Social environment of business

Business Power James Buchanan Duke was born on December 23rd 1856 In North Carolina. HIS father was the owner of a small factory which produced a brand of chewing tobacco named Pro Bono Public. As he became older It was time for him to take over his father’s business, however the number of competition was too high. Taking a major risk, he committed his company to a then-novel product- the cigarette. Unfortunately, back in those days, cigarettes were used by people from the lower class, and they were looked down upon. In spite of this, in 1881 Duke brought 10 Russian migrant cigarette rollers to his North Carolina factory and made about 2,000 per day. Since there was no demand at first, Duke decided to use a famous actress to advertise his cigarettes on a full page newspaper ad. By that time, James Bonsais had invented a machine capable of rolling 200 cigarettes per minute, which failed. Duke saw the opportunity and signed an agreement to operate the machine. The costs of production per thousand was down to $30 from $. 80. Duke moved to New York and had the Idea to hire people to visit tobacco shops ND demand his new machine-rolled Cameo and Cross Cut brands. At one time, he even put glamour photos of semi-nude American actresses on cigarette packs in China. In fact, his cigarettes became a big hit with Chinese men due to this. After carefully observing Rockefeller conquest of the oil industry he saw that his methods could be applied to the tobacco industry. 3 In 1884, he built a holding company called the American Tobacco trust.

Bye he had built the trust into a monopoly that controlled 98 percent of the domestic cigarette market and sold 2. Billion cigarettes. His method was to sell his cigarettes at full retail price to dealers which were spied on occasionally by detectives to make sure they were not selling competitors brands. Duke’s method shows how much the power of commerce can Influence society. Although cigarettes are poisonous for society’s health, he managed to make this product acceptable in people’s eyes.

There have been many studies done which proved that the use of advertisement is a very powerful tool to use with society, especially with the youth. One of the study was conducted by researchers from Dartmouth Medical School where they followed more than 5,000 Vermont and New Hampshire students ages 10 to 16 from 12 to 26 months. They found that those with higher exposure to movie alcohol use at the initial assessment were more likely to have started drinking at time of follow-up. They also found depictions of alcohol use in 92% of 601 contemporary movies, including in 52% of G-rated films. According to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown university, alcohol impasses spend nearly $2 billion every year on advertising In the united States. Between 2001 and 2007, there were more than 2 million television ads and 20,000 magazine ads for alcoholic products. 51 believe that this Is a big problem In today’s society. People are being brainwashed by what they see on television, the Internet shown too much on media which makes it “okay” for teenagers to use them. Unfortunately, managers need to run their company and would do anything in the hope of becoming successful.