Paul Allen and they continued to talk about future projects and the possibility of one day having their very own business. Allen even moved to Boston to be closer to Gates, so they could continue working on projects. Allen continually urged Gates to quit school and work with him full-time, and Gates was unsure of what he wanted to do. This was soon to change.

11 One year later, Paul Allen saw the first microcomputer on the cover of a magazine. He bought the magazine and went immediately to show it to Gates. They realized the time was right. The home PC business was about to explode and someone would need to provide software for the machines. By stretching the truth somewhat, Gates arranged for a meeting with the Altair manufacturers. He had called them to let them know he had a program written for them. After the appointment was made, Gates and Allen stayed up for nights, feverishly writing the program he had promised. It worked perfectly at the meeting, and everyone was impressed. They sold the program, and saw that this was something they could do for real. Within a year, Gates had dropped out of Harvard and Microsoft was formed. The company went through some rough first years, but eventually were able to license MS-DOS to IBM. The IBM PC took the public by storm, and its success signaled the success of Microsoft. Microsoft continued writing software, for businesses as well as the consumer market. In 1986, the company went public, and Gates became a 31-year old billionaire. The next year, the first version of Windows was introduced, and by 1993 a million copies per month were being sold. In 1995, Gates knew that the Internet was the next area of focus, and the course of Microsoft shifted dramatically. The popular Internet Explorer browser soon became a bestseller. Today, Microsoft software is everywhere.

HISTORY OF IBM The character of a company -- the stamp it puts on its products, services and the marketplace -- is shaped and defined over time. It evolves. It deepens. It is expressed in an ever-changing corporate culture, in transformational strategies, and in new and compelling offerings for customers. IBM's character has been formed over nearly 100 years of doing business in the field of information-handling. Nearly all of the company's products were designed and developed to record, process, communicate, store and retrieve information -- from its first scales, tabulators and clocks to today's powerful computers and vast global networks. IBM helped pioneer information technology over the years, and it stands today at the forefront of a worldwide industry that is revolutionizing the way in which enterprises, organizations and people operate and thrive. TIME LINE 1885- first computing scale 1886- tabulating system 1888- first dial recorder company 1890- Tabulating System 1895- First automatic computing scale 1906- First automatic feed tabulator 1914- Accounting machines 1915- "THINK" signs 1917- International Business Machines Co., Limited 1920- printing tabulator

12 1923- first electric key punch 1924- International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) 1926- sesquicentennial exposition 1928- first public address and program signaling systems 1933- IBM Type 285 Numeric Printing Tabulator 1944- Automatic sequence controlled calculator (ASCC) 1953- IBM 650 Magnetic drum Calculator 1956- RAMAC magnetic hard disk storage 1957- FORTRAN (Formula Translation) 1960- Stretch 1961- selectric 1964- System/360 1968- Customer information control system (CICS) 1970- IBm System/370 1979- Cultural and Physical Barriers 1982- Industrial Robotic system 1988- Application System/400 1992- ThinkPad 1996- DB2 1998- Olypic Games Web site 1880s1924: The origin of IBM BRANDING Level of recognition and recall:IBM is the Master in its feild and has diversified into a wide variety of IT services and products. Along its winding journey from the world of early computers to todays system integrator business it entered into the industry of personal computers which was just sold to Lenovo and thought out this journey the IBM brand had remained constant. The deal with Lenovo is a clear example on how Lenovo is able to benefit from the brand of IBM as it allows them to increase the number of products they create easily and since they enjoy low cost of production they are able to procur an alroubd befit with the name of IBM associated with them and low prices. How can one improve the awareness of the brand of IBM:IBM is involved in a large number of products and services which include mainframe servers to software. their services are used widely in all sorts of products but in the general publics mind IBM is mainly associated with the PC industry, to change this the company is now on a major branding campaign where it will use the logo, IBM Technology, on the producs it is involved in the first being Nintendo. but many of it customers may not want to dilute their barnd by placing the brand name of IBM on their products hence IBM will ave to do their part in informing people that the comapny is into alot more things than just PC's. Enemy Movement:IBM has a large number of competitors in the various industries it is functioning in. HP, Sun microsystems, Affymetrix , Intel, etc are few competitors of IBM. Speaking from a purely Branding perspective, IBM's competitors are moving ahead of it by initiating purely branding campaigns which inform the general consumers of their products and how they are used, hence IBM will soon have to do that so as to be recognized. How is the Loyalty? Does it need to be improved? Competitors? IBM is a well-established brand which has been in existence for a long time and has been consistent in its performance throughout and hence has a very good brand loyalty. IBM spends alot of money on research and development and is able to constantly develop its products and services offering its

13 customers more and more. Its Competitors are constantly present and they are the ones, according to me, who force IBM to become better and better. There are a few things that IBM needs to incorporate with the changes taking place in the market, for instance they need to make people aware of all the products and services it offers and where it is being used and how only then will the public truely understand where IBM stands, this not only helps the company but also its customer aswell. Desired image of IBM:I would like the general public to view IBM as a provider of the maximum quality products and services at economical prices in the IT industry.

APPLE: 1. Background of companyApple Inc., formerly Apple Computer, Inc., is a multinational corporation that creates consumer electronics, computer software, and commercial servers. Apple was established in Cupertino, California on April 1, 1976 and incorporated January 3, 1977. The company's bestknown hardware products include Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad.For reasons as various as its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic design to its distinctive advertising campaigns, Apple has established a unique reputation in the consumer electronics industry. This includes a customer base that is devoted to the company and its brand, particularly in the United States. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008 and in the world in 2008, 2009, and 2010. 2. Comparing a Steve Jobs presentation is nearly impossible. Hes in a league all his own. In my opinion, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is the most charismatic pitchman in business today. His presentations are brilliant demonstrations of visual storytelling that motivate customers, employees, investors, and the entire computer industry.Before Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple, he was an electronics hacker. 3. Objective of the company To obtain stellar products and services within tight timeframe, at a cost that represent the best possible value to our customers and shareholders.

14 4. Current mission statementApple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings. 5. CommentApple Computer, Inc. is the mission statement is good because they committed to bring out the quality product of personal computer through their customers needed. Apple always upgrade through with innovative, contemporary and modern technology product. The apple mission statement show that they have an own way in strategy to make a more profit and growth through their business in the future. 6. Proposed mission statement. The Apple Computer, Inc. mission statement is to bringing the greatest personal computing realization to the all kind of people around the world with their own life style. Apple came out with the variety kind of product through its innovation hardware, software, and Internet offerings. The market strategies evolved should be economical, efficient, durable, and flexible and allow the Apple to respond rapidly to both market and customer needs. And, we will keep on top of today's and tomorrows technology, no matter how fast it moves, to ensure our Customers always have the best tools available to them

Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola history began in 1886 when the curiosity of an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John S. Pemberton, led him to create a distinctive tasting soft drink that could be sold at soda fountains. He created a flavored syrup, took it to his neighborhood pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water and deemed "excellent" by those who sampled it. Dr. Pemberton's partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, is credited with naming the beverage "Coca-Cola" as well as designing the trademarked, distinct script, still used today. Did you know? The first servings of Coca-Cola were sold for 5 cents per glass. During the first year, sales averaged a modest nine servings per day in Atlanta. Today, daily servings of CocaCola beverages are estimated at 1.8 billion globally. Prior to his death in 1888, just two years after creating what was to become the world's #1-selling sparkling beverage, Dr. Pemberton sold portions of his business to various parties, with the majority of the interest sold to Atlanta businessman, Asa G. Candler. Under Mr. Candler's leadership, distribution of Coca-Cola expanded to soda fountains beyond Atlanta. In 1894, impressed by the growing demand for Coca-Cola and the desire to make the beverage portable, Joseph Biedenharn installed bottling machinery in the rear of his Mississippi soda fountain, becoming the first to put Coca-Cola in bottles. Large scale bottling was made possible just five years later, when in 1899, three enterprising businessmen in Chattanooga, Tennessee secured exclusive rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola. The three entrepreneurs purchased the bottling rights from Asa Candler for just $1. Benjamin Thomas, Joseph Whitehead and John Lupton developed what became the Coca-Cola worldwide bottling system.

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Among the biggest challenges for early bottlers, were imitations of the beverage by competitors coupled with a lack of packaging consistency among the 1,000 bottling plants at the time. The bottlers agreed that a distinctive beverage needed a standard and distinctive bottle, and in 1916, the bottlers approved the unique contour bottle. The new Coca-Cola bottle was so distinctive it could be recognized in the dark and it effectively set the brand apart from competition. The contoured CocaCola bottle was trademarked in 1977. Over the years, the Coca-Cola bottle has been inspiration for artists across the globe -- a sampling of which can be viewed at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. Check out a preview of the latest art exhibit. The first marketing efforts in Coca-Cola history were executed through coupons promoting free samples of the beverage. Considered an innovative tactic back in 1887, couponing was followed by newspaper advertising and the distribution of promotional items bearing the Coca-Cola script to participating pharmacies. Fast forward to the 1970s when Coca-Cola's advertising started to reflect a brand connected with fun, friends and good times. Many fondly remember the 1971 Hilltop Singers performing "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke", or the 1979 "Have a Coke and a Smile" commercial featuring a young fan giving Pittsburgh Steeler, "Mean Joe Greene", a refreshing bottle of Coca-Cola. You can enjoy these and many more advertising campaigns from around the world in the Perfect Pauses Theater at the World of Coca-Cola. Evolution of the Coca-Cola Bottle

The 1980s featured such memorable slogans as "Coke is It!", "Catch the Wave" and "Can't Beat the Feeling". In 1993, Coca-Cola experimented with computer animation, and the popular "Always CocaCola" campaign was launched in a series of ads featuring animated polar bears. Each animated ad in the "Always Coca-Cola" series took 12 weeks to produce from beginning to end. The bears were, and still are, a huge hit with consumers because of their embodiment of characteristics like innocence, mischief and fun. A favorite feature at the World of Coca-Cola is the ability to have your photo taken with the beloved 7' tall Coca-Cola Polar Bear. Did you know? One of the most famous advertising slogans in Coca-Cola history "The Pause That Refreshes" first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1929. The theme of pausing with Coca-Cola refreshment is still echoed in today's marketing.

In 2009, the "Open Happiness" campaign was unveiled globally. The central message of "Open Happiness" is an invitation to billions around the world to pause, refresh with a Coca-Cola, and continue to enjoy one of life's simple pleasures. The "Open Happiness" message was seen in stores, on billboards, in TV spots and printed advertising along with digital and music components -- including a

16 single featuring Janelle Monae covering the 1980 song, "Are You Getting Enough Happiness?" The happiness theme continued with "Open the Games. Open Happiness" featured during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, followed by a 2010 social media extension, "Expedition 206" -- an initiative whereby three happiness ambassadors travel to 206 countries in 365 days with one mission: determining what makes people happy. The inspirational year-long journey is being recorded and communicated via blog posts, tweets, videos and pictures. Experts have long believed in the connection between happiness and wellness, and Coca-Cola is proud to have played a part in happy occasions around the globe. In Atlanta, check out the

In the late 1940s, when Sam Walton was franchising a Ben Franklins variety store in Newport, Ark., he had a simple but momentous idea. Like any retailer, Walton was always looking for deals from suppliers. Typically, though, a retailer who managed to get a bargain from a wholesaler would leave his store prices unchanged and pocket the extra money. Walton, by contrast, realized he could do better by passing on the savings to his customers and earning his profits through volume. This insight would form a cornerstone of Waltons business strategy when he launched Wal-Mart in 1962. The quest for low prices came naturally to Walton: He was freakishly cheap. Although he was ranked as the richest man in the United States by the 1980s, he continued, it is said, to have his hair cut by the local barber, a $5 expense that he never supplemented with a tip. (Perhaps he wasnt satisfied.) Costcutting was, as one might also expect, an obsession in the Wal-Mart culture, and Walton was almost as chintzy with his executives as he was with his cashiers. On business trips, everyone, including the boss, flew coach, and hotel rooms were always shared. Even a cup of coffee at the office required a 10cent contribution to the tin. But coffee taxes only went so far. Walton understood that a major requirement for keeping costs down was controlling the payroll. As he would write in his 1992 autobiography, Made in America, No matter how you slice it in the retail business, payroll is one of the most important parts of overhead, and overhead is one of the most crucial things you have to fight to maintain your profit margin. Not only did Walton prefer to hire as few people as possible, but he also dreaded paying them more than he had to. Unions were particularly feared, and Walton did everything he could to fight them, almost always successfully. If such a regimen seems stifling, Waltons employees nevertheless accepted it. In part, it was because Walton framed his cheapness as a crusade on behalf of the lowly consumer and as a quest for a better life for all Americans. It was also because he lived an outwardly modest life, driving an old truck with his hunting dogs in the back. Mostly, it was because he had charisma. Even when Wal-Mart grew outsized, Walton made a point of keeping in touch with his employees on the ground or, as he termed them, his associates. This would often involve flying from store to store Walton had a pilots license for impromptu visits. But Waltons ability to keep his staff happy also relied on a sense of when to let penny-pinching take a backseat to other priorities. In 1985, amid anxiety about trade deficits and the loss of American manufacturing jobs, Walton launched a Made in America campaign that committed Wal-Mart to buying American-made products if suppliers could get within 5 percent of the price of a foreign competitor. This may have compromised the bottom line in the short term, but Walton understood the long-term benefit of convincing employees and customers that the company had a conscience as well

17 as a calculator. He also made sure to give his staff a stake in the company. In 1971, he introduced a profit-sharing plan that allowed employees to put a certain percentage of their wages towards the purchase of subsidized Wal-Mart stock. For employees who stuck around, this could mean quite a bit of money. According to a truck driver named Bob Clark, quoted in Waltons autobiography: [Walton] said, If youll just stay with me for twenty years, I guarantee youll have $100,000 in profit sharing Well, last time I checked, I had $707,000 in profit sharing, and I see no reason why it wont go up again. Equally important was Waltons ability to sell employees on the notion that working at Wal-Mart meant limitless opportunity. Here, from Fortune, is a portrait of Walton at a Saturday-morning meeting in 1989: [Walton] proposes that whenever customers approach, the associates should look them in the eye, greet them, and ask to help. Sam understands that some associates are shy, but if they do what he suggests, It would, Im sure, help you become a leader, it would help your personality develop, you would become more outgoing, and in time you might become manager of that store, you might become a department manager, you might become a district manager, or whatever you choose to be in the companyIt will do wonders for you. He guarantees it. And things could get downright cultish: Then, just to make sure, Sam asks the associates to raise their right hands and execute a pledge, keeping in mind that a promise we make is a promise we keep. The pledge: From this day forward, I solemnly promise and declare that every customer that comes within ten feet of me, I will smile, look them in the eye, and greet them, so help me Sam. Of course, Wal-Marts success relied on more than just charisma and thrift. Technology, in particular, put the company ahead of its competitors. Already by the 1970s, Wal-Mart was using computers to link its stores and warehouses. Sales data allowed Wal-Mart to keep track of specific items and reduce inventory miscalculations. Only years later would Kmart realize how far it had fallen behind. Throughout Waltons career, a focus on innovation of this sort would make Wal-Mart a consistent leader in efficiency. When Walton died in 1992, the adjustment to a post-Sam environment proved difficult. Although WalMart executives had emphasized for years that their company depended on a set of principles and habits more than it did on any one person, Waltons death wound up marking a fateful shift in how the company was perceived. The first blow fell only months later when Dateline NBC produced an expos on the companys sourcing practices. Although Wal-Marts Made in America campaign was still nominally in effect, Dateline showed that store-level associates had posted Made in America signs over merchandise actually produced in far away sweatshops. This sort of exposure was new to a company that had been a press darling for many years, and Wal-Marts stock immediately declined by 3 percent. While the Dateline flap was short-lived, Wall Street soon found other reasons to lose faith in the company. Profit margins were declining, yet David Glass, who was Wal-Marts CEO at the time, chose to make ambitious investments in distribution, technology, and construction. Such risk-taking, while smart, scared off investors at the time, and, by 1996, Fortune was even mocking the companys everyday low stock prices. It was no longer the feisty little chain out of Bentonville. But it wasnt just Wal-Marts image that began to change after Waltons death. It was also the way the company did business. Wal-Marts new leaders took to heart one element of the founders business philosophy the importance of reducing costs but they didnt show his intuition about the importance of making employees feel as though they had a stake in the company. They were already at a disadvantage as it was. Wal-Marts rate of growth was impressive but slower than in its early years the inevitable result of becoming so big and this weakened the appeal of such incentives as stock ownership. But character also played a role. The companys focus on saving money was leading it to

18 make unrealistic demands of local managers, particularly with regard to payroll, and this pressure would eventually lead to serious trouble. For a while, though, it worked. Between 1997 and 2001, the companys stock value increased by over 500 percent, rising by 70 percent in 1997 alone. This undoubtedly helped to mollify employees whod been unhappy with the slump earlier in the decade. Between 1996 and 1999, sales increased by 78 percent while inventory rose only 24 percent, a feat Fortune lauded as mind-bending. Today, with $288 billion in annual revenues (more than Switzerlands GDP) and over $10 billion in profits, WalMart is the worlds largest corporation, according to 2005 Fortune 500 list. It operates over 5,000 stores worldwide and employs over 1.6 million people 1.3 million in the United States alone. That growth has been accompanied by two distinct kinds of perceptions among the public. On the one hand, Wal-Mart has been celebrated for its business innovations, which have set a new global standard for efficiency. On the other, it has been condemned for its hard-charging business practices. One of the most prominent attacks came last November, when filmmaker Robert Greenwald released Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, a documentary that excoriated the company for its approach to unions, independent retailers, outsourcing, and wages and benefits. Washington, too, has gotten involved. In 2003, in the run up to the primaries, Democrats began to make an issue of Wal-Marts wages and benefits. In 2004, Rep. George Miller of California released a report called Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart. And last year, organized labor put together two Washington-based groups: Wake Up Wal-Mart, backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and Wal-Mart Watch, supported by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Staffed by prominent veterans from the campaigns of Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, both groups are devoted to keeping the world, and Washington, informed of Wal-Marts alleged misdeeds. For many progressives, the fight to change Wal-Mart represents a central organizing challenge for the 21st century. Theres evidence that the bad press has taken a toll on the company. A 2004 report prepared for WalMart by McKinsey and Co. found that up to 8 percent of Wal-Mart customers no longer shop there because of negative press they have heard. For the last two Christmas shopping seasons, the company has reported lower-than-expected sales. And in January, Maryland gave final approval to a Wal-Mart bill, requiring large employers to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health benefits. Thirty other states are now considering similar bills. Developments of this sort have led the company to form a war room of political PR experts from both parties including Ronald Reagans image-meister Michael Deaver, and Leslie Dach, a media consultant to Bill Clinton to generate more positive media coverage. Wal-Marts defenders argue that the chain saves lower-income workers billions through its low prices. This is undeniably true, but its not a virtue unique to Wal-Mart. The entire sector of discount retailers from Target to Costco to Best Buy to Home Depot does much the same thing. Meanwhile, WalMarts critics tend to focus on the companys low wages and paltry benefits, or its effect on small towns, or its reliance on outsourcing. But these, too, are by and large sins of the entire discount retail sector. So why pick on Wal-Mart? The answer is that Wal-Mart really is different. In terms of annual revenue, Wal-Mart is nearly four times the size of The Home Depot, the countrys second largest retailer, and almost twice the size of Target, Costco, and Sears (which includes Kmart) combined. That means the company exerts pressure on the entire sector to imitate its methods including its treatment of workers. That would be less worrisome if Wal-Marts record didnt stand out within the sector. But there are strong indications that, when it comes to how it treats its employees, Wal-Mart really is worse than the rest. The company finds itself in trouble because, since the death of Sam Walton 14 years ago, something ugly has happened to the way it does business. Work off the clock In a comparison of Wal-Mart with its peers, the obvious place to start would be wages and benefits.

19 But neither Wal-Mart, Target, nor Costco make public their median wage, which many economists argue is the most accurate measure of how a company pays its employees. A 2005 study (pdf) by Arindrajit Dube and Steve Wertheim of the University of Californias Berkeley Labor Center, however, sheds some light. Using figures for Wal-Mart released through a sex-discrimination lawsuit, and relying for the rest of the large retail sector on numbers from the March 2005 Current Population Survey, the study finds that Wal-Mart pays its hourly workers an average hourly wage of $9.68, while other large retailers average $11.08. (The study adjusts for the fact that Wal-Mart stores tend to be in lower-income areas.) As for health benefits, Dube and Wertheim found that Wal-Mart offers its hourly workers benefits worth 73 cents per hour, while other large retailers offer $1. The study suggests that Wal-Mart is significantly less generous than other large retailers. In response, Wal-Mart has noted that the Berkeley Labor Center receives 10 percent of its funds from organized labor. The company instead cites a study that it commissioned from the consulting group Global Insight, which found that Wal-Marts wages are on par with those of other retailers. But whichever study comes closer to the truth, comparisons between Wal-Mart and the large retail sector as a whole dont tell the full story. After all, discount retailers like Wal-Mart will inevitably pay less than many other large retailers, and why shouldnt they? Doing so allows them to offer lower prices. Only by focusing exclusively on other discount retailers like Costco and Target can we meaningfully compare Wal-Marts wages and benefits to those of its competitors, but we simply lack the hard data on most other outlets to do this. But there are myriad other ways that employers can cut costs at the expense of workers. And its in these areas that we can gather more satisfactory information to compare Wal-Mart to its competitors. The simplest way to save money is to avoid paying people for all the hours that theyve worked a practice called off-the-clock work. Of course, Wal-Mart cant explicitly force employees to work offthe-clock. But it can set payroll targets that are nearly impossible to achieve without doing just that. As one manager explained to The New York Times in 2002, You got to hit the payroll budget they set for you, but if youre over, they discipline you. Plausible deniability, then, becomes essential. Workers get assigned more work than they can possibly complete on their shifts while being warned that overtime is out of the question. No intelligent employee would fail to get the message: Finish the job by whatever means necessary. We worked off the clock pretty much every shift, one employee told the Times. The manager said if our jobs were not finished, we had to clock out and finish our jobs so no overtime would show up. Wal-Mart insists that these cases are unrepresentative of the company as a whole, and that any enterprise of their size is bound to have a few rogue managers. But the verdicts so far suggest a widespread problem. In 2000, Wal-Mart paid $50 million to settle an off-the-clock suit involving 69,000 Wal-Mart employees in Colorado. Two years later, a federal jury ordered Wal-Mart to pay back wages to 83 workers in Oregon for off-the-clock work. Some 40 similar class actions are pending, and in 2002, The New York Times reported on a wide-ranging legal battle between Wal-Mart and employees or former employees in 28 states over off-the-clock work. Last December, a California jury awarded $172 million to thousands of Wal-Mart employees who had been illegally denied lunch breaks. Free-market advocates who defend the company argue that squeezing workers is an unavoidable reality of the discount retail business. But a look at the annual reports of Wal-Mart and its competitors points up a glaring difference between the companies. Targets and Costcos annual reports for 2004-2005 include no cases of off-the-clock work. Wal-Marts lists 44 in the last 10 years. No girls allowed In 1986, Walton was sensing some pressure to appoint a woman to Wal-Marts all-male board. So he offered the job to Arkansas first lady, one Hillary Clinton, who accepted. She would later quote Waltons pitch: I think I need a woman; would you like to be her? Today, Wal-Marts challenges in the field of gender equality are not so easily addressed. The company keeps its payroll costs down by

20 paying women less than their male counterparts for performing the same work. Evidence also exists that it fails to promote women at the same rate as men. In 2000, a female employee at a California Wal-Mart who found herself denied promotions filed a sexdiscrimination suit. That case now involves nearly two million women, and, in 2004, it was certified by Judge Martin J. Jenkins, of the United States District Court in San Francisco as a class action. Discrimination is a difficult thing to prove, but the figures in the case do not look good. According to numbers compiled in 2003 by the plaintiffs, female store managers average slightly under $90,000 in annual income, while their male counterparts average slightly over $100,000. And while women make up 79 percent of the stores department heads (an hourly position), only 15.5 percent are store managers. Judge Jenkins offered a strongly-worded assessment of the evidence: Plaintiffs present largely uncontested descriptive statistics which show that women working at WalMart stores are paid less than men in every region, that pay disparities exist in most job categories, that the salary gap widens over time, that women take longer to enter management positions, and that the higher one looks in the organization the lower the percentage of women. Wal-Mart has argued that most of the decisions about hiring and promotion are decentralized. The plaintiffs contend, however, that a company in which headquarters chooses to regulate certain regional minutiae, such as individual store temperatures, also has the capacity to keep an eye on gender issues. But is Wal-Mart really any different from its competitors when it comes to treating its female employees fairly? An extensive search of cases against Target doesnt turn up any similar accusations, and while Costco does face a gender discrimination class action, it involves hundreds of women, not millions. Brad Seligman, who is lead counsel on the gender discrimination cases against both WalMart and Costco, stresses that, even accounting for differences in size, Wal-Mart is exceptional. Im the first to concede that the Costco case is nowhere in the same league as the Wal-Mart case, says Seligman. Ive done 50 class actions in my time, and Wal-Mart stands out above all of them, both in terms of the depth and pattern of discrimination and in their reaction to the charges. We care, but not that much Few discount retailers make it easy for workers to unionize. But its hard to find one that has been more aggressive, brutal, and openly hostile to unions than Wal-Mart. Sam Walton faced his first major union challenge in the 1960s. Two Wal-Marts in Missouri were on the verge of organizing, and Walton called in a lawyer named John Tate to stop them. In 1989, Tate, by then an executive vice president of the company, described the events to Fortune: I told [Walton], You can approach this one of two ways: hold people down, and pay me or some other lawyer to make it work. Or devote time and attention to proving to people that you care. Walton soon followed up with a management seminar called We Care, began to call employees associates, and introduced a widely-praised profitsharing plan. Whether satisfaction or fear was at play, no union ever formed. Since Waltons death, however, the hold people down and pay me or some other lawyer to make it work method appears to have gained favor. In 2000, when workers in a Jacksonville, Texas, meatcutting department successfully voted to unionize, Wal-Mart announced two weeks later that it would be closing its meat-cutting departments nationwide and switching to pre-cut meat. Four of the employees who voted in favor of the union were fired. (The company claims that the timing was coincidental and that the dismissals were unrelated, but a National Labor Relations Board judge disagreed. Wal-Mart is appealing the case.) A year ago, employees at a Wal-Mart tire and lube shop thought they had enough votes to unionize, but the company fired one of the likely yes-voters and transferred in six likely no-voters. Again, an administrative judge ruled that Wal-Marts conduct had been illegal, but the goal of blocking the union had been achieved. And in February 2005, the company announced that it would be closing a Wal-Mart in Quebec, one of only two unionized Wal-Marts in North America (the other is also in Quebec). Wal-Mart claimed the store was losing money, but it refused to release numbers.

21 Wal-Marts strong-arm approach is the product of a simple cost-benefit analysis. As Thomas Cochan, a professor at MITs Sloan School of Management, explains, we have a law that is no longer serving its basic objective of providing people with the ability to organize. The incentives are too weak to keep companies from violating the law if they dont want to comply. The National Labor Relations Board can order an employer to rehire a terminated employee and to pay back wages, but it cant impose criminal penalties or punitive damages. This is rather like telling a bank robber that the penalty for a failed heist is being required to return the money to the bank. And Wal-Mart takes full advantage of such laxity. Store managers are equipped with 56-page pamphlets titled The Managers Toolbox to Remaining Union Free, and representatives from the People Division in Bentonville are flown out at a moments notice if there are any signs of union activity. According to a 2004 report in The Nation, stores even administer personality tests to applicants to screen out potential union sympathizers. Although Target and Kmart both take pains to head off workers who might organize a union Costco, by contrast, has some unionized employees Wal-Mart still leads the competition. Over the past 10 years, the NLRB or its administrative law judges have determined in at least 11 cases that WalMart or individual Wal-Mart stores were engaging in unfair labor practices to prevent unionization, according to the agencys website. In that same period, both Targets and Costcos records appear to have remained clean. An excerpt from one of the decisions against Wal-Mart gives a sense of the extent of the violations: The Respondent, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall cease and desist from: Promising to remedy employee concerns in an effort to undermine support for the Union. Removing supervisors from their position in an effort to undermine support for the Union. Engaging in surveillance of the union activities of employees. Coercively interrogating employees concerning the union sympathies and support of other employees. Installing new equipment to remedy employee complaints in order to undermine support for the Union. Transferring employees into the TLE [Tire Lube and Express division] to dilute the support for the Union. Transferring employees into the TLE to remedy employee complaints about inadequate staffing in order to undermine support for the Union. Transferring employees out of the TLE in order to dilute the support for the Union. The post-Sam era Sam would have been proud is the highest tribute that can be paid at the company Walton left behind. Increasingly, though, its also clear that what the writer Barbara Ehrenreich termed the Cult of Sam has played a large role in its current woes. Walton, in his day, played a hard game, but he knew when to hold back. Unions were fiercely resisted, but employees were treated respectfully. Wages were low, but people were made to feel they had a stake in the company. Bargaining with suppliers would be tough, but some holds would be barred. Waltons instincts, in short, helped to keep the companys foibles in check. Absent Walton, the redeeming features of Wal-Mart began to disappear. What remained were the relentlessness, the chauvinism, and, above all, the cheapness. As so often happens, the leader wasnt doctrinaire; but the followers are. A Fortune article from 2003 notes how, at WalMart headquarters, nothing backs up a point better than a quotation from Walton scripture. It wont be easy for Wal-Mart to change its ways. Wake Up Wal-Mart likes to point out that Wal-Mart could raise its average wages by two dollars an hour if it raised prices by only a penny on the dollar. But Wal-Mart is led by people whose lives are devoted to coming up with ways to shave a penny or a half penny, or a quarter penny off of a dollar. Wal-Marts chief spokesman summed up the difficulty in an interview with The New York Times. Change might be necessary, he admitted, but, at the same time, we cant change who we are we cant change what makes Wal-Mart Wal-Mart.

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22 But they may have to. Union-busting, gender discrimination, and off-the-clock work arent innovative; theyre illegal. And there are signs that the company is beginning to recognize the need for change. In a message to company managers posted on Wal-Marts internal website and published by The New York Times in February, CEO Lee Scott wrote: If you choose to do the wrong thing if you choose to take a shortcut on payroll, if you choose to take a shortcut on a raise for someone, you hurt this company. And its not unlikely in todays environment that your shortcut is going to end up on the front page of the newspaper. With any luck, Wal-Mart will work through its identity crisis and produce a company thats a model for the industry. With even more luck, Americans will begin a thoughtful debate about balancing our needs as consumers and our needs as producers. Until then, we can focus on getting Wal-Mart employers to abide by the laws we have. In many instances, that alone would be a significant improvement.