Internal Analysis Strong And Weak Points Marketing Essay

Internal Analysis Strong And Weak Points Marketing Essay Analyse basically the chosen marketing mix. (normally you use the actual marketing-mix, but since that does not automatically exist now in the Netherlands, you need to assess the (known and/or expected) strengths and weaknesses. Elements to analyse actual strategy of the company (abroad) and strong /weak points influencing you mkt-mix (e.g. investment budget can be too low) Use your own survey results concerning the product or substitute products where relevant, in order to know if this influences (strong point/weak point) your actualperformance. Elements you must include are therefore: * product (benefits, attributes, core, actual, augmented -branding strategy) * price (pricing strategy -price setting), including costs you will have, break-even, etc * distribution (chosen partners, online, direct ): strategy and costs * communication : strategy and costs, can be internal and external, is promotion wise related to distribution and product/branding Also, but less extensive, since this goes beyond IP-1à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ * personel/employees: HRM -strategy and costs * purchase function / supply chain: costs for managing the value chain, etc * finance ! (investment =? Do you have the money ? Do not ignore, you need it for your budgetting, so at least name it and explain how much is involved, keep the costs as low as possible )(finance=communication costs, personnel costs, starting up costs, The total must be coherent, realistic and financially feasible Relevant conclusions CHAPTER 2 INTERNAL ANALYSIS -STONG AND WEAK POINTS Introduction The internal analysis of the company can be also associated with SWOT analysis. This is an analysis of the strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company. Internal analysis is essential for the company because it can measure the companys current situation and it can help to further the development of the company. By analysing these four sides of the company we can better understand what is needed to further the growth of the company. It is necessary to analyse our situation in its current position in order to make better planning for the future. Since our goal is to introduce the product and the company to the Dutch market successfully we need to internally analyse our strenghts, weakneses, opportunuties and possible threats in the new market. By the internal analysis we can also make improvements in our overall marketing strategy. By internal analysis of the company we can easily identify marketing opportunities, problems and evaluate performence. The main purpose o f the internal analysis is to gain a better picture of the companys overall performance and to help us with making better marketing decisions for the future growth. Structure of the internal analysis This analysis is going to show the strenghts and weaknesses of our marketing strategy. We will analyse each part of the marketing mix in order to estimate its efficiency. Elements to analyse: Extensive analysis: Actual strategy of the company and strong/weak points influencing our marketing mix Product analysis Pricing analysis Distribution analysis Communication analysis Less extensive analysis: Personnel/Employees HRM strategy and costs Purchase function/Supply chain Finance At the end of the analysis we will provide a relevant conclusion. Actual strategy of the company and strong/weak points influencing its marketing mix Product analysis Our market offering is a soft, multivimatin drink. What is special about our product is the concept of the product. It stands out from other multivitamin drinks in the same product group. In this part of the analysis we are going to analyse the benefits, attributes, the core of the product, the actual product, the augmented product. The analysis will include the strong and weak points of the product which will affect our actual performance. Product benefits: As a main benefit of our product can be considered the fact that it is healthy and it includes a lot of vitamins.Another benefit is the innovative packaging. It is attractive and offers to the customers a special way of drinking. It is also interesting and more fun than other products in the same product group. The cap consists vitamin powder which falls into the water in the bottle immediately after opening the cap. Product attributes: Product Quality: For the quality we dont have to change anything, because our product GO! Now has a very good quality, and its a very popular drink because of quality in Eastern Europe. So we hope that Dutch consumers will have the same opinion about our product. Product Features: Based on our survey, we dont have to add any additional features for our product. Product Style and Design: Our product has an eye-catching style, so we dont have to change it. For design, its a bit a problem for now. We think that in future we will change it for the Dutch market, because design it is a deep understanding of customers needs. But for now we will leave it the same. Branding: Brand is very important for the product, and our product brand is still unknown for the Dutch market. For Dutch market we have change already the name of our brand, so we made it much easier for local consumers. Packaging: We have quite a good packaging, especially for the Dutch market, because our main product GO! orange flavor is in orange color, and, based on survey, people like especially this feature of our product. The only thing that we have to change is that we have to translate the product information from creation to Dutch and English languages. Labeling: We will not change the label, we dont need this, because based on the survey we made, we found out that consumers are fully satisfied with the product we offer. Product Support Services: We will conduct a survey among our customers periodically to assess the value of our future service, and that will also help us for obtaining new ideas. Core customer value of our product: Our product offers to the customers healthy and refreshing drink. It improves their lifestyle. It is also a new way of drinking which is a lot of fun. Actual product: GO! is a a refreshing multi-vitamin drink in innovative package, adapted to everyone who lives on the go and actively enjoys their free time. The product itself is in an orange packaging. It is a new way of drinking. You open the cap. Add GO! water to suit your taste. Then you close the cap and shake the bottle. Your GO! is ready. In the end you enjoy the unforgettable taste of your favorite multivitamin drink. The slogan of this product is Open and GO! Augmented product: The service the company provides is that if you are not satisfied with the product they will do everything they can to help you with your problem. They have also a delivery service, you order it on the internet and deliver the next day. Delivery takes too long so this is a weakness but if there is big interesnt in buying the product online we can make changes and fasten the delivery of the product. Branding strategy: Even though the brand is very popular in some East European countries it is still unknown in the Netherlands. We will make some changes in the brand name because it is too difficult to remember and it doesnt make any sense for the Dutch consumers. Of course, it is still possible to keep the brand name of the product but it will not be the best choice because its too long and its also hard to remember and pronounce. We need something simpler in order to make our product popular. Our products original brand name was Cedevita GO! and we have decided to shorten it and change it only to GO!. The new name is easier to pronounce and to remember its also with big letters so it draws the customers attention. Also the word Go have a meaning in English and it means proceed which associates with sport and physical activities that are important for the health. Pricing analysis We suggest for the client to put the price at à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 2,00 The price Atlantic Grupa puts is à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬1,40, the retailer price is à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬1,70, so the best price for our client would be à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬2,00 since the customers in Holland have a little bit more money to spend. And since the nature of the product is to be on the go, it would be a normal price since the other products are quite expensive as well(tank stations, AH to go etc.). And with à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬2,00 you would have a nice price. And combined with a psychological setting it would result in the final of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬1,99 Another part of our pricing analysis is that the price of our product is quite high to reflect a certain amount of exclusiveness. So in that sense, we would like to pick premium pricing from the options Kotlers mentions to us. Abroad the BEA is 15,849 since this amount of euro is the constant costs. That means Atlantic Grupa has to sell exactly 11.321 bottles of cedevita GO!. With a sale of 1.684.295 and a net income of 99.292 in 2010 it is fairly easy to get out of the BEA in Holland. In Holland however, we have to include promotion costs in our constant costs and that will result in slightly higher BEA. We still believe that this BEA can be seen as a threat if our promotion program fails, normally companies always expect losses in the first few years. The promotion costs will be around 20700 and this will increase the BEA to 11.321+8280=19.621 Distribution analysis Distribution channels for our product: It is an indirect marketing channel, because we will sell our product in supermarkets. That means that we have to use one or more levels of intermediaries to help us to bring the product to final buyers. It is crucial to use this marketing channel for our product, because intermediaries could create greater efficiency in making goods available to target markets. Through their contacts, experience, specialization, and scale of operation, intermediaries usually offer the firm more that it can achieve on its own. Our distribution channel will look like this: Producer Wholesaler Retailer Consumer Distribution functions: Information: with information we could know more about actors and forces in the in the marketing environment, that affect our product. Promotion: with promotion we could tell more about our product to our target consumer market. Matching: this will help us to bring the product, which is matched to Dutch consumers needs. Physical distribution: the main function of physical distribution is to: transport and store the goods. Financing: with financing we can cover the cost for the product chain. Risk taking: we need to take risk of carrying out the channel work. Distribution objective and strategy: Main objective is to minimize the total channel cost of meeting customer-service requirements. That means that we have to focus on our target market group, to satisfy needs and wants of our customers, and minimize the channel cost. We will use intensive distribution strategy for our products, we will stock our products in as many outlets as possible. Our products have to be available where and when consumers want them, to provide maximum brand exposure and consumer convenience. Use of logistics: Logistics involves getting the right product to the right customers in the right place at the right time. So it is very important to organize in the right way. First of all we need a warehouse in the Netherlands, to store our products, while they wait to be sold. We will use the distribution centres, because they are design to move goods rather than store them. This will help us to take orders, fill them efficiently, and deliver goods to consumers as quickly as possible. Then as the inventory management also affects customer satisfaction, we have to decide how much inventory to order. We have to maintain balance between carrying to little inventory and carrying too much. After that we need to choose transportation for our product. The best way to transport our goods is by trucks. Mainly, because truck is highly flexible in their routing and time schedules, and they can usually offer faster service than railroads. The last step is a logistic information management. We will use the internet-based electronic data interchange (EDI). EDI will provide us with a simple, fast, and accurate process for capturing, processing, and sharing channel information. EDI costs exists of: Implementation Time Maintenance Fees VAN Charges Mailbox Costs Communication analysis Communication target groups: Our target groups will be: Young people Physically active people Sportsmen Students People who travel very often Communication objectives: Our main objective is to make the consumers buy our product. But this is not a very easy task since in order to fulfill it we need to understand the consumer and his needs and wants. We also need to know on which buyer-readiness stage the target audience now stands and where should it be. The buyer-readiness stages are the stages which the consumer normally passes through on their way to purchase. It includes awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, and purchase. Since our product is new to the Dutch market we already know that our target group is not aware of the product. So our first task will be to make consumers familiar with the new product. After that we need to use the promotion mix tools in order to create positive feeling and conviction about .It is possible that we will offer special promotional prices in order to attract customers. Still, the most important thing is to convince the consumers that our product provides superior value for them and to get them to the purchase stage of the buyer-readiness stage. Media: We will use nonpersonal communication channel for our product, this means that we will use media that will carry messages without personal contact or feedback. Basically, we will use online media (e-mail, company web site, and online social and sharing networks), print media (newspapers, magazines), display media (flyers, posters). Promotion tools: For our product Go! we will use advertising and sales promotion. For advertising we will mainly use online advertising, which includes: Contextual ads that appear on a search engine results pages Companys web site Banner ads Social network advertising Advertising networks E-mail marketing. We will also use In-store advertising, which includes: Placement of product in visible location in store Advertisements on shopping carts Advertisements on in-store video displays For sales promotion we will use special cents-of deals to attract consumers ` attention by offering strong incentives to purchase our product Go! Promotions: We will advice our client to use sales promotions. The best is to use consumer sales promotion. That means that we will target our promotion on a consumers. Good examples of the consumer sales promotion are: Cents-off deal: Offers a brand at a lower price. Price reduction may be a percentage marked on the package. Price-pack deal: The packaging offers a consumer a certain percentage more of the product for the same price (for example, 25 percent extra). The non-stop retailing can be used to promote the clients product to the customer. Each of our competitors has a web-site and the products can be purchased online. The sites also include a lot of promotions. Non-stop retailing allows customers to research the product online first and then decide rather to buy it or not. The web-sites do more than selling products to the customers; they also make them go to the supermarket and shop there. Promotion budget: We will use objective-and-task method, because we think that it is the best method for our promotion campaign. With this method we will: Define specific objectives Determine the task that must be performed to achieve these objectives Estimate the cost to of performing these tasks (the sum of these cost is the proposed promotion budget) We surf the Internet and found out that our communication budget will vary from 18100 to 20700 euros for a month, depend on quantity and quality we will need to promote our product. It consists of: Magazines advertisement-from 13000 to 15000 euros Advertisement on the most popular Dutch social web site Hyves 700 euros Advertisement on various Internet search engines (Yahoo, Google) from 900 to 1500 euros To create and maintain our Go! Web site 1500 euros Flyers and posters 300 euros Employee salary for posting flyers and posters 2000 euros Since the product is completely unknown on the Dutch market we need to do a lot of promotions and advertisements in order to make it popular. This is of course a weak point because we need to build an image of the product from the zero. We will spend big amount of money on promotions and this can also affect the product price because it can make the product too expensive. Personnel/Employees HRM strategy and costs The HRM-strategy is in terms of originality as innovative and interesting, as the product itself. First of all I want to mention that there is a majority of women on the work floor and based on the financial reports they are doing quite well with their current settings. There are 62% females and 38% in the company with 1800 employees in total. We would recommend decreasing the brand managers since there are more then 200 of them in the company. Instead of focusing on the amount of brand managers we think that their salary would be better spent on mass-marketing, of course it would be less effective but you have a much greater public you can reach. The median age is around 30 but we believe that this can be lowered if younger people can be hired instead of the older ones, this is a price-cutter and also brings fresh wind/talent to the company. finance If we estimate the total calculation of our financial analysis we have to take account with the following factors: Personnel costs/research costs Promotion/media costs Distribution costs( EDI system) Transportation costs We believe that there is no personnel extensive use in our project( or at least in the early steps of it), with a research department of around 50 people divided into finance, marketing and laws should be sufficient enough for a non-superficial answer to the obstacles Atlantic Grupa will face. So if I calculate the total personnel costs with an average salary of 1800 euro(the centre is located in Eastern-Europe, lower salaries) it should be 180050= 90.000 Gross salary costs every month for the personnel/research ( I believe these 2 factors can be merged into 1since research is always done by the personnel.) Furthermore, promotion costs will be around 20.000 euro`s a month. The distribution costs is very tricky since setting up a logistic information system(EDI) is quite expensive which is mainly used by the bigger companies. The costs start from 40.000 euros and can reach 900.000 euros depending on mapping size, it is also important to note that maintaining an EDI costs around 18% of the price you paid for the system every year. A price of 200.000 for the system is enough to guarantee a high quality distribution system. Transportation costs are around 7 cents for every bottle sent, so 70.000x 0.07= 4900 euros So if i calculate everything together it would result in: 200.000+90.000+20.000+4900=314.900 euros starting up costs with 36.000+90.000+20.000 extra every month and 0.07cents x every bottle sold (variable cost)=146.000 extra per month 314.900 Euros+ 146.000 every month(and perhaps some credits ;-)), we believe that this fits in the SMART approach -

Put myself in my shoes Essay

â€Å"Put Yourself in My Shoes† is one of the longest and most complex stories in the collection, and one of its finest. In addition, it brings together a number of the themes and images that have recurred throughout the book. For example, it depicts the kind of interaction between two couples that we have seen in â€Å"Neighbors† and â€Å"What’s in Alaska?†; in this case, the Myerses go to visit the Morgans, whose house they had lived in for a year while Professor Morgan and his wife were in Germany, but whom they have not seen since. Furthermore, the issue of empathy that surfaced in â€Å"Fat,† â€Å"Neighbors,† and â€Å"The Idea,† the ability to visualize oneself in another’s perspective, is so central here that in becomes the title of the story. What is different about this story, however, is its self-consciousness, its concentration on the role of the writer. In many ways, â€Å"Put Yourself in My Shoes† can be se en as Carver’s comment on his own career, on storytelling itself. Myers is a writer, although he hasn’t sold anything yet and is currently not writing. He has quit his job to pursue his muse, but with little success. As the story opens he is depressed, † between stories and [feeling] despicable†, when his wife calls to invite him to the office Christmas party. But he doesn’t want to go, mainly because the textbook publishing company where she works is also his former place of employment. Like Marston in â€Å"What Do You Do in San Francisco?† Myers is feeling the guilt of the unemployed, which is intensified by the fact that he moves in a much more upscale setting that is typical of Carver’s protagonists. Myers is also reluctant to pay a holiday call on the Morgan, although his wife, Paula, finally convinces him to go. The meeting does turn out to be quite an uncomfortable occasion, however. As they approach the house, Myers narrowly avoids being attacked by the Morgans’ dog. Shortly thereafter, follow ing a seemingly inoffensive discussion of writing, the Morgans themselves more directly attack him. Edgar Morgan, from the beginning of their encounter seems to be acting â€Å"odd† and on edge for some unknown reason. When Paula asserts that her husband â€Å"writes something almost every day†, Edgar confronts him on the point. â€Å"Is that a fact?† Morgan said. â€Å"That’s impressive. What did you write today, may I ask?† Myers can only respond † Nothing†, an answer that places him on an existential precipice. The  response inevitably leads to questions about his identity, for what is a writer who doesn’t write? Edgar Morgan then proceeds to tell a story to test what Myers’s imagination can do with some facts. The story is about a university professor that has had and affair with one of his students. He asks his wife for a divorce, and she throws him out of the house. While leaving, he is hit with a can of tomato soup thrown by his son, and his is now in the hospital in serious condition, Myers finds the story quite amusing while Paula and Hilda Morgan are disgusted. Edgar tells Myers that a writer could look at this from the husband’s point of view and get quite a story; Hilda says that the same is true of looking at the story from the wife’s point of view, and Paula speaks up for the son’s point of view. Edgar then tops them all by asserting: â€Å"But here’s something I don’t think any of you has thought about. Think about this for a moment. Mr. Myers are you listening? Tell me what you think of this. Put yourself in the shoes of that eighteen-year-old coed who fell in love with a married man. Think about her for a moment, and then you see the possibilities for your story.† Hilda responds that she has no sympathy for the girl at all or for the professor, but only for the wife and child. Myers apparently has no sympathy for any of the people involved, he can only see the black humor of the entire situation. This lack of empathy again calls into question the appropriateness of his vocation as a writer. Hilda Morgan later narrates another story, that of Mrs. Attenborough, an Australian woman who had collapsed and died while visiting them in their home in Germany. Hilda had left her purse (containing ID cards, a check, and some cash) in a museum, where Mrs. Atttenborough had found it, minus the cash; she has taken an taxi to the Morgnas’ house to return it, but fell ill there. While the woman was lying unconscious, Hilda went through her purse in search of identification, only to find the missing money. When Hilda tells that â€Å" Fate sent her to die on the couch in our living room in Germany†, Myers cannot restrain his laughter. As Myers continues to giggle, Morgan pounces on him: â€Å"If you were a real writer, as you say you are, Mr. Myers, you would not laugh†¦ You would not dare laugh! You would try to understand. You would plumb the depths of that poor soul’s heart and try to understand, but you are no writer, sir!† Once again, though, the motivation  of Morgan’s attack is unclear, to Meyers and to the reader. At the point the Morgans move in for the kill, however, and the reader soon discovers the true reason for many of their strange actions. From the beginning they have appeared to conceal hatred toward the Myerses, as indicated by the way in which Edgar plays the gracious host but curses and throws things in the kitchen, and he now begins to explain the root of their resentment by telling another story. Saying † Consider this for a possibility, Mr. Myers!†, Morgan tells of a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Y who go to Germany for a year and lease their apartment to Mr. and Mrs. Z, a couple whom they do not know. Mr. and Mrs. Z violate the terms of the lease in several ways, such as bringing in a cat and using stored materials. The reader quickly realizes that this is the story of the Morgans and the Myerses, and that the Morgans’ anger over these violations accounts for the tension that Myers has been feeling throughout the evening. Myers in now forced to put himself into the other person’s shoes, and he does not see much to admire when he looks at himself from that perspective. Edgar Morgan, enraged and delirious about the invasion of Mr. and Mrs. Y’s privacy by the tenants explains, † that’s the real story, Mr. Myers†. Once again, however, Myers’s only outward response to the story is to laugh. Paula seems to disregard the meaning of the story entirely-as they drive away she remarks that † Those people are crazy†-but Myers shows himself to have been more deeply affected. The story’s final lines show us a man who looks like a deer caught in deadlights: â€Å"He did not answer. Her voice seemed to come to him from a great distance. He kept driving. Snow rushed at the windshield. He was silent and watched the road. He was at the very end of a story†. â€Å"Put Yourself in My Shoes† seems as Carver’s way of commenting on his own writing. Raymond Carver seems quite concerned, for example, about the voyeuristic mature of the writer’s craft, which, after all involves putting oneself in another’s shoes to report on life from that angle. Carver also acknowledges his tendency to see the black humor in a story, his tendency to laugh at tragedy, another reason some criticize him. In any event, the change that Myers experiences at the end of the story may be indicative of a change in Carver’s writing as well, an increased attempt to see the story  from all sides and evaluate the difficulty of interrelationships.

Transactional Leadership Theory President Nelson And His...

In evaluating Chief Nelson and his leadership style, it is difficult to place him under one theory or another as he exhibits traits of numerous leadership theories, both positive and negative. This would be true of most all people in leadership roles, formal and informal leaders alike. I settled on the transactional leadership theory as it most completely captures his most frequent behaviors. Transactional leadership theory focuses on ideal of obey or else, reward for following and doing as told and punishment for any sort of deviation. As strengths go, this is a simplistic leadership style and thus should be easy to apply and be consistent with. This would also allow for much consistency and provide stability in the sense the subordinates should understand consciously or subconsciously. The reward aspect would also lend itself to be a positive in the form of verbal or tangible affirmation and positivity. Conversely, being a reward based theory; failures both perceived and actual would have detracting qualities. Timid and weary workers, fearful of repercussions and ungrateful of a particular or any reward, the perception of unequal application, evaluation and reward that has little allowance for emotion and mental conditions of individuals along with that it simply is an demeaning form of leadership and an insult to human competences are some very real negative realities of this sort of theory based styled leadership. In an attempt to stabilize this leadership theory andShow MoreRelatedCharacteristics Of A Leader Like1843 Words   |  8 Pagessensitivity; especially with members of his team. Since the findings of Stogdill until today there have been numerous studies about the different traits and skills characterising leaders. Inherited traits, which initially dominated the theory, were gradually moved by the skills learned and the importance of circumstantial factors. 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The Evolution of Greek Tragedy

Today, a trip to the theater is still a special event, but in Ancient  Athens, it wasnt just a time for cultural enrichment or entertainment. It was a religious, competitive, and civic festival event, part of the annual City (or Greater) Dionysia: We might want to imagine the atmosphere of the ancient drama festivals as a combination of Mardi Gras, the gathering of the faithful in St Peters Square on Easter Day, the crowds that throng the Mall on the Fourth of July, and the hype of Oscars night.—Ian C. Storey When Cleisthenes reformed Athens to make it more democratic, it is thought that he included competition between the groups of citizens in the form of dramatic, performing dithyrambic choruses. Be that as it may, Tragedy—as also Comedy—was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the authors of the  Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs, which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped.—Aristotle Poetics Taxes,  A Civic Obligation Well in advance of the Elaphebolion (an Athenian month that ran from late March to early April) event, the city magistrate selected 3 patrons of the arts (choregoi) to finance the performances. It was an onerous form of taxation (liturgy) the wealthy were required to perform—but not every year. And the wealthy had a choice: they could supply Athens with a performance or a battleship. This  obligation included: Housing and feeding the chorus and actors.Selecting chorus members (young men about to enter the military).Hiring a chorus director (didaskalos) who trained the 12-15 non-professional dancers (choreuts), for a year, to perform, sing, and dance in the chorus.Providing a place to train.Paying for a dedication to Dionysus if he won. Professionals and Amateur Actors While the chorus was composed of (well-trained) non-professionals, the playwright and actors had, as Didaskalia puts it, leisure with a passion for the theater. Some of the actors became such polished celebrities their participation would give an unfair advantage, so the lead actor, protagonist, was assigned by lot to a playwright who was expected to compose a tetralogy, direct, choreograph, and act in his own plays. A tetralogy consisted of three tragedies and a satyr play—like a dessert at the end of the heavy, serious drama. Partly humorous or farcical, satyr-plays featured the half human, half animal creatures known as satyrs. Visual Aids for the Audience By convention, the actors in tragedy appeared larger than life. Since there were about 17,000 open-air seats in the theater of Dionysus (on the south slope of the Acropolis), going more than halfway around the circular dance floor (orchestra), this exaggeration must have made the actors more recognizable. They wore long, colorful robes, high headdresses, cothurnoi (shoes), and masks with largemouth holes to facilitate ease of speech. Men played all the parts. One actor might play more than one role, since there were only 3 actors, even by Euripides (c. 484-407/406) day. A century earlier, in the 6th century, when the first dramatic competition was held, there was only one  actor whose role was to interact with the chorus. The semi-legendary playwright of the first play with an actor was Thespis (from whose name comes the word thespian). Stage Effects In addition to the actors accouterments, there were elaborate devices for special effects. For instance, cranes could whisk gods or people on and off stage. These cranes were called mechane or machina in Latin; hence, our term deus ex machina. The skene (from which, scene) a building or tent at the back of the stage that was used from the time of Aeschylus (c. 525-456), could be painted to provide scenery. The skene was at the edge of the circular orchestra (dance floor of the chorus). The skene also provided a flat roof for action, a backstage for the actors preparation, and a door. The ekkyklema was a contraption for rolling scenes or people onto the stage. Dionysia and the Theater At the City Dionysia, the tragedians each presented a tetralogy—four plays, consisting of three tragedies and a satyr play. The theater was in the temenos (sacred precinct) of Dionysus Eleuthereus. The priest was seated in the center of the first row of the theatron. It may be that there were originally 10 wedges (kekrides) of seats to correspond with the 10 tribes of Attica, but the number was 13 by the 4th century B.C. Tragedy Terms Tragic Irony  happens when the audience knows what is going to happen but the actor is still ignorant. Hamartia:  The downfall of the tragic hero is caused by hamartia. This isnt a willful act in violation of the laws of the gods, but a mistake or excess.Hubris:  Excessive pride can lead to the downfall of the tragic hero.Peripeteia:  A  sudden reversal of fortune.Catharsis:  Ritual cleansing and emotional cleansing by the end of the tragedy. Sources Roger Dunkles Introduction to Tragedy The Entrances and Exits of Actors and Chorus in Greek Plays, by Margarete Bieber.  American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 58, No. 4. (Oct. , 1954), pp. 277-284.