Native American Oppression

Native American Oppression Whoever controls the past controls the future (George Orwell). Freedom; just what is freedom? Many think of freedom as having a choice. It is what the United States is supposedly founded on. But is it really? How many people actually have the freedom to know the oppression not through the eyes of the conqueror, but the conquered? History is not meant to be repeated, for it teaches us how to prevent. So why is it that we do not learn? The history of the Native Americans has never been a pretty one. Native Americans have suffered and have been oppressed like none other. What Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortes did to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the Pequots. Settlers were seeking religious and political freedom; during their quest they set their eyes on the new world. What is the point of freedom if one must subjugate others for it? The history of oppression, of the European invasion on the Indian settlements in the Americas begins five hundred years ago. That beginning is one of conquest, slavery, and death. When we read the history books given to children in the United States, it all starts with heroic adventure, one where there was no bloodshed, and Columbus Day is a celebration. Past the elementary and high schools, there are only occasional hints of something else, but only a hint. Samuel Eliot Morison in his popular book Christopher Columbus, Mariner, written in 1954, he tells about the enslavement and the killing: The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide. Samuel Eliot Morison did not lie about Christopher Columbus. But rather he mentioned the truth quickly and very subtly. On October 12, a sailor called Rodrigo saw the early morning moon shining on white sands, and cried out. It was an island in the Bahamas, the Caribbean Sea. The first man to sight land was to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He got the reward. So, approaching land, they were met by the Arawak Indians, who swam out to greet them. The Arawaks lived in village communes, had a developed agriculture of corn, yams, and cassava. They could spin and weave, but they had no horses or work animals. They had no iron, but they wore tiny gold ornaments in their ears. Arawak men and women full of wonder emerged from their villages onto the islands beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat, the likes of which they had never before seen. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log: They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks bells. They willingly traded everything they owned. They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane They would make fine servants. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. The gold ornaments would prove to have disastrous consequences as they would fuel the greed the Spanish had. Christopher Columbus ordered for some of them to be captured by force and sent on board the ships. The main goal behind this was information about the location of gold. On the way back the Native Americans died aboard the ship when the weather dropped. The Indians, Columbus reported, are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone. He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage as much gold as they need and as many slaves as they ask. He was full of religious talk: Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities. His second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives. But as word spread of the Europeans intent they found more and more empty villages. On Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor. When there was a possibility of making a profit God had no room in Christopher Columbus mind. Columbus sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived alive in Spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town, who reported that, although the slaves were naked as the day they were born, they showed no more embarrassment than animals. Columbus later wrote: Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death. The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed. Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the Indians on Haiti were dead. This was all in the name of the holy trinity, and ordered by Columbus. The Arawaks were not the only Indians to suffer at the hands of European forces. The Aztec civilization of Mexico came out of the heritage of Mayan, Zapotec, and Toltec cultures. It built enormous constructions from stone tools and human labor, developed a writing system and a priesthood. It also engaged in the ritual killing of thousands of people as sacrifices to the gods. The cruelty of the Aztecs, however, did not erase a certain innocence, and when a Spanish armada appeared at Vera Cruz, and a bearded white man came ashore, with strange beasts, clad in iron, it was thought that he was the legendary Aztec man-god, and so they welcomed him, with magnanimous hospitality. That was Hernando Cortes, sent from Spain, and blessed by the deputies of God, with one obsessive goal: to find gold. For God, for Glory, and Gold. (Cortez) In the mind of Montezuma, the king of the Aztecs, there must have been a certain doubt about whether Cortes was indeed Quetzalcoatl, because he sent a hundred runners to Cortes, bearing enormous treasures, gold and silver wrought into objects of fantastic beauty, but at the same time begging him to go back. Cortes then began his march of death from town to town, using deception, turning Aztec against Aztec, killing with the kind of deliberateness that accompanies a strategy-to paralyze the will of the population by a sudden frightful deed. And so, in Cholulu, he invited the headmen of the Cholula nation to the square. And when they came, with thousands of unarmed retainers, Cortess small army of Spaniards, posted around the square with cannon, armed with crossbows, mounted on horses, massacred them, down to the last man. Then they looted the city and moved on. When their cavalcade of murder was over they were in Mexico City, Montezuma was dead, and the Aztec civilization, shattered, was in the hands of the Spaniards. In Peru, the Spanish conquistador Pizarro, used the same tactics, and for the same reasons- the frenzy in the early capitalist states of Europe: for gold, slaves, and products of the soil. To pay the bondholders and stockholders of the expeditions: which in turn financed the monarchical bureaucracies rising in Western Europe. Also to spur the growth of the new money economy rising out of feudalism, and to participate in what Karl Marx would later call the primitive accumulation of capital. These were the violent beginnings of an intricate system of technology, business, politics, and culture that would dominate the world for the next five centuries. In the North American English colonies, the pattern was set early, as Columbus had set it in the islands of the Bahamas. In 1585, before there was any permanent English settlement in Virginia, Richard Grenville landed there with seven ships. The Indians he met were hospitable, but when one of them stole a small silver cup, Grenville sacked and burned the whole Indian village. Jamestown itself was set up inside the territory of an Indian confederacy, led by the chief, Powhatan. Powhatan watched the English settle on his peoples land, but did not attack, maintaining a posture of coolness. When the English were going through their starving time in the winter of 1610, some of them ran off to join the Indians, where they would at least be fed. When the summer came, the governor of the colony sent a messenger to ask Powhatan to return the runaways, whereupon Powhatan, according to the English account, replied with no other than proud and disdainful Answers. Some soldiers were therefore sent out to take Revenge. They fell upon an Indian settlement, killed fifteen or sixteen Indians, burned the houses, cut down the corn growing around the village, took the queen of the tribe and her children into boats, then ended up throwing the children overboard and shot out their Brains in the water. The queen was later taken off and stabbed to death. Twelve years later, the Indians, alarmed as the English settlements kept growing in numbers, apparently decided to try to wipe them out for good. They went on a rampage and massacred 347 men, women, and children. From then on it was total war. Not able to enslave the Indians, and not able to live with them, the English decided to exterminate them. Edmund Morgan writes, in his history of early Virginia, American Slavery, American Freedom: Since the Indians were better woodsmen than the English and virtually impossible to track down, the method was to feign peaceful intentions, let them settle down and plant their corn wherever they chose, and then, just before harvest, fall upon them, killing as many as possible and burning the corn Within two or three years of the massacre the English had avenged the deaths of that day many times over. The lies of American History are too many to tell. Christopher Columbus wasnt a hero but a murderer, and the pilgrims didnt have the fairy tale relation with the Indians. When the Pilgrims came to New England they too were coming not to vacant land but to territory inhabited by tribes of Indians. The governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, created the excuse to take Indian land by declaring the area legally a vacuum. The Indians, he said, had not subdued the land, and therefore had only a natural right to it, but not a civil right. A natural right did not have legal standing. The Puritans also appealed to the Bible, Psalms 2:8: Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. And to justify their use of force to take the land, they cited Romans 13:2: Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. The Puritans lived in uneasy truce with the Pequot Indians, who occupied what is now southern Connecticut and Rhode Island. But they wanted them out of the way; they wanted their land. And they seemed to want also to establish their rule firmly over Connecticut settlers in that area. The murder of a white trader, Indian-kidnaper, and troublemaker became an excuse to make war on the Pequots in 1636. So, the war with the Pequots began. Massacres took place on both sides. The English developed a tactic of warfare used earlier by Cortes and later, in the twentieth century, even more systematically: deliberate attacks on noncombatants for the purpose of terrorizing the enemy. This is ethno historian Francis Jenningss interpretation of Captain John Masons attack on a Pequot village on the Mystic River near Long Island Sound: Mason proposed to avoid attacking Pequot warriors, which would have overtaxed his unseasoned, unreliable troops. Battle, as such, was not his purpose. Battle is only one of the ways to destroy an enemys will to fight. Massacre can accomplish the same end with less risk, and Mason had determined that massacre would be his objective. As Dr. Cotton Mather, Puritan theologian put it: It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day. The war continued. Indian tribes were used against one another, and never seemed able to join together in fighting the English. Jennings sums up: The terror was very real among the Indians, but in time they came to meditate upon its foundations. They drew three lessons from the Pequot War: First, that the Englishmens most solemn pledge would be broken whenever obligation conflicted with advantage; Second, that the English way of war had no limit of scruple or mercy; and third that weapons of Indian making were almost useless against weapons of European manufacture. These lessons the Indians took to heart. Was all this bloodshed and deceit-from Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro, and the Puritans-a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization? Was Morison right in burying the story of genocide inside a story of human progress? Perhaps a persuasive argument can be made-as it was made by Stalin when he killed peasants for industrial progress in the Soviet Union, as it was made by Churchill explaining the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and Truman explaining Hiroshima. But how can the judgment be made if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are either unmentioned or mentioned quickly? To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It is certainly the choice which most make. The easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore m ore deadly. Not to mention more widespread. The treatment of heroes and their victims, and the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress, is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they-the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous Justices of the Supreme Court-represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as the United States, subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a national interest represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media. There is no justification for oppression and genocide. There can be no mission directly from God which destroys an entire culture. No legal document or moral law will ever be enough to justify it. While the people may die the rancor left behind wont perish. For it will be documented in history. The true history of the world is all of the peoples stories not just the conquerors. Whoever controls the past controls the future (George Orwell). A hunch backed bison. Proud and majestic. Now bowing. Arched over him, United States of America hangs above. Flip, reflect. A profile. A man with pride, feathers in his hair. Branded. 1936. The word liberty hangs in front of him. Taunting. He does not see it. His eyes are downcast. To notice it would be shortsighted. For what do he and his descendants know of liberty? Their relation with it is maintained with reservations. Primitive concentration camps. Ironic. Little remains today of the bison and the Indian. Confined to obverse and reverse. Looking past each other in opposite directions. To the air, the empty air. Dreaming of days, long gone, many moons ago. Works Cited Angelis, Gina De. Francisco Pizarro and the Conquest of Inca. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001. Bandelier, F. Hernando Cortà ©s. Catholic Encyclopedia. September 20, 2003. . Bowden, Thomas. The Enemies of Christopher Columbus: Answers to Critical Questions About the Spread of Western Civilization . : The Paper Tiger, 2003. Cortà ©s, Hernà ¡n, Marquà ©s Del Valle De Oaxaca. Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition CD-ROM. September 20, 2003 Crivelli, Camillus. Francisco Pizarro. Catholic Encyclopedia. September 23, 2003 . Fisher, Mark/Richardson, Kristi. Francisco Pizarro. Carpenoctem. 20 Sept. 2003 Fisher, Mark/Richardson, Kristi. Hernando Cortes. Carpenoctem. 20 Sept. 2003 Francisco, Michael. Cortes Speech. Escondido Tutorial Service. 20 Sept. 2003 . Gibson, Charles. Cortes, Hernando. The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book Inc., 1997 Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. Ney York: Norton library, 1975. King James Version. Bible. Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. London: , 1848. Orwell, George. Quote DB. . 20 Nov. 2009 . Pizarro, Francisco. Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition CD-ROM. September 20, 2003 Powhatan Indian Tribe History . Access Genealogy. 20 Nov. 2009 .

Competition in Energy Drinks, Sports Drinks and Vitamin-Enhanced Beverages Essay

The problem which I will be looking at in this report is whether the energy drink, sport drink and vitamin-enhanced beverages are able to be sustainable in the beverage industry. Of the four companies to be discussed; will all of them still be around in 10 years? During the mid-2000’s these alternative beverages enjoyed rapid growth; they had premium prices and high profit margins that made them an important part in the lineup of their brands (Thompson, p. C-75). The strength of these companies had been growing strong but had a slight decline in recent years. SWOT for the Industry Strength: Product Expansion – many new products have been developed Distribution Channels – Can use convenience stores, grocery stores Able to deliver with carbonated soft drinks Weakness: Price is high compared to soft drinks Unhealthy ingredients Caffeine is not regulated – like in soft drink industry Opportunity: Consumer demand Supplier Channels – ingredients, cans, labels Product Innovation – provides differentiation Brand Loyalty – taste, image, energy boosting Brand building skills needed 2 oz. energy shots Threat: Economy Scientific evidence that some products are not healthy Effect people with heart arrhythmias and insomnia. Mix with alcohol Relaxed Drink Niche – abuse with prescription cough syrup As we look at this SWOT analysis of the alternative beverage industry we notice that there are some opportunities that they have created and are able to use in the future. Consumers’ choices are changing from the standard soft drink to alternative beverages. The key is to be sustainable by building up these products. The main opportunity to help with sustainability is to build brand loyalty. Try building up the knowledge and uses of your brands will help you gain the skills needed to continue building the brand. SWOT for PepsiCo Strength: Leads in US: Aquafina – mineral water Frappuccino – ready to drink coffee Tropicana – orange juice Gatorade – sports drinks Strong distribution Broad product line Weakness: Slow growth in Latin America and Japan Opportunity: Food division should expand internationally Threat: Coca Cola leading brand for carbonated drinks Living healthy awareness PepsiCo has grown to be a strong competitor in the global market of alternative beverages. This SWOT shows that they need to increase their growth in the markets of Japan and Latin America. As we discussed in the overall market they can learn how to increase their brand loyalty. SWOT for Coca Cola Strength: Leading manufacturer, marketer and distributor for non-alcoholic beverages Gaining distribution of new beverages such as Minute Maid, Dasani and Powerade Multi-year distribution agreement with Hansen Natural Corporation Weakness: Market share in alternative beverages Opportunity: New product development Introduction of existing brands into new country markets Threat: PepsiCo is slowly taking over the market with multi-line of beverages Increase trend in healthy living Globally they have been a top company in the beverage industry. They have been not as strong in the alternative beverage market. The experiences they have with the carbonated beverages can continue on with the new industry and increase their brand loyalty to the alternative side. The key is to expand their brands into the global market and make it sustainable. SWOT for Red Bull GmbH Strength: #1 seller of energy drinks Weakness: Lack of innovation Reliance on small product base Opportunity: Diversification of beverages to capture wider market opportunity Geographical expansion Threat: Other energy drinks such as Powerade and Gatorade Healthier drinks such as mineral water and juices Red Bull has been a leader in marketing of their product. This marketing prowess has made them the number one seller of energy drinks. I think that if they want to grow and be able to protect themselves from the big two they need to grab the opportunity to diversify into other alternative beverages. As they diversify they will expand into becoming a wider market. SWOT for Hansen Natural Corporation Strength: Monster Energy drinks propelled company sales in 2002 Monster Energy is second best-selling energy drink in USA Weakness: Brand name is not as familiar as the others Opportunity: Develop new products Threat: Competitors have bigger names in the industry. The Hansen Natural Corporation is in the earlier stages of development in this industry thus making them not as well-known as the others. They key that they have done is learned from Red Bull and market their product towards the younger male demographics. Building brand loyalty with the young males will help with the sustainability as that generation grows older they will continue to buy the product. Porter’s Five Forces of Competitive Position Rivalry among Existing Competitors: Beverage producers increased the market for alternative beverages by extending product lines and developing new products. Companies established consumer brand loyalty with an emphasis on advertising, sales promotions and endorsements. Switching costs are low for consumers. Rivalry among competitors is strong. Threat of New Entrants: The brands of: Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Red Bull, Hansen Natural have strong productdifferentiation & brand loyalty. Government policies are restrictive by the FDA regulations. Alternative beverage sellers need to have an efficient distribution system that can reach supermarkets and convenience stores. Threat of new entrants is weak. Bargaining Power of Buyers: Of the distributors; delis and restaurants had low switching costs from brand to brand, but also had less ability to negotiate for deep pricing discounts because of volume limitations. Consumers can obtain the products easily and are well-informed Buyers have stronger bargaining power. Bargaining Power of Suppliers: There are many supplier ingredients & are trying to sell the products. Some rare ingredients providers had an adequate amount of leverage in negotiations with energy drink producers. The producers are important customers of suppliers and they buy in large quantities Packaging is readily available from many suppliers. Suppliers are weaker. Threat of Substitute Products: There are many substitutes to alternative beverages such as tea, soft drinks, fruit juices, bottled water and tap water. Competitive pressure from substitute products is strong. As we look at the 5 forces I have decided that rivalry amongst the competitors is the strongest factor while the power of suppliers is weakest. New entrants are a weak force as the 2 big companies historical action is to purchase companies out when they get to be a nuisance in the market. The reason that suppliers have a low bargaining power is that if a company does not want to deal with you there is somebody else out there that is willing to take your place. The buyers (consumers) have a strong force because they are the ones who decide what they want to consume. It is easy to open up the door next to your product and grab the competitor’s product. The 2nd strongest force that I can see is the threat of substitute products. Just like the competitors; consumers have the option to pick a substitute beverage instead of your energy, sports or vitamin-enhanced drink. The reason I went with the rivalry is that we are talking about the sustainability of the market. Competition with fellow companies is healthy for a company and helps the products to grow compared to being the only option in the market. Choice for consumers creates the competition which helps make the whole market stronger. As the market become stable and has a consistent demand the companies will be able to expand their market. The generation that they have to market to be used to having product innovation and marketing innovation. â€Å"An ongoing stream of product innovations tends to alter the pattern of competition in an industry by attracting more first-time buyers, rejuvenating industry growth with concomitant effects on rivalry, entry threat, and buyer power (Thompson, p. 74)†. All of this helps with sustainability. Financial Analysis Net Income Changes | Pepsi – Co| Coca-Cola| Hansen| Between 2007-2008| -8. 9%| -2. 9%| -27. 7%| Between 2008-2009| 15. 7%| 17. 5%| 93. 2%| Between 2007 and 2009| 5. 4%| 14. 1%| 39. 7%| * All three companies had a bad change from 2007 to 2008. The economy at that time was at a low thus it does not mean that it was their fault. * Hansen had a big jump from 2008 to 2009 as they made an important transition of Monster Energy from a domestic North American brand into a truly international brand (Monster Beverage Corp. p. 3). They had a more reasonable change between 2007 and 2009. * Coke has a consistently higher level of net income with a more consistent change. * Pepsi-Co had a good change from 2008 to 2009. Gross Profit Margin | Pepsi – Co| Coca-Cola| Hansen| 2007| 54. 3%| 63. 9%| 51. 7%| 2008| 52. 9%| 64. 4%| 52. 1%| 2009| 53. 5%| 64. 2%| 53. 6%| * Shows a consistent percentage that the revenues can cover the expenses and are able to create a profit. | * The companies are consistent in their ability to achieve that margin. Coke has the highest percentage. | * They appear to have a good handle on covering their expenses with their revenues. | | Operating Profit Margin| | | | | Pepsi – Co| Coca-Cola| Hansen| 2007| 18. 2%| 25. 1%| 22. 5%| 2008| 16. 1%| 26. 4%| 13. 8%| 2009| 18. 6%| 26. 6%| 25. 8%| * Shows how much profit is earned on sales before paying interest charges and taxes. | | * The companies are consistent again with Hansen having a low year in 2008 but close with Coke. | * Coke was the consistent high company. | | | | | | | Net Profit Margin| | | | | Pepsi – Co| Coca-Cola| Hansen| 2007| 14. 4%| 20. 7%| 14. 6%| 2008| 11. 9%| 18. 2%| 9. 1%| 2009| 13. 8%| 22. 0%| 15. 9%| * A high net profit margin indicates a more profitable company that has better control over its costs compared to its competitors. * Coca-Cola is the higher ratio company with a consistent ratio that grew from 2007 to 2009. The other 2 companies are close in percentages and are lower than Coca-Cola. This shows that Coca-Cola is more profitable than the other two companies. Alternatives: * Coca Cola to improve. * Red Bull to improve * Hansen Natural to improve * PepsiCo to improve * Continue running the same Discussion of the Alternatives: Coca Cola One of the keys to help be sustainable is being innovative and building up a good image; this will help to recapture the market share lost in the energy drink market. Coca Cola should also try to create more rapid growth in vitamin-enhanced beverages and also by creating an â€Å"energy shots† product. Globally they can strengthen alternative beverage sales in Asia and their lack of competitiveness in European market. Coca Cola can use a combination of new flavors and formulations, line extensions, and brands; they can increase sales of the alternative beverages internationally by building a strong image and strengthen their distribution capabilities. Researching a country is important factor, so that you can see what that country looks for in an alternative beverage. Then produce that product and also market to their way of life. They could also try and introduce more flavors that people will enjoy and cut the ones that aren’t doing well. PepsiCo Sustainability can be strengthened by having a major image building campaign for their top product. Just like Coke they need to expand into energy shot branding by having Rockstar add energy shot to its distribution agreement. Another option is to negotiate for distribution rights to European and Asia-Pacific markets with Rockstar or launch its energy drink brands into attractive international markets. In the case it, they discussed that they had introduced a new lineup of alternative drinks known as Charge, Rebuild, Defend, and Bloodshot. As a consumer I have not heard of those brands; indicating to me that marketing of those new products needs an overhaul so that we, the consumers, are aware of such products. Another thing they could do is try to come up with new good tasting flavors for its SoBe energy drink line. Red Bull GmbH The Red Bull brand should improve the performance of its recently introduced energy shot. They need to continue to expand into rapidly growing markets for energy drinks. It is necessary for the company to maintain its lead in the U. S. and European energy drink market. A major key for Red Bull is getting additional product line extensions with the help of their R & D department. They also can develop sports drinks or vitamin-enhanced beverages that can further exploit the appeal of the Red Bull brand. Hansen Natural Corporation Hansen has an agreement with Coca Cola to be a distributor. To be competitive in the alternative beverage market you need to have a strong distribution system. When you have control over your own distribution it gives you the power to have good sales volume and increased market share. Placement on store shelves in the â€Å"first mover areas† is a key to increasing those sales and being in control of your distribution, and then you can set up good locations on store shelves. They also need to continue looking at being innovative in producing new and better products. Image is critical in the minds of consumers in choosing the brands they want. The image presented by the product’s name and emphasized in advertisements, endorsements, and promotions create demand for one brand over another. Finally, sufficient sales volume to achieve scale economies helps in becoming an important driver. They need to have sufficient sales volumes to keep marketing expenses at an acceptable cost per unit basis. Continue running the same That kind of alternative is not a good business decision in that progression is what drives the business environment. In a competitive environment those standing still will be passed or swallowed by the running beast as it goes by. As we seen in our SWOT, all four companies are not at a perfect state and have many opportunities at their doorstep. Recommendation: This case and the way in which has worked out is more about how the industry has a whole can be sustainable. Each one of the companies has similar options that are available to help be maintainable. The one company to me that stands out is the Hansen Natural Corporation because it has been innovative in their options in comparison to Red Bull, such as the size of the cans that they offer. They provide more products for the same or lower price point. I recommend that they develop a better distribution system for their product. It will help with the first mover area which they can move into. As they become stronger in their distribution system they will increase their opportunities to sell their products. Options of places to sell their products such as in vending machines will make their product available to an increased market. As these market segments grow the sales volume will increase with a stronger market share to become available. Brand image is strong to continue building by sponsoring the events to the consumers which you focus your products towards. Action Plan: Immediate: Research distribution channels and how to become â€Å"first mover area† company Short: Cancel agreement with Coke Mid: Set up the distribution channel system. Launch the new system. Long: Make adjustments to the system as the need arises. Conclusion: Competition in the Energy Drinks, Sports Drinks and Vitamin-Enhanced Beverages market will continue to grow as the companies continue to be innovative. I have looked at ways to help the companies be more sustainable. I discussed how Hansen Natural will be able to grow and prosper in the alternative beverage market. References Monster Beverage Corp. (2010, February 28). Annual Report. Retrieved March 6, 2013, from www. zonebourse. com/MONSTER-BEVERAGE-CORP-9771916/pdf/182022/Monster%20Beverage%20Corp_Rapport-annuel. pdf Thompson, A. A. , Strickland, A. J. , & Gamble, J. (2012). Crafting and executing strategy: the quest for competitive advantage : concepts and cases (18th ed. ). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Analysis Of Kanye West Is The Definition Of Controversy

Kanye West is the definition of controversy. From his humble beginnings all the way to his grandiose luxury rap. He is the first person to tell you that he deserves his wealth and fame, and he truly does. Kanye West became involved in the hip hop scene in Chicago as a teen, where he crossed paths with No I.D., a producer who quickly picked up Kanye as a student, and thus started Kanye’s career as a producer. Making beats for local artists, he eventually developed a unique style that changed the face of hip hop. By adding samples of soul music, he was picked up quickly as a full time producer, and at the age of nineteen, he earned his first production credit on the debut album of a Chicago rapper, Grav. From there, he struggled to break into the mainstream throughout the late 90s, producing beats just to keep the lights on. At 20, he dropped out of college to focus on his musical work. His big break happened in 2000, where he began to produce for Roc-A-Fella Records, with influ ential artists such as Jay-Z on board. Kanye is credited with bringing Jay-Z’s career back to the limelight, with his production values on â€Å"The Blueprint,† which is often ranked as one of the greatest hip hop records. This success created an incredible amount of interest in West as a producer. Producing as an in-house producer at Roc A Fella, he also produced hit singles for artists such as Ludacris, Alicia Keys, and Janet Jackson. Kanye West struggled with his career on a personal level, as his real