Articles Tagged: industry

Irrespective of the mode and methods adopted for marketing, including direct mail, the cigarette vending industry continues to prosper not only in the United Kingdom, but also across the world. At the same time there is a continuous rise in the spread of a number of diseases directly related with smoking including chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases and various types of cancers in turn leading to increased death rates amongst the smoking populations.

Consumer behavior is dependent on few factors that need to be considered in any industry. In the Automotive industry, there are several intertwining factors known. The Internet as one knows well has its importance in nearly every form of trade. Trade is directly dependent on communication, and these days the Internet is considered to be the most important and reliable means of communications for trade.

In this literature review we examine in the context of the UK clothing industry the growth and emergence of what has been termed the discount or value clothing segment led by brands such as George at ASDA. The review here aims to give a synthesis of the background to these developments, linking theoretical observations as to explaining their growth with empirical observations concerning their capturing of a significant part of the UK clothing retail market. The impact of these developments is further assessed in relation to the competitive pressures now experienced by mid-market retailers such as for example Bhs and Marks and Spencer.

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at the issues facing the European car industry with regard to environmental issues.  This is done by looking at past and present published material that revolves around the subject matter under specified themes.  Theoretical perspectives within the European business environment such as pestle, models of market structure, profit maximisation, sources of finance, market segmentation, branding strategy, European business and its effects on the environment are all explained in relation to their relevance of environmental issues.  These theoretical themes are used because they all act as a catalyst to the subject matter of the problems caused by cars which are not fuel efficient or less pollutant within Europe.  In addition, a recently published paper on the directive for labelling on cars with regard to CO2 emissions, awareness of consumers, and fuel efficiency types in the European Union is used as empirical evidence to support ones findings as there was a shortage of time to carry out one.  Finally a critical review of matches and mis-matches is used to compare and contrast similarities between the theoretical perspectives identified to prove the latter mentioned and the empirical evidence gathered for this paper, so as to forge a way forward for the European Car Industry.

This paper discusses employee retention methods that are used in the fast food industry, where the majority of employees are under 21 and in full time education. There are several large players that compete for these potential employees, this paper focuses on McDonalds.

This paper concludes that McDonald’s retention strategies are successful in some of their branches, although this level of retention is not uniform across the whole organisation.  Therefore their strategies require closer monitoring, to successfully implement them.

Until recently research on advertising appeals focused on either physical products or a comparison in relation to the way in which advertising appeals differed between products and services (predominantly professional services). With the continuing growth in the MICE and 5 star resort hotel market, the purpose of this paper is to look at the effectiveness of rational and emotional advertising appeals with respect to the MICE and 5 star resort hotel sector and provide a foundation for further study in this area.

 

Introduction

“Advertising appeals” are essentially the methods which advertisers employ to sell products and services. Some of the more common forms of advertising appeals include money (saving, making and/or retaining), well being, sex, health, fun, pleasure, love, fear, admiration, convenience, vanity, egotism and environmentalism.

Different forms of advertising appeals are more effective for selling different types of products or services. Likewise, cultural factors play a large role in how well a particular advertising campaign is received by consumers.

Within the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (“MICE”) and 5 star resort hotel industry, advertising appeals are generally classified according to whether they are rational or emotional appeals.

The difference between how effective each of these is can only be ascertained when the customer’s preferences are taken into account. However, it should be remembered that the use of advertising appeals is not a precise science and that the difference between a campaign which is highly effective and one that is not can often be the matter of a few words or the use of the wrong colour.

The most important factor with respect to the effectiveness of advertising appeals are the existing customer attitudes toward the product or service and the need or want that the customer is seeking to have the product or service fulfil. It is not therefore surprising that an advertising appeal which is effective in engaging business customers may not fare as well when appealing to leisure customers.

The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine, both by secondary and primary research methods, the which type of advertising appeal (ie rational or emotional) is most effective when selling MICE and 5 star resort hotels to leisure and business clients.

However, it should be noted that due to time and cost restraints the scope of this paper is limited in two important respects. There is no intention to examine customers who have never used a MICE and 5 star resort hotel before and the cultural aspects of advertising appeals is only briefly touched upon.

2. Aims and Objectives

The aims and objectives of this paper are to determine the extent to which rational and emotional appeals apply to MICE and 5 star resort hotels.

While the usefulness of various types of advertising appeals within the service sector generally has been researched quite extensively, this paper seeks to determine whether or not that general research can be applied equally to MICE and 5 star resort hotels. The peculiarity that is thrown up by MICE and 5 star resort hotels is that they have to appeal equally to both business and leisure consumers. Whereas most service businesses can focus on one sector of the market alone, MICE and 5 star resort hotels need to be able to attract both types of customers which can make creating an advertising campaign particularly treacherous as different appeals apply to each group.

Furthermore, each type of customer group can be broken down into various further categories, for instance personal, family, tour groups, returning or first time clients, conference, by income, by age, etc. In light of the innumerable combinations and types of MICE and 5 star resort hotels, it is important to limit the extent of the research. As such, the focus of this paper is limited to MICE and 5 star resort hotels. These types of establishments only seek to attract the right type of clientele and as such are able to focus their marketing on certain sectors of the population and thereby limit the types of advertising appeals they need to rely upon.

3. Providing a rational for the work

This work has both a theoretical and practical basis. From a practical point of view, the MICE and 5 star resort hotel sector is particularly competitive and the clientele is extremely discerning. There are always newer, more fashionable 5 star resort hotels or conference centres opening up and therefore it is extremely important that MICE and resort hotels understand how to market effectively to those sectors which are most likely to use their services.

From a theoretical standpoint, research into the rational versus emotional dichotomy as it applies to the service industry is only now being touched upon. Even where it is being touched upon, the research often starts with the way in which emotional and rational appeals affect the marketing of physical products and then compares this to the way in which service advertising appeals are used. By focusing on a specific industry sector, MICE and 5 star resort hotels, this research is able to provide important feedback to the general theoretical position as to how well that research holds up in specific circumstances.

By examining the most effective advertising appeals for the MICE and 5 star resort hotel sector, this paper aims to provide a solid foundation for both future academic research in this area and also to provide MICE and 5 star resort hotels with practical information which can be used to better tailor their advertising campaigns and most importantly, to avoid making mistakes the damage from which, particularly in a fast paced industry, can take years to undo.

4. Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

In order to determine when it is most appropriate for MICE and 5 star resort hotels to use rational and emotional appeals it is first necessary to create a theoretical framework based on a critical review and synthesis of the relevant work in this area. With such a theoretical framework in place, it will then be possible to come to a conclusion as to the merits of both rational and emotional appeals as they apply to MICE and 5 star resort hotels.

It is first important to clearly define the terms being referred to. An advertising appeal is defined by Wells, Burnett and Moriarty as, “something that makes the product particularly attractive or interesting to the consumer.” There are many types of advertising appeals that can be relied upon (sex, price, fear, etc), but as Albers-Miller note, most authors agree that overall all advertising appeals can be classified as either being rational appeals and emotional appeals. A rational appeal is, “a form of argument and motivation used in the promotion of products and services. Rational factors, including facts and figures, advantages and benefits, are used in an appeal to consumers’ intellects, rather than their emotions” , while an emotional appeal is where, “the basis of an advertising message having strong emotional character.”

Some examples of rational appeals are; for products, the top speed of a car, the processing power of a computer and the memory size of an MP3 player; and for services, the leg room on a flight and the savings made when travelling on off peak public transport. Examples of emotional appeals include; for productions, the sex appeal of a new sports car and the popularity that comes from drinking certain alcoholic beverages; and for services, the possibilities which open up to a consumer once they obtain a certain credit card and the sex appeal of the latest, must-see Hollywood blockbuster which everyone is talking about.

One of the main themes that comes through in the literature in this area is that there has been a lack of empirical research undertaken which focuses predominantly on the role of advertising appeals with respect to service industries. This is somewhat surprising when one considers that most Western economies are now service-based economies. As Mattila notes, this growth in the level of interest in services marketing has not corresponded in a similar level of interest in how service quality is communicated rather, most current research has focused on a comparison between service and goods advertising and even when focusing on services, has concentrated on professional as opposed to retail services.

While the research may not have kept pace with the fundamental shift in the underlying economic foundations of Western economies, it is now quickly catching up with interest in this area increasing.

While the level of general research in the area of advertising appeals and how they relate to service industries increases and the understanding of the differences between goods and services marketing increases, an opportunity exists for researchers to use this developing research base as a theoretical foundation from which to focus on more specific market segments. As such, the focus of this paper, while falling within the broad scope of the current research with respect to advertising appeals in service industries aims to focus in on a much more specific sub-set of this research area; that of the effectiveness of rational and emotional appeals in advertising MICE and 5 star resort hotels.

At the same time as focusing in on a specific area of the advertising appeals in service industries research, it is important that this specific area be considered within the context of the marketing strategies of MICE and 5 star resort hotels as a whole. An organisation which wants to make the most effective use of advertising must have a clear understanding of the market segments that they are targeting and an overall marketing mix which allows them to focus their resources on communicating with that segment of the market. Advertising is only one part of the marketing mix and where the other parts are not working effectively, advertising will not provide the highest return on investment possible.

Finally, it is important to take into account the environment (and in particular the external environment) in which MICE and 5 star hotels operate in when considering which advertising appeals are most likely to be effective. For instance, in times of rapid growth and high disposable income or when tax breaks are provided for entertaining, MICE and 5 star hotels would be wise to avoid focusing on appealing to the cost savings that can be made by staying with them. Rather, at these times, rational appeals are unlikely to be as necessary as emotional appeals as the necessity for a customer to substantiate a decision rationally is not as great.

Before being able to consider the market segmentation that MICE and 5 star resort hotels target, it is important to define the market in which they operate. The market in which they operate can be defined broadly as, for instance, all hotels and resorts, all holidays, all business communication methods, etc; or specifically as all 5 star hotels, all hotels in a particular location, etc. Because of the diverse nature of MICE and 5 star resort hotels, it is almost impossible to come to a determination as to a market in which specific hotel operates as this will be influenced by cultural, geographic and other features. However, it is a little simpler to determine the market segments that MICE and 5 star resort hotels are interested in targeting. The market segments that all MICE and 5 star resort hotels are interested in targeting are business customers and wealthy individuals.

As noted above, advertising is a sub-set of an organisation’s overall marketing mix. As such, before proceeding, it is important that the distinction between marketing and advertising is clearly set out. Marketing has been defined by the (British) Chartered Institute of Marketing as, “the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” Advertising is defined by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising as, “advertising presents the most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects for the product or service at the lowest possible cost.”

The marketing mix refers to the “price/value proposition” and is, as expanded on by Kotler, often referred to as the four P’s; Product, Place, Price and Promotion. The Product refers to the good or service that the supplier wishes to sell and which the consumer wishes to buy; Place refers to the convenience of buying the goods or services; Price refers to the cost to the consumer of the goods or services; and Promotion refers to the ways in which the supplier and customer communicate with each other. Advertising comes within the ambit of the promotion function.

When applying the marketing mix to MICE and resort hotels, one observes that in general the Product is appealing (this may not apply to such an extent in countries in which the idea of staying in hotels is a relatively new concept for a majority of the population); with respect to the Place, while requiring travel to reach and therefore not being entirely convenient to most people, most MICE and resort hotels are located close to either business districts or leisure areas (eg beaches) meaning that while the location may not be entirely convenient, the location is generally desirable; MICE and 5 star resort hotels are generally price prohibitive with a strong emphasis on catering for company functions and higher level clientele; finally, with respect to Promotion, MICE and resort hotels rely on strong business focused advertising and word of mouth.

With respect to Porter’s generic strategies matrix, MICE and resort hotels clearly aim for the niche market which is distinguished by high differentiation and high relative costs. That said, while MICE and resort hotels aim to represent themselves as being highly differentiated, exclusive and expensive, they are in fact extremely similar and operate on a low cost principle. As such, it is important for MICE and resort hotels to maintain this façade and to ensure that customers’ experiences of cognitive dissonance are kept at a minimum.

This façade that all “cathedrals of consumption” must maintain, this separation from the mundane events of everyday life, is particularly evident in MICE and 5 star resort hotels. These establishments must be able to offer an entire “package” not only satisfying a guests physical needs, but also satisfying their wish to be deceived, to believe that for the length of their stay they are deserving of the 5 star treatment that they are receiving even through the next day they their office-bound mundane life.

Williamson summarises this “package” element which applies to all purchases best when he writes:

“Advertisements are selling us something else beside consumer goods; in providing us with a structure in which we and those goods are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves… Ideology is the meaning made necessary by the condition of society while helping to perpetuate those conditions. We feel a need to belong, to have a social place; it can be hard to find. Instead we may be given an imaginary one.”

A supplementary point which arises from Williamson’s statement is that of the language of consumption. Many potential consumers are put off purchasing new goods or services because they do not have experience in having used them previously. For instance, someone who normally eats dinner on the couch in front of the television will be extremely reticent to eat dinner in a 5 star restaurant in which a knowledge of dining etiquette is expected. While this reluctance to try new things increases with age, it can be bridged in several ways. Advertising is a particularly effective means of overcoming potential consumers’ fears of try something new. By using analogies which relate the new product with something that the customer has already used and feels comfortable with advertisers are able to provide new consumers with the consumption queues necessary to use the new good or service and feel more comfortable doing so.

In general, such techniques are not often used by MICE and 5 star resort hotels in places in which their use is understood by consumers. In societies in which the role of these hotels is understood by consumers, the aim of their advertising, is to create demand within the specific market segment that they are targeting. As such, it is almost the opposite of teaching new consumers how to use the services. These establishments are more likely to assume that those they are targeting understand how to use their services and are more likely to try to limit the understanding of their services by the general population. This is usually done through language and by offering services which are extremely specialised (eg tens of different types of facials, massages, etc) which are intended to intimidate the average consumer.

Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person’s expectations are not met meaning that their level of satisfaction is low. With respect to guests’ perceptions of hotels, Saleh and Ryan write that, “…it is imperative that guests’ expectations be realistic and possible for the firm to deliver, otherwise an obvious gap in service quality is created.”

One advantage that MICE and 5 star resort hotels have over other hotels and resorts is that a large portion of their clientele are not required to pay for their own accommodation. In situations in which the accommodation costs are being met by a third party, it is unlikely that any potential feelings of cognitive dissonance will be as strong as those of someone who has booked and paid for a hotel or resort themselves. Furthermore, any such feelings by a guest who is staying at someone else’s expense are more likely to be directed at the payer, who should have chosen a better quality hotel or resort, rather than directed at the actual hotel or resort.

In addition, for guests of MICE and 5 star resort hotels, the actual hotel is normally a background factor (ie to a conference, the beach, an event, etc). These guests have other matters to occupy them. This contrasts with individuals who stay at a resort hotel that they have paid for themselves and where actually being at a resort hotel is the focus of their trip.

As noted above, Mattila focuses on what she believes to be a gap in the studies examining services advertising. She believes that most of these studies focus on tangibilizing the offering or “making the service more concrete” and as a result of this a gap exists with respect to knowledge about the role emotional advertising appeals play in services advertising. What is important to keep in mind when advertising either products or services is that the advertising appeal has to match the product or service type. Albers-Miller et al note that previous research on this point has found that, “a more emotional (value-expressive) appeal should be used for a value-expressive product and a more rational (utilitarian) appeal should be used for a utilitarian product.”

The way in which advertisers determine the best combination of rational and emotional appeal is assisted by the level of involvement model developed by Vaughn and adapted by Foote, Cone and Belding. That model focuses on products but provides a useful tool for understanding the differences between rational (thinking) and emotional (feeling) appeals.

The four options are, high involvement/thinking which relates to high importance purchases such as cars and houses and the message should be based on “long copy, informational demonstration, comparative”; low involvement/thinking which relates to routinely purchased products such as food and items for the house and the message should be based on “coupons and samples”; high involvement/feeling which relate to a customer’s self esteem such as make up, jewellery and clothes and the message should be based on “emotional and visual” triggers; and low involvement/feeling which relates to products which satisfy personal cravings such as alcohol, snack foods and cigarettes and the message should be “creativity and lifestyle” based.

How well these levels of involvement transfer to the service sector is still open to debate. If one was to take the same levels of involvement and attempted to determine which group MICE and 5 star resort hotels fall into, one might have difficulty as they do not fit cleanly into any of the categories.

In general, a large proportion of business-to-business type advertising relies on rational appeals due to the fact that buyers tend to be knowledgeable about the products or services that they are buying and are seeking supportable justification for their purchasing decisions. As Stafford and Albers-Miller note, “…rational informative advertising appeals may help reduce some of the uncertainty often associated with the purchase of services.” That said, in today’s marketplace, it is unlikely that rational advertising appeals would be made without consideration of the emotional aspects. As such, essentially what is being said when one refers to a rational appeal is not that the emotional aspects of the appeal are not present, but that they are used more subtly and as a backdrop to the advertising campaign. As Albers-Miller et al argue:

“…there is no reason not to include an emotional appeal and service information and benefits. Indeed many advertising practitioners would argue that this juxtaposition is one of the aims of good advertising – informing the consumer and stimulating a response through appeals to emotional, right-brain influences. However, there still needs to be some guidance given as to where we lay the emphasis in this area or emotions and rationality. And this is especially true in diverse cultures.”

The importance of emotional appeals is especially important today when product differentiation is becoming more and more difficult. With respect to the MICE and 5 star resort hotel market sector, while some of these hotels are able to differentiate themselves on the basis of location, facilities and other competitive advantages, the general level of such differentiation is not great. Most people using the facilities of a MICE and 5 star resort hotels expect that certain levels of service and facilities are available. As the, “USP (unique selling proposition) is fast disappearing, then what becomes correspondingly more important is the ESP – the emotional selling point.”

With respect to the advertising that MICE and 5 star resort hotels engage in, it is important for them to ensure that they are using the most effective advertising appeals necessary to persuade the targeted market segment. Louise Ha argues that the study of advertising appeals with respect to the services market has been hampered by a failure to differentiate between service firms.

She believes that the type of service firm should be taken into account when determining the appropriate advertising appeals to use and relies on Zeithaml’s classification of services into three categories which are; “high on search attributes (performance of the service can be known before consumption); high on experience attributes (attributes that can only be discerned after purchase or during consumption) such as haircut and restaurants. These services are non-professional services that can be substituted by self-service of the consumer; and high on credence attributes (attributes that consumers may still find them impossible to evaluate after consuming the service) such as medical services and repair services. These are professional services that require special training or license.” MICE and 5 star resort hotels can be classified as being high on experience attributes.

It should also be noted that MICE and 5 star resort hotels operate in a global marketplace. Albers-Miller et al have studied the differences between rational and emotional appeals across cultures (and in particular, Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico and the USA). They conclude that, “culture appears to play a significant role in the use of emotional and rational advertisements for services, and anthropological measures of culture provide some insight into the differences in emotional appeals.” They also note that across cultures business customers, the main target segment for MICE and 5 star resort hotels, “tend to make decisions based on more rational criteria… [and that] across cultures, cognition changes little, while emotions change considerably.”

While the cultural aspects of rational and emotional advertising appeals with respect to MICE and 5 star resort hotels is beyond the scope of this paper, it does provide an interesting area of research for future studies.

While the differentiation between rational and emotional appeals seems like a simple and logical distinction to make, the distinction is largely artificial as an advertising campaign which solely relies on rational or emotional appeals is unlikely, if not impossible. As such, the difference between the two in an advertising campaign is the level of emphasis that is given to one over the other. Both will be used, the decision is rather how best to combine the two for maximum effect.

5. Methodology

When considering the type of methodology to employ the choice is between primary or secondary research methods. Primary research methods refer to those that generally require replies from and interaction with service users such as questionnaires, focus-groups and interviews (ie fieldwork). On the other hand, secondary research methods rely on reviewing books, articles, statistical data, etc (ie deskwork).

While primary research is generally viewed as being superior to secondary research, this is not always the case. Primary research is almost always hampered by cost considerations, the sample size used, the manner in which the sample population has been decided upon, researcher bias, etc. In light of cost considerations, it is almost always more cost effective to ask yourself whether or not someone else has already done this research and if so to begin at that point and then use primary research to fill in any gaps or specific areas which have not been addressed in the depth required.

Secondary research also has its own problems which include such factors as the fact that it is reliant on someone else’s primary research with all the inherent problems that presents as set out above, the researcher is limited to the questions raised in the secondary materials, etc. As such, it is important that in secondary research, the sources of the information to be used are reliable (ie government sources, peer reviewed journals, text books written by qualified authors, etc).

In light of the above considerations, it is important that any market research conducted uses a balance of primary and secondary research methods. In the case of this paper, it was found that there was an array of literature (secondary sources) on advertising and the service sector. However, there was less to be found when one looked at the area of MICE and resort hotels specifically. As such, while secondary research could take us to a point, from that point it was necessary to use primary research methods.

The most common primary research methods are interviews, questionnaires, surveys, focus groups and secret visits. As the objective of this paper is to determine the most effective methods of advertising appeals with respect to MICE and resort hotels, some of the primary methods referred to above will not be appropriate. MICA and resort hotels cover a large cross-section of the market and large distances. As such, secret visits to the hotels would not only be cost prohibitive, but would be unlikely to provide the necessary data required. On the other hand, as most of the users of these services are UK-based, a focus group may be more appropriate for personal holiday makers.

In light of the practical issues of setting up a focus group of business users, questionnaires may be more appropriate for that sector of the market. A decision was finally made to make use of a questionnaire and a focus group. Both would target people who had already used MICE and 5 star resort hotels on the basis that this was the segment of the market that these hotels were targeting. It was decided that an attempt to include customers who had never stayed in a MICE and 5 star resort hotel would be too much for a paper of this length however, it would remain a potential area for future research.

With respect to the design of the questionnaire, it was decided that while quantitative responses are the easiest to compile and analyse, they do not give the depth of information that can be gleaned from qualitative answers. Furthermore, in order to be statistically valid, a quantitative questionnaire would need to involve a large, randomly selected sample base. Due to cost and time limitations, this was not considered feasible and as such, it was thought most appropriate to concentrate on a smaller, specifically selected sample of the market segment being targeted and an analysis of their qualitative responses with a clear statement as to the understood limitations of proceeding in this way.

6. Findings, analyses and evaluation

The purpose of this dissertation is to determine the extent to which rational and emotional appeals apply to MICE and 5 star resort hotels. A review of secondary sources and current research on the topic showed that this is an area which has suffered from a lack of research interest to date. While Mattila’s work provides a strong overview of advertising appeals as they relate solely to the service sector (as opposed to dealing with them solely in comparison with products), her work is quite broad and as such, while it is used as a starting point for this paper, it was necessary to supplement the secondary research and theoretical framework with primary research which consisted of a questionnaire and focus group. Further primary research was deemed not feasible due to cost and time constraints.

In total, 150 questionnaires were posted or handed out. Due to the small sample size, the participants were targeted (eg businesses which book MICE and 5 star resort hotels for conferences, people leaving MICE and 5 star resort hotels, etc). Of the 150 questionnaires posted or handed out, thirty were returned. This was considered to be a reasonable level of returns in light of the type of person being asked to complete them (ie busy individuals who work long hours). A summary of the questionnaire replies are set out in Appendix 2. Due to the qualitative nature of the replies, statistical analysis of the responses is not feasible. However, they do provide an interesting insight into the way in which advertising appeals are able to influence guests of MICE and 5 star resort hotels.

Along with the questionnaire, a focus group was used to try to determine in a more direct fashion people’s attitudes to MICE and 5 star resort hotels and more particularly, what effect advertising appeals had on their purchasing behaviour. As with the questionnaire, the group chosen was not chosen randomly, but rather was selected from people who had already used MICE and 5 star resort hotels in the past. Participants were shown various advertisements (not only limited to MICE and 5 star resort hotels) and asked to discuss various propositions put to them. Once again, the results were qualitative and as such not appropriate for statistical analysis.

While the response to the questionnaire was not particularly high, those individuals that did respond provided some particularly interesting replies. Predictably perhaps, most responses were from middle aged, well educated men. This group is the market segment that most MICE and 5 star resort hotels seek to target with their advertising. However, the strong response by women suggests that those MICE and 5 star resort hotels that are spending most of their advertising budgets targeting men may be missing out on a large segment of the market which may still be relatively untapped.

The growing number of female business travellers has already resulted in changes throughout the hotel industry and it is only a matter of time, if it has not occurred already, that MICE and 5 star resort hotels will follow suite. For instance, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts have added the following features to their list of hotel amenities; “loofah mitts and skirt hangers… networking tables for solo travellers who prefer to each with other travellers… and jogging partners.”

Some of the interesting findings were that both business and leisure customers had similar daily budgets and that while the business customer was more likely to spend that budget within the hotel, the leisure customer was much more likely to spend their budget outside the hotel (tours in this instance were referred to as an outside activity, it is acknowledged that many MICE and 5 star resort hotels get a commission for placing guest on tours or even operate their own). Furthermore, a leisure customer stayed generally at least twice as long as most business customers.

One of the main complaints raised by leisure customers was the need to pay additionally for features which they had assumed were included within the package price. One example given was the Divani Apollon Palace and Spa in Athens. While the hotel was of a high quality and located close to the beach, someone viewing the hotel’s website would believe that the beautiful indoor spa pool pictured was included within the cost of the hotel. It is only when one goes to use the spa pool that one is told that the cost starts at an additional Eur35 per hour. Business clients did not seem to share the same complaint and it is suggested that this might be due to their rooms being paid for by a third party leaving them with money to spend on all the additional services that a MICE and 5 star resort hotel offers combined with the short duration of their stay.

Perhaps most interestingly was the lack of influence on the respondents by direct advertising. One can only assume that as resort hotel customers now come from all corners of the world, that MICE and 5 star resort hotels are limited in the amount of general advertising that they are able to engage in. Most of their advertising would no doubt focus on trying to attract business clients which would generally be accomplished through direct marketing to the appropriate person within that particular organisation. This type of advertising would be strongly based on a rational appeal in order to give the decision maker the justification to be in a position to choose that hotel over others.

Where the MICE and 5 star resort hotels intend to target leisure customers, it is more likely that they will join forces with a travel agency, airline, newspaper or other similar MICE and 5 star resort hotels in other countries to offer special “package deals”. These deals would include for instance a flight and hotel at one low price, a loyalty card, etc.

The focus group provided more scope for a deeper insight into which advertising appeals are more likely to work for which customers. The anticipated divide between leisure customers being more influenced by emotional appeals and business customers being more influenced by rational appeals was not apparent. In fact, the converse was found. The business customers in the focus group seemed most impressed with those MICE and 5 star resort hotels whose advertising relied upon emotional appeals while the leisure customers were more likely to choose those MICE and 5 star resort hotels which relied upon rational appeals.

While at first this seemed like a strange anomaly, closer analysis suggested that a logical reason for this unanticipated finding existed. That reason, it is suggested, comes down to who is paying for the stay. Business customers were more likely to have their stay paid for by their employers. As such, they did not have to justify their choice of MICE and 5 star resort hotel to anyone and therefore were more likely to be influence in their preferences by the emotional appeal of the MICE and 5 star resort hotels that were shown to them. Leisure customers on the other hand have to pay for the stay themselves. As such, they are much more interested to make sure that the MICE and 5 star resort hotel meets their requirements. As they may only take one or two resort type holidays a year, leisure customers make sure that they avoid any sentimentality when making the decision as to where to stay.

Returning to the level of involvement matrix, the results of the questionnaire would suggest that leisure customers who make one or two holiday trips a year to resort hotels invest a high level of involvement in the organising of their holiday and that they prefer rational appeals. This therefore places them within the high involvement/thinking category (this might not necessarily apply to all holiday makers as some might be staying on the basis of a last minute, city break type of whim). While those whose stay at MICE and 5 star resort hotels on business and whose board is paid for by their employer have a low level of involvement, or interest, in where they are going, but a higher level of involvement once they get there in the additional services that the resort offers.

While the business clients who participated in the focus groups were not those making the purchasing decisions, it is suggested that the business customer making the purchasing decision would have greater regard to the rational appeals as opposed to the emotional appeals although this was not confirmed.

One of the most interesting points raised in response to the questionnaires related to the cultural differences that exist between Western countries and China. These cultural differences make advertising a resort in China particularly difficult. The reason for this is beyond the scope of advertising and/or an organisation’s marketing mix and relates to the external environment in which organisations’ operate. In this case, the majority of Chinese, who have grown up under not only Communist rule, but also a Communist centrally managed market system, do not share the common leisure and business language which Western companies and individuals take for granted. As such, any MICE and 5 star resort hotel looking to establish itself in China is not only required to compete against its competitors but also to educate the population in the use of leisure and business facilities. This task, where the population do not even know that they need and want the service, is much more difficult than simply using advertising to sell a product which the population already understand and know they want.

The results of the questionnaire and focus group suggest that general advertising is not a major factor in determining which MICE and 5 star resort hotel leisure and business customers decide to say at. More important factors seem to be brand name, personal recommendation, location and price (for leisure customers) and facilities (for business customers). That said, the results show that MICE and 5 star resort hotels would be wise to ensure that their internal advertising and up-selling by staff of additional hotel facilities (for which an extra charge is incurred) to customers already in the hotel should be reviewed to make sure that all customers have all the information they need to make an informed decision as to where best to spend their money within the hotel.

7. Final discussion, conclusion and recommendation

Advertising comprises only a small fraction of an organisation’s overall marketing mix. That said, advertising is generally the most forward customer facing aspects of the marketing mix and as such is often the first point of contact between a potential customer and a business. In light of this, the form of advertising that an organisation relies upon and therefore the types of advertising appeals used are extremely important for any organisation and especially service sector organisations such as MICE and 5 star resort hotels.

One of the most interesting aspects arising out of this study was that direct, traditional advertising plays a small part in influencing the purchasing behaviour of MICE and 5 star resort hotel customers. Of more importance are more indirect influences indirectly linked to advertising such as brand.

Likewise, it was interesting to note that individuals paying for the stay themselves (when the stay formed part of their annual holiday plans) had a particularly high attachment to the service provider choice and as such were more likely to be persuaded by rational appeals.

8. Recommendations for further research

While this paper touches on the use of advertising appeals in MICE and 5 star resort hotels, time and cost constraints have limited both the type and scope of primary data able to be obtained. As such this area would benefit from additional primary research in the form of a more detailed and extensive quantitative questionnaire/survey which would then be open for statistical analysis.

Likewise the scope of the primary data collected for this paper could be supplemented by analysis of how effective advertising appeals are with respect to customers who have never stayed at or used the facilities of a MICE and 5 star resort hotel; analysis of what the most effective types of advertising appeals are once a guest is in the hotel; and also a comparison of the effectiveness of advertising appeals across different cultures.

List of references

1. Albers-Miller, N. D. & Stafford, M. R.(1999), An International Analysis of Emotional and Rational Appeals in Services vs Goods Advertising, in the Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol.16, No.1, pp.42-57

2. Boone, L. E. & Kurtz, D. L. (2006), Contemporary Marketing, 12th ed., South-Western, Ohio

3. Chan, R. Y. K., Leung, T. K. P. & Wong, Y. H. (2006), The Effectiveness of Environmental Claims for Services Advertising, in the Journal of Services Marketing, vol.20, no.4, pp.233-250

4. Divani Apollon Palace & Spa, taken from http://www.divanis.com/default-en.htm, last accessed 21st March 2007

5. Ha, L. (1998), Advertising Appeals used by Service Marketers: A Comparison between Hong Kong and the United States, in the Journal of Services Marketing, vol.12, no.2, pp.98-112

6. Hague, P. N. (2003), Market Research: A Guide to Planning, Methodology and Evaluation, Kogan Page Limited, London

7. Hing, N., McCabe, V., Lewis, P. & Leiper, N. (1998), Hospitality Trends in the Asia-Pacific: A Discussion of Five Key Sectors, in the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol.10, No.7, pp.264-271

8. Jefkins, F. (2000), Advertising, 4th ed., Prentice Hall, Essex

9. Lee, M. & Johnson, C. (2005), Principles of Advertising: A Global Perspective, Haworth Press Ltd, USA

10. Leiss, W., Jhally, S. & Kline, S. (1997), Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products and Images of Well-being, Routledge, NY

11. Martin, B.A.S., Bhimy, A.C. & Agee, T. (2002), Infomercials and Advertising Effectiveness: An Empirical Study, in the Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol.19, No.6, pp.468-480

12. Mattila, A. S. (1999), Do Emotional Appeals Work for Services, in the International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol.10, No.3, pp.292-307

13. McDonald, M. & Christopher, M. (2003), Marketing: A Complete Guide, Palgrave MacMillan, NY

14. McQuarrie, E. F. (2006), The Market Research Toolbox: A Concise Guide for Beginners, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California

15. Mooij, M. K. (2005), Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes, Sage Publications Ltd, Thousand Oaks, CA

16. Morgan, N. & Pritchard, A. (2003), Advertising in Tourism and Leisure, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford

17. Mortimer, K. (2001), Services Advertising: The Agency Viewpoint, in the Journal of Services Marketing, vol.15, no.2, pp.131-146

18. Ratneshwar, S. & Mick, D. G. (2005), Inside Consumption: Consumer Motives, Goals and Desires, Routledge, Oxon

19. Saleh, F. & Ryan, C. (1990), Service Quality in Hotels: Servqual Revisited, paper presented for Tourism Research in the 1990s, pp.313-328, University of Durham, Durham

20. Vaughn, R. (1980), How Advertising Works: A Planning Model, in the Journal of Advertising Research, October, pp.27-33

21. Warrington Council Focus Group Script, taken from http://www.warrington.gov.uk/images/Baseline%20-%20Appendix%20C__tcm15-7479.pdf, last accessed 21st March 2007

22. Yadin, D. L. (2002), The International Dictionary of Marketing: Over 2,000 Professional Terms and Techniques, Kogan Page Ltd, London

23. Yeshin, T. (2004), Integrated Marketing Communications: The Holistic Approach, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford

24. Zhang, Y. & Neelankavil, J. P. (1997), The Influence of Culture on Advertising Effectiveness in China and the USA: A Cross-Cultural Study, in the European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp134-149

Appendices

APPENDIX 1 – QUESTIONNAIRE

This questionnaire relates to your experiences in MICE and 5 star resort hotels and will be used for the sole purpose of preparing my dissertation on the topic of advertising appeals. Your assistance is appreciated.

Section A: Introductory Questions

(Choose only one of the options below each question)

1. Please describe your general use of MICE and 5 star resort hotels:

a. Leisure visitor

b. Business visitor

2. What gender are you?

a. Female

b. Male

3. Which age group do you belong to:

a. 18-25

b. 26-35

c. 36-45

d. 46-55

e. 56-65

f. 65+ 4.

What level of education have you attained?

a. High School

b. Diploma

c. Bachelor degree

d. MBA

e. PHD

f. Other (please state)

5. What is your current job title?

6. How long have you held this position?

a. Less than one year

b. Between 2-5 years

c. Between 6-10 years

d. Between 11- 20 years

e. Over 20 years

7. In which country is your primary residence?

If you have only moved to that country recently, what country had you come from?

Section B: MICE and 5 Star Resort Hotel Usage

1. Which MICE and 5 star resort hotel/s have you stayed at?

2. Why did you stay at that/those hotels?

3. Did you pay for your stay personally? If not, who paid for your stay?

4. How long do you usually stay at a MICE and 5 star resort hotel?

5. Without taking into account the cost of the room, how much on average would you expect to spend each day while staying at a MICE and 5 star resort hotel?

6. Would the spending referred to in question 4 have been predominantly spent inside or outside the hotel?

7. Have you used any of the additional facilities (ie facilities which incur an additional cost) that the hotel offers? If so, which ones?

a. Pay television

b. Pool and Spa

c. Hairdresser

d. Beauty treatments

e. Room service

f. Restaurant

g. Tours

h. Other (please specify)

8. What are the best features of the MICE and 5 star resort hotel/s you have stayed at?

9. Are there any features that you are disappointed with? If so, please elaborate.

10. Would you stay at a MICE and 5 star resort hotel again? Please provide details as to why/why not.

11. Would you recommend MICE and 5 star hotels to anyone else?

Section C: Advertising Impressions

1. How do you decide on a MICE and 5 star resort hotel at which to stay?

2. Was your decision to stay at a MICE and 5 star resort hotel influenced by any advertising that you may have seen?

3. If so, please provide as much information as possible about the advertisement that you saw, where you saw it and how it influenced your decision.

4. How large a part did the brand name of the MICE and 5 star resort hotel play in your choice of place to stay?

5. If you stayed in one brand of MICE and 5 star resort hotel and were pleased with the experience would that influence your decision to stay in the same brand hotel elsewhere?

6. Do you feel that the advertising gave a true indication of what a MICE and 5 star resort hotel would be like? Please provide details as to why it did or didn’t.

Section D: Miscellaneous

1. Is there anything else about your stay at MICE and 5 star resort hotel/s that you would like to add?

Thank you for taking the time to assist with this questionnaire. Please be assured that all answers will be compiled and that any information which could identify you personally will be removed. Should you have any additional questions about this questionnaire please do not hesitate to contact me at: XXXXX

APPENDIX 2 – QUESTIONNAIRE RESPONSE SUMMARY

150 questionnaires were posted and handed out. Of these, thirty were returned. A summary of the returned responses is set out below:

Section A: Introductory Questions

1. Of the responses received, 76% of the respondents predominantly used MICE and 5 star resort hotels for leisure purposes.

2. 63% of respondents were male.

3. A majority of respondents were in the 36-45 age group. There were no respondents from the 18-25 age group and the other respondents were relatively evenly spread across the other age groups.

4. Most respondents had at least a Bachelor’s degree with many also having Master’s degrees. Seven respondents had only achieved a high school and/or diploma level of education.

5. Job titles were extremely varied and included a Managing Director, Human Resources Coordinator and In-house Counsel. There were several middle managers. However the largest grouping worked as consultants (generally IT and accounting/banking).

6. Most respondents had been in their current positions for between 6-10 years although the distribution across the groupings was relatively evenly spread.

7. A vast majority of respondents resided in the United Kingdom. One was from China, three from Australia, one from the United States and several from European countries.

Section B: MICE and 5 Star Resort Hotel Usage

1. The respondents listed a broad range of MICE and 5 star resort hotels around the world.

2. The majority of respondents had used MICE and 5 star resort hotels for leisure purposes

3. All the leisure users had paid for their stays themselves while none of the business users had done so.

4. The leisure users stayed, on average, for a longer time at the hotels in comparison to the business users. Business users generally stayed between one and two nights while leisure visitors stayed up to two weeks (although a three to five night stay was more common).

5. Both business and leisure customers had similar daily budgets.

6. Business customers where more likely to spend their money within the hotel while leisure customers were more likely to spend a larger proportion of their daily budget outside the hotel.

7. Business users were more likely to use any additional facilities (ie facilities for which extra charges were paid) offered by the hotels when compared to the leisure customers.

8. The respondents mentioned many “best” features including the service, the quality and location.

9. A majority of those disappointed with their stays at MICE and 5 star resort hotels cited additional costs and poor service as the most disappointing features. However, the level of disappointment was lower among the business customers.

10. All respondents confirmed that they would stay at a MICE and 5 star resort hotel again. The main reason for this was that these hotels provided a niche service and that even if one was disappointed with one, there were many others to choose from. For leisure customers, a stay at a MICE and 5 star resort hotel was an infrequent, holiday event and as such they were willing to spend a little more than they usually would. For business customers, they generally were told where to stay and as they were not paying for the accommodation, they were happy to continue staying in these types of hotels.

11. All respondents replied that they would recommend most of the MICE and 5 star resort hotels that they had stayed in to others.

Section C: Advertising Impressions

1. All but one of the business respondents replied that the location of the MICE and 5 star resort hotel that they stayed in was decided upon by their employer. The Managing Director replied that he chose the MICE and 5 star resort hotel at which his employees would stay based on factors such as colleague recommendations, facilities and location. The leisure customers generally decided on price, location and recommendations.

2. Only a small proportion of those who responded had been influenced in their choice of MICE and 5 star resort hotel by advertising that they had seen.

3. Many respondents noted that while the initial idea as to where to stay had not based on hotel advertising that they had seen, once a place had been tentatively decided upon, they did spend time reading information about it (predominantly on the Internet). Interestingly, some respondents stated that the airline/travel company advertising was more of a determining factor than any hotel advertising that they saw.

4. Many leisure respondents confirmed that the brand name of the MICE and 5 star resort hotel played a large part in their choice of where to stay.

5. Leisure respondents confirmed that a positive experience in a branded MICE and 5 star resort hotel would influence their decision as to where to stay when a similarly branded hotel was available in another location they were visiting.

6. In general all the respondents, leisure and business, felt that the advertising that they saw was a fair representation of what they experienced while staying at a MICE and 5 star resort hotel. The main complaints were that some MICE and 5 star resort hotels tried a little too hard to be all things to all people and that in many MICE and 5 star resort hotels most extras (which one might expect for free in a middle of the road hotel chain) incurred a fee.

Section D: Miscellaneous

1. Not much was added by the respondents by way of additional information. One respondent who had had experience in a Chinese MICE and 5 star resort hotel provided the following insight:

“MICE and 5 star resort hotels are a relatively new feature in China. An example is the Le Meridien She Shan Shanghai which was opened in 2005. This hotel was built a fair distance from the city centre and with poor transportation links, international customers are thin on the ground.

Local customers of this hotel are heavily influenced by the emotional appeal of the hotel’s brand name. International companies on the other hand are attracted more by the rational appeal of what services the hotel can actually provide them with.

Beyond corporate clients, the hotel also welcomes leisure tourists. These tourists are predominantly white-collar foreigners who reside in Shanghai or the surrounding districts. Interestingly, local citizens do not find the idea of the resort particularly appealing as they do not believe that hotels can offer a fine dining experience and as the concept of a resort is only new, most think of a resort as being a low service quality, low priced hotel in the country. However, this cultural difference will no doubt quickly fade as the Chinese embrace Western ideas of leisure time.”

APPENDIX 3 – FOCUS GROUP SCRIPT

Introduction

Hello. I am XXXXX from XXXXX University and I am writing a dissertation on the effectiveness of rational and emotional advertising appeals with respect to MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) and 5 star resort hotels. I would like to get your opinions on the ways in which MICE and 5 star resort hotel advertising affects you so that in the future this advertising can be better tailored to meet potential customers’ needs.

There are twelve of you in this focus group and all of you have used MICE and 5 star resort hotels for leisure and/or business purposes and as such you should all have a good idea of what staying at or attending one of these hotels involves. This focus group has been limited to those with previous experience of MICE and 5 star resort hotels on purpose. The reason for this limitation is so that the effectiveness between different types of appeals as applicable to the segment market being targeted could be assessed.

Another workshop may be held in the future which will involve potential customers who have never stayed in a MICE or 5 star resort hotel to try to ascertain how best to convey the hotels’ message to them.

I am not associated with any hotel at all and as such, you should feel free to express your honest views about the advertising campaigns that you will be shown today and feel free to add anything that you think that I may have missed.

Finally, I am recording this focus group for the purposes of my dissertation and I confirm that each of you has confirmed that you are happy for this to occur.

Do not hesitate to ask for clarification of anything said or to raise any questions that you may have at any point.

Choice of Leisure Hotel

Most of you have stayed in a 5 star resort hotel. What are the types of things that help you make a decision between different types of hotels?

• Price

• Location

• Availability

• Advertising

 • Special Offers

• Family friendly

• Food

• Recommendations

• Last minute

• Previously been there

Choice of MICE Hotel

Most of you have either booked MICE hotels for business functions or attended them. What are the types of things that help you make a decision between different types of MICE hotels?

• Price

• Location

• Previously used

• Special offers

• Technical reasons

• Advertising

• Convenience

Advertising Appeals

As part of the market segment that these MICE and 5 star resort hotels specifically target, you are bombarded with advertising aimed at making you decide to stay with one particular hotel over another. These advertisers use a combination of rational and emotional appeals in order to try to convince you to stay with them over their rivals.

Rational appeals are factual or informative statements about a product or service while emotional appeals aim to convince you to purchase the product or service on the basis of some aspect of the product or service beyond its technical specifications.

Product Advertisements

Please look at the following advertisements relating to products that you can purchase and we will then discuss your views on them [show mixture of rational appeal focused and emotional appeal focused advertisements].

• Rank product choices by preference

• What types of things in the advertising swayed you

• Do you have any first hand knowledge of the products being advertised, and if so, how did that affect your rankings

• Are there any advertisements which performed particularly well or poorly - why was that

Professional Services Advertisements

Please look at the following advertisements relating to professional services and we will then discuss your views on them [show mixture of rational appeal focused and emotional appeal focused advertisements].

• Rank professional services by preference

• What types of things in the advertising swayed you

• Do you have any first hand knowledge of the professional services being advertised, and if so, how did that affect your rankings

• Are there any advertisements which performed particularly well or poorly - why was that

MICE and 5 Star Resort Hotel Advertisements

Please look at the following advertisements relating to MICE and 5 star resort hotels and we will then discuss your views on them [show mixture of rational appeal focused and emotional appeal focused advertisements].

• Rank MICE and 5 star resort hotels by preference

• What types of things in the advertising swayed you

• Do you have any first hand knowledge of the MICE and 5 star resort hotels being advertised, and if so, how did that affect your rankings

• Are there any advertisements which performed particularly well or poorly - why was that

Discussion

You have been shown advertisements which relate to products, professional services and MICE and 5 star resort hotels.

You have also had the opportunity to rank and discuss the various products and services being advertised. Now that you have had the opportunity to consider all three sectors, do you believe that there are any apparent differences between them? Are there any products or services you have been tempted to try which you have not tried before (or had been tempted to try but no longer wished to)?

Does anyone have anything they would like to add?

The industry that has developed around music is one of the most significant sectors in business. In the UK alone, the music industry is worth around £5 billion per annum and has around 126,000 full-time employees. It is therefore important for the economy that the industry remains active, not only in Britain, but worldwide.

Although many think that pirates went out of circulation with sailed ships and swords, piracy is becoming an increasingly serious global problem.  These range from small thefts to complex hijacks, and while taking place globally, tend to be concentrated in a few geographically restricted shipping channels.  The breadth and complexity of the piracy problem makes it almost impossible to address in simple terms.

With an output of about 1.000 movies per year and an audience spreaded in all the five continents, Bollywood film industry is nowadays one of the most lively participants in the cinema production system. Deeply rooted in the Indian subcontinent as it is, it is characterised by a unique aestethics, a peculiar way to deal with social issues, and a complex set of cinematic techniques that are not shared anywhere else. But, on the other hand, in the era of globalisation, open market, and quick exchange of informations through technology and the constant flow of people from one world area to another, it would be impossible for Bollywood not to be influenced by foreign filmmaking, especially that spreading all over the earth from Hollywood. Anyway, while watching an Indian movie it is undoubtedly evident that this influence has not yet eradicated traditional principles, as has happened in Italy, France, Germany and other countries that share with the USA the same western cultural background.

   

Indian people show an overwhelming passion for cinema that dates back to 1896, when Maurice Sestier, going to Australia on behalf of Lumière brothers, stopped at the Watson Hotel in Bombay and screened the first moving images ever seen in India (the series included Arrivée d’un Train à La Ciotat and La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon, then very popular in Europe). That new form of art had immediately an enormous success, not only because it inspired awe and wonder in the public, but mainly because local culture had always relied more on visual than written communication. From then on, cinema has been the major form of entertainment available to the mass and in its mainstream manifestations, except a few innovations and hybridisations, has not changed much in over a century. In fact, it was immediately perceived as something profoundly linked to traditional theatre (especially its ‘Parsi’ variation, a genre created in Bombay around 1850)[1], so that filmmakers very often rearranged its stories and followed (and some still do) the rules set in the Natyasastra, a work on stage theories compiled between 200 b. C. and 200 a. C. The first work by Dada Sahab Phalke[2], today regarded as the true father of national filmmaking, was the reinterpretation of a very popular mythological Parsi play. The title was Raja Harishchandra (1912), and it immediately attained an unexpected success. From then on, scripts and visual aesthetics have been strictly connected to theatre, comprising many features that are still evident today, such as the importance given to music and dance, the intricate web of love affairs, the highly melodramatic tone of the dialogues, the recurrence of specific plots, the length of the films (usually at least three hours), and the lack of interest for realism. This is now regarded by scholars and critics as a real and proper canon, which they call ‘masala cinema’ (masala being a common word meaning spice). As a result, cinema has been seen as a national product since its first introduction and, moreover, it has been given an important popular role to play, that is entertaining a wide, often non-literate public. That is why its stories have often been drawn from traditional literature and didactic mythological tales, and explains why the audience did not like the first foreign movies screened in the early Twentieth century: the characters they depicted and their lives were too different and incomprehensible to have a strong appeal.

Nonetheless, some influences from abroad began to be more evident since the 1950’s, when the golden era of Hindi cinema was running parallel to another huge phenomenon in cinema history, that is to say the age of grandeur of Hollywood, the dream factory. The best example of the similarities which connected the two continents was probably Raj Kapoor, who was greatly influenced by Frank Capra (whom he met) and directed some movies in which himself interpreted the role of Raju, a poor wanderer reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin (see Sri 420, 1955). Anyway, that was a very exceptional case, since most of the similarities between American and Indian cinema involved just the production of the films, while all the artistic issues were still dependent on local history and culture. Director Mehboob Khan, for instance, visited Hollywood, where he met and befriended Cecil B. De Mille. From his American colleague he learned how to realise superb images by means of spectacular sets and hundreds of animals and extras, producing movies that might be labelled as Indian colossals. But that was all he borrowed from the American industry, since the themes and the concerns of his films were taken from local daily life and particularly from the human values and the bad living conditions in the rural areas of the nation (see, for example, Aan, 1952). As has been pointed out by Manjunath Pendakur, “major Indian directors in different languages borrowed heavily from Hollywood. This can be clearly seen if you compare two films in black and white made in the late 1940’s - Chandralekha by S. S. Vasan, the founder of Gemini Studios in Madras; and Humayun by Mehboob Khan, the founder of Mehboob Studios in Bombay. Vasan and Mehboob were keen observers of the trends and techniques of Hollywood films of the period. They, however, modified what they borrowed from the outside to fit the Indian conditions, especially the audience expectations”[3]. So, what they took from Hollywood were just set tricks, while the core of the movies (such as plot, acting, aestethics) remained profoundly Indian. The same can be said about the production of the other major artists of the period, such as Bimal Roy (director, in 1943, of an excellent documentary on the terrible famine in Bengal), Guru Dutt (who in 1959 directed Kagaz ke Phool, on the futility of fame and cinema itself), and Kwaja Ahmad Abbas (whose Dharti ke Lal, 1946, again dealt with Bengali famine and the social responsibilities of British Government and local nesters), all of whom put into their works the secular, socialist values of the then prime minister Javahararal Nehru, particularly concerned about social equality. It is interesting to note that most of the professionals of the 1950’s were much more impressed by the aestethics of French ‘nouvelle vague’ or Italian neorealism (which dealt with Italian lower class characters trying to make a living after World War II) rather than that of Hollywood. Bimal Roy, for example, was literally captured by Vittorio De Sica’s Ladri di Biciclette (1948), which was screened during the first Indian International Film Festival held in 1952, and took it as an inspiration for his Do Bigha Zamin (1953), awarded at the 1954 Cannes Festival. This notwithstanding, the most popular form of cinema in India was commercial, so that the public was more attracted by stories taken from mythical tales than experimentalism or innovation in visual language. Thus, Indian cinema still had much more in common with national theatre than to European or American film industry.

Later on, in the 1960’s and the 1970’s, Indian filmmakers and producers seemed to be still interested mainly in local matters, since independence from the United Kingdom (1947) left the entire population alone to deal with two opposite but equally important problems: on the one hand, the desire to retrace and revitalise traditions and ancient values suppressed by British colonial policy, and, on the other hand, the necessity to work towards the innovation of the country, which comported a critical analysis of the existing socio-political dynamics. Thus, two different ways to approach cinema came into being and, subsequently, two different kinds of movies were contemporarily screened. One was especially aimed at entertaining those who wished to preserve their religious and political roots, so that it usually continued taking inspiration from epic sagas (such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana) and supported a set of values which were opposed by the Government, that sometimes looked at them as real and proper threats to human rights (for example to the dignity of women, or the attempt to limit arranged marriages and dowry). As a result, economic funds were established in order to promote the other kind of cinema that characterised the 1970’s. This one was much more concerned about issues arising from the problems of the urban population, as unemployment, poverty, and, above all, the disparity in living conditions due to social inequality. It was less commercial than its rival (in fact, it never gained a relevant success), but the governing elite thought it might be more helpful to make the nation acquire self-consciousness and look at the future ahead, rather than lingering on its own past. The best items of this particular genre were made by the founders, in 1949, of the Navketan Studio company, the three brothers Vijay, Dev, and Chetan Anand (their most interesting work being Guide, 1965). Anyway, what people wanted was an easily accessible plot and awe-inspiring visual language, with a combination of social issues and action or comic sequences. Basically, the audience wanted to be involved in the film itself, take part in the story, rather than sit and watch silently. As reported by Manjunath Pendakur, “many viewers compete to recite the dialogue along with their star’s performance, dance, whistle, and clap. Some bring musical and even noise-making instruments to the theater to show their appreciation and to draw attention to themselves... In effect, the audience actively transforms watching movies into a performative act. In other words, the cinematic experience and meaning-making by the audience is not idle, analytic activity but real engagement with the film. It is often taken to its extreme when the active audience in its excitement of a fight on the screen tears up the seats or gets into a brawl”[4]. This comes as an explanation of the appeal that Hollywood action cinema had on part of Indian commercial production of the 1970’s. Due to dissatisfaction and disillusionment towards politicians and better social conditions that looked (and were) still far to come, the public was attracted by the kind of urban, avenging hero impersonated by actors like Charles Bronson, or characters like those found in western and Asian kung-fu movies (even their physiognomy changed in order to bear resemblance to foreign stars, so that slim, handsome actors were now privileged). Therefore, violence was an essential feature in many hits of the early 1980’s, following the trend set in Hollywood by crime movies such as Michael Winner's Death wish (1974). But, exactly like in their American counterparts, violence was just a means to establish social justice and fulfil a sad but legitimate vengeance, so that the protagonists of the movies were not criminals but modern heroes, and their victims were not very different from the villains of Elizabethan drama. The most popular actors who came to interpret this role were Amir Khan, Sunil Shetty, and Bobby Deol, but the most loved of all was Amitabh Bachchan. Among the many hits which featured him, there are Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer (1973), the story of a policeman who decides to practise self-justice (thus forerunning Gene Hackman or Charles Bronson’s performances); Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay (1975), a huge hit that was screened in Bombay for five running years and represents an interesting example of Indian western inspired by Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood (in fact, it was labelled ‘curry western’)[5]; and, lately, Tatinemi Rama Rao’s Inquilab (1984), a work similar to Zanjeer, in which the protagonist faces political corruption and at the end picks up a machine gun, murdering all the corrupt leaders. What is more, during the 1980’s foreign movies, especially American, were made widely available by two relevant changes: the spread of technology and an unexpected decision of the Government. As summed up by Lalitha Gopalan, “the arrival of video shops in India also exposed the film-going public to world cinemas, an opportunity previously afforded only by film festivals and film societies. Suddenly films from other parts of Asia, Europe, and America were easily available to the film buff. Filmmakers were also very much part of this video-watching public, freely quoting and borrowing cinematic styles... In addition to video and satellite saturation of the visual field, American films (sometimes dubbed in Hindi) started reappearing in Indian theatres after a new agreement was signed between the Government of India and Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. (MPPDA) in April 1985, ending the trade embargo that began in 1971”[6].

Anyway, in a land of contradictions such is India, this keen attention to Hollywood’s production could not exist alone and monopolise the whole film industry: in fact, during the same period there was a quick return to traditional values and aesthetics prompted by some political parties, that were extremely aware of the propaganda power which might be exerted from the screen on an audience that for the first time in history got to know what the rest of the world was like. So, as has been stated by Deepa Gahlot, there has been a resurgence of “back-to-roots traditionalism in Indian society, reflected in the phenomenal popularity of religious and mythological serials on television and films like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jaayenge and Pardes, which focus on the traditional Indian family, ancient rituals and patriarchal values. There is doubtless a commercial element involved - everything ultimately turns into a marketing tool - but the Hindi movie is fulfilling a need to cling on to something familiar in a fast changing world which is sweeping away cultural contrasts and demanding uniformity (and conformity) in the name of globalisation. It has perhaps become imperative for Indian films to depict what is in the Indian mind - an urgency to accept the global, but retain the traditional”[7]. In 1989, for instance, the Bharata Janata Party (BJP) formed a coalition with some other parties and won the elections. Because of its nationalistic principles, deeply linked to Hindu religion, both inner and foreign policy of the country were changed in order to reshape national identity, thus dismissing many of the democratic and secular values established after independence and those set by Javahararal Nehru. Thus, India was swept by a wave of religious fundamentalism, thanks to the generalised low level of education and to the harsh economic liberism that, since 1991, has been adopted in order to receive financial help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A policy that among its many effects had that of widening the gap between the highest and the lowest ranks of society. Since the news and the informations offered by the press were (and still are) far from being fully available to non-literate Indians, the BJP realised that television and cinema were perfect instruments to communicate ideas and influence the opinion of the population. So the party financed a large number of movies to re-establish the traditional social and religious system by means of melodramatic stories which depicted a nation still subdivided into castes but where everybody was happy in that way (see, for instance, Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, 1994), furthering the fatalistic philosophy that is even today so typical of the subcontinent. Anyway, it must be noted that the mixing of politics and cinema has been practised by all parties. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), for instance, has always used it to gain legitimacy with the masses, and in 1952 financed Krishnan Panju’s Parasakthi, a work characterised by critiques of social evils such as caste, superstition, idolatry, black marketing, and class domination. But the most nationalistic and conservative factions have been the ones most attracted by this persuasive power, and regarded it a powerful propaganda instrument to prompt the population to rebel during British colonisation. It is interesting to stress that it was during that period that female characters were given the highest attention and psychological introspection they ever gained in the history on national cinema. In fact, women (especially mothers and ‘amazons’ like Fearless Nadia) were taken as symbols of India itself, fighting to survive and attain freedom. Nowadays, these political movements promote even films featuring some of the issues arising from the clash between the Hindu and the Muslim community, such as the explosion of violence that in some areas of the country end up in uncontrollable riots. This does not mean that filmmakers and producers want to help to subvert the status quo, but it is clear that they are perfectly aware of the impact of movies on their specific audience. This attitude has obviously led to the rejection of the life style and some messages communicated by Hollywood cinema and consequently to a sometimes limited circulation of the movies. Indeed, Bollywood films that are deeply rooted in Indian cultural milieu have in some occasions taken over the role played by their American counterparts, as has happened in those regions of the world which are highly populated by Indian immigrants[8]. In fact, Manjunath Pendakur states that “in Africa, if there is any competition to Hollywood imports, it is not from the British or the French films but films imported from India... In the colonial period, when Indian workers migrated to the West or to Africa, they seldom kept in touch with India. They did not have the luxury of modern communications such as telephones, tape recorders, video cameras, and relatively inexpensive air travel... These immigrants have now reached middle age and are nostalgic about their homeland. As may be expected, films that rekindle or capitalise on that nostalgia do well. In fact, some of the films are beginning to pick up on this idea and are exploring this duality of living in two cultures and longing for a past that just does not exist anymore. For instance, the issue of bringing a bride from India to ‘keep all that is good in Indian tradition’ or ‘to make sure that a son is not lost to all the negative values of the West’ is explored in Subhash Ghai’s Pardes (1997)”[9].

From the 1990’s some directors have begun looking at Hollywood again, some simply to remake its hits with local actors, some to capture its cinematic language to produce original works of art. The former group does not do anything new, since remaking has always been common in Indian cinema, but success is everyday more difficult to reach since, as has been stressed in The Hindu, one of the most popular newspapers of the country, “it is time that Bollywood and the rest of Indian cinema begin to look at European or other Asian films for inspiration. France, Italy, Spain, Japan, China and Iran are creating mesmerising cinema that is hauntingly unconventional and gripping even to someone like this critic so used to the Hollywood pace and style. So, innovation, not duplication is the call of the day. A good story, a neat script, imaginative direction need not mean boredom”[10]. On the other hand, even though the second group tend to borrow narrative techniques (sometimes affecting even an essential element like music) and devices such as new shooting angles or montage styles (Ramgopal Verma’s Rangeela, 1995, and Daud, 1997, remind of those popular among MTV’s public), the content of the movies is often still rooted in its countrymen’s reality, both in India and abroad (see, for instance, Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jaayenge, 1995; Kundan Shah's Kya Kehna, 2000; and Fahran Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai, 2001). But, rather than concentrating on traditional culture and values, these directors prefer to analyse how they are bypassed by immigrants or new generations in order to cope with insurgent problems arising from globalisation, migration, human rights, and all the other aspects of contemporary life. The reason of this new trend (which has been labelled 'middle cinema') is due to the fact that such filmmakers often live or have studied abroad, so that they have a more broad cultural background, and their artistic horizon is not just limited to their native land. Among the most popular and internationally recognised, there are Manish Jha, who has directed two films on the condition of Indian women (A Very Very Silent Film, 2002, which has been highly acclaimed at Cannes Festival, and Matroobumi. A Nation Without Women, 2003); Dev Benegal (see English, August, 1994, about the difficulties of going back to a rural village after a long time spent in the city, and Split Wide Open, 1999, a portrait of the bourgeoisie living in Bombay); Rahul Bose (author of Everybody Says I'm Fine!, 2001, highly acclaimed in USA and Canada); and Ram Madhvani (whose Let’s Talk, 2002, deals with extra-marital love relations). But the filmmakers who have attained the highest commercial success are Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair, both experimenting a new interpretation of Bollywood clichés with an eye to Hollywood blockbusters[11]. The former moved to Canada in 1973, where she met many other immigrants from India whose stories she narrated in Sam & Me (1990). International praise came with the trilogy Fire (1997, about arranged marriage and women’s difficulty to oppose it), Earth (1998, on the rivalries between her homeland and Pakistan), and Water (completed just a few months ago, it deals with widows living in the holy city of Benares). But the most famous of all her works is Bollywood/Hollywood (2002), where she took inspiration from Gary Marshall’s Pretty Woman (1990) to show with pungent irony how American romantic comedies are not very different from the melodramatic films produced in Bollywood, and at the same time to mock Indians who are still fascinated by a cinematic genre that has not changed much in over a century. Mira Nair left India three years later, in 1976, to study sociology at Harvard University. In 1985 she made India Cabaret, an interesting example of ‘cinéma vérité’ about night club dancers. But her most important works are Salaam Bombay (1988, awarded with the Camera d’Or prize at Cannes Festival), about kids living in the streets in precarious conditions; Mississippi Masala (1991), on Indian immigration; and Monsoon Wedding (2001), a blend of Hollywood and Bollywood comedy style which deals with the problems of the new generations squeezed between western way of life and traditional values imparted by their parents.

Finally, it must be taken into consideration that in the next future Bollywood will be looking at Hollywood in a new, never experienced before way. That is to say as a client or, better, a commercial partner that might find in India inexpensive but highly professional studios for post-production services. As has been clearly explained by Siddharth Srivastava, a pre-eminent New Delhi journalist, “with Hollywood movies as well as international television networks witnessing an increasing confluence with information technology (IT), given the high dose of special effects, animations that pepper any script, India with its huge IT manpower and technical expertise is being seen as an ideal destination...Till now, post-production of movies from the US have been outsourced to locations such as Japan, Taiwan and Korea. India is the new entrant. As a matter of fact, Asian countries, too, are passing their work on to India, given the enormous savings involved. Going by the money saved, it is not hard to see why India will make it as a BPO base for digital content, special effects and animation. According to estimates, the cost of outsourcing one hour of animation work to India is estimated to be close to US $ 60,000, versus the $ 160,000-200,000 that other leading animation centers in Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines in Asia charge. In the US, it would cost between $ 250,000-300,000 to produce one hour of animation. Though CNN and movies such as The Matrix are not yet being produced in India, inquiries are pouring in. Global entertainment and media giants such as Walt Disney, Fox Entertainment and Time Warner are looking to tap Indian resources”[12]. This means that not only is Indian cinema (or at least part of it) trying to mix new and old solutions, contemporary and traditional thought, but it is probably going to reassert its position in a global scale, both by the production of films addressed to a world public and by a financially convenient contribution to the output of its American counterpart.

Bibliography

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L. Gopalan, Cinema of Interruptions, British Film Institute, 2002

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F. Kazmi, The Politics of India's Conventional Cinema, Sage Publications, 1999.

A. Rajadhyaksha, P. Willemen, Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, British Film Institute, 1999.

S. Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema 1947-1987, University of Texas Press, 1993.

P. N. Chopra, P. Chopra, Encyclopedia of India, Agam Prakashan, 1988.

B. Pfleider, L. Lutze, The Hindi Film: Agent and Reagent of Cultural Change, Manohar Publications, 1985.

M. Gokulsing, W. Dissanyake, Indian Popular Cinema: a Narrative of Cultural Change, Trentham Books, 1998.

P. Chatterjee, State and Politics in India, Oxford University Press, 1999.

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Y. Thoraval, The Cinemas of India (1896-2000), Macmillan, 2000.

M. Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film. A Historical Construction, Oxford University Press, 1998.

T. M. Ramachandran, 70 Years of Indian Cinema (1913-1983), Cinema India-International, 1985.

S. R. Vasudevan, Making Meaning in Indian Cinema, Oxford University Press, 2000.

B. Kuppuswamy, Social Change in India, Konark Publishers, 1996.

S. Ray, Our films, Their Films, Orient Longman, 1976.

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D. Gahlot, Why the World Loves Hindi Movies, in Himal Southasian, Vol. 12, N° 9, September 1999.

M. Iyer, K. Wallia, Bollywood Plans a Corporate Make-Over, in The Times of India, February 14, 2002.

S. Srivastava, Hollywood Forays into India, in Asia Times, February 10, 2004.

Aping Hollywood, in The Hindu, August 22, 2003.

D. Chute, Bollywood: Further Research, in Film Comment, May/June 2002.

U. Ajmera, Devdas Revisited, in The Sunday Times of India, February 17, 2002.

R. S. Vasudevan, Bombay and its Public, in Journal of Arts and Ideas, Vol. 29, January 1996.