Merchandising is the methods, practices, and operations used to promote and sustain certain categories of commercial activity. In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase.

Promotional merchandising

In retail commerce, visual display merchandising means maximizing merchandise sales using product design, selection, packaging, pricing, and display that stimulates consumers to spend more. This includes disciplines in pricing and discounting, physical presentation of products and displays, and the decisions about which products should be presented to which customers at what time.This annual cycle of merchandising differs between countries and even within them, particularly relating to cultural customs like holidays, and seasonal issues like climate and local sporting and recreation. In the United States for example, the basic retail cycle begins in early January with merchandise for Valentine's Day, which is not until mid-February. Presidents' Day sales are held shortly thereafter. Following this, Easter is the major holiday, while springtime clothing and garden-related merchandise is already arriving at stores, often as early as mid-winter (toward the beginning of this section, St. Patrick's Day merchandise, including green items and products pertaining to Irish culture, is also promoted). Mothers Day and Fathers Day are next, with graduation gifts (typically small consumer electronics like digital cameras) often being marketed as "dads and grads" in June (though most college semesters end in May; the grads portion usually refers to high school graduation, which ends one to two weeks after Father's Day in many U.S. states). Summer merchandise is next, including patriotic-themed products with the American flag, out by Memorial Day in preparation for Independence Day (with Flag Day in between). By July, back-to-school is on the shelves and autumn merchandise is already arriving, and at some arts and crafts stores, Christmas decorations. (Often, a Christmas in July celebration is held around this time.) The back-to-school market is promoted heavily in August, a time when there are no holidays to promote. By September, particularly after Labor Day, the summer merchandise is on final closeout and overstock of school supplies is marked-down some as well, and Halloween (and often even more of the Christmas) merchandise is appearing. As the Halloween decorations and costumes dwindle in October, Christmas is already being pushed on consumers, and by the day after Halloween retailers are going full-force with advertising, even though the "official" season doesn't start until the day after Thanksgiving. Christmas clearance sales now begin even before Christmas at most retailers, though they usually begin on the day after Christmas and continue on at least until New Year's Day but sometimes as far out as February.

Merchandising also varies within retail chains, where stores in places like Buffalo might carry snowblowers, while stores in Florida and southern California might instead carry beach clothing and barbecue grills all year. Coastal-area stores might carry water skiing equipment, while ones near mountain ranges would likely have snow skiing and snowboarding gear if there are ski areas nearby.

Trading industry

In Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia, the term “merchandising” is commonly used within the trading industry and denotes all marketing and sales stimulation activities around PoS (point of sale): design, creation, promotion, care and training of the sales staff. Basically a merchandiser is someone who is continuously involved in business promotion by buying and selling of goods. In Asian countries such as India, this term is more synonymous with activities right from sampling or idea conception to dispatching of the shipment. It is a job description that involves leading and working with different departments within the organization, suppliers and buyers to deal with timely deadlines and accepted quality levels.

Retail supply chain

In the supply chain, merchandising is the practice of making products in retail outlets available to consumers, primarily by stocking shelves and displays. While this used to be done exclusively by the stores' employees, many retailers have found substantial savings in requiring it to be done by the manufacturer, vendor, or wholesaler that provides the products to the retail store. In the United Kingdom there are a number of organizations that supply merchandising services to support retail outlets with general stock replenishment and merchandising support in new stores. By doing this, retail stores have been able to substantially reduce the number of employees needed to run the store.

While stocking shelves and building displays is often done when the product is delivered, it is increasingly a separate activity from delivering the product. In grocery stores, for example, almost all products delivered directly to the store from a manufacturer or wholesaler will be stocked by the manufacturer's/wholesaler's employee who is a full time merchandiser. Product categories where this is common are Beverage (all types, alcoholic and non-alcoholic), packaged baked goods (bread and pastries), magazines and books, and health and beauty products. For major food manufacturers in the beverage and baked goods industries, their merchandisers are often the single largest employee group within the company. For nationwide branded goods manufacturers such as The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, their respective merchandiser work forces number in the thousands.

Licensing

In marketing, one of the definitions of merchandising is the practice in which the brand or image from one product or service is used to sell another. Trademarked brand names, logos, or character images are licensed to manufacturers of products such as toys or clothing, which then make items in or emblazoned with the image of the license, hoping they'll sell better than the same item with no such image. For the owners of the intellectual property in question, merchandising is a very popular source of revenue, due to the low cost of letting a third party manufacture the merchandise, while the IP owners simply sit back and collect the merchandising fees.

Children

Merchandising for children is most prominently seen in connection with films and games, usually those in current release and with television shows oriented towards children.

Merchandising, especially in connection with child-oriented films and TV shows, often consists of toys made in the likeness of the show's characters (action figures) or items which they use. However, sometimes it can be the other way around, with the show written to include the toys, as advertising for the merchandise. The first major example of this was the TV show "G.I. JOE A Real American Hero.," produced by Hasbro in the early 1980s, but this practice has been common in children's broadcasting ever since.

Sometimes merchandising from a television show can grow far beyond the original show, even lasting decades after the show has largely disappeared from popularity. In other cases, large amounts of merchandise can be generated from a pitifully small amount of source material (Mashimaro).

Adults

The most common adult-oriented merchandising is that related to professional sports teams (and their players).

A smaller niche in merchandising is the marketing of more adult-oriented products in connection with similarly adult-oriented films and TV shows. This is common especially with the science fiction and horror genres. (Examples: ''Star Trek'', McFarlane Toys) Occasionally shows which were intended more for children find a following among adults, and you can see a bit of a crossover, with products from that show oriented towards both adults and children. (''Gundam'' model kits)

Sometimes a brand of non-media products can achieve enough recognition and respect that simply putting its name or images on a completely unrelated item can sell that item. (An example would be Harley-Davidson branded clothing.)

Prop replicas

Yet another path official merchandising follows sometimes is the one so-called prop replica market. Mainly focused on fan-made articles, prop replicas are becoming more and more famous as users tend to collect those pieces of movie memorabilia that med/big companies do not mass-produce, reaching even higher levels of quality than certain 'licensed' replicas.

External links

Retailer Community of Profession

See also

Tie-in

Shoplifting

Merchandization

Visual merchandising

References

Category:Promotion and marketing communications

ca:Marxandatge cs:Merchandising de:Merchandising es:Merchandising fr:Marchandisage gl:Merchandising it:Merchandising kk:Мерчандайзинг nl:Merchandising no:Spin-off#Salgsvarer pl:Merchandising pt:Merchandising ro:Merchandising ru:Мерчандайзинг sv:Merchandise uk:Мерчендайзинг

Name	George Lucas
Birth date	May 14, 1944
Birth place	Modesto, California, U.S.
Residence	Marin County, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Education	Modesto Junior College
Alma mater	University of Southern California (B.A. and B.S.)
Occupation	Chairman & CEO of LucasfilmFilm director, film producer, screenwriter
Years active	1965–present
Influences	*Frank Herbert Joseph Campbell
Net worth	US$3.2 billion (2011)
Home town	Central Valley, California, U.S.
Spouse	Marcia Lucas (1969–1983)
Partner	Mellody Hobson (2007–present) }}

George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise ''Star Wars'' and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion as of 2011.

Early life and education

George Lucas was born in Modesto, California, the son of Dorothy Ellinore (née Bomberger) and George Walton Lucas, Sr. (1913–1991), who owned a stationery store.

Lucas grew up in the Central Valley town of Modesto and his early passion for cars and motor racing would eventually serve as inspiration for his USC student film ''1:42.08'', as well as his Oscar-nominated low-budget phenomenon, ''American Graffiti''. Long before Lucas became obsessed with film making, he wanted to be a race-car driver, and he spent most of his high school years racing on the underground circuit at fairgrounds and hanging out at garages. However, a near-fatal accident in his souped-up Autobianchi Bianchina on June 12, 1962, just days before his high school graduation, quickly changed his mind. Instead of racing, he attended Modesto Junior College and later got accepted into a junior college to study anthropology. While taking liberal arts courses, he developed a passion for cinematography and camera tricks. George Lucas graduated from USC in California.

As a child, Lucas never learned to swim, which became a source of embarrassment and frustration as he became older. Lucas has expressed in several interviews that his inability to swim was "the passion that drove me to succeed in filmmaking... [It] gave me the chip on my shoulder that I think was critical to my later success"

During this time, an experimental filmmaker named Bruce Baillie tacked up a bedsheet in his backyard in 1960 to screen the work of underground, avant-garde 16 mm filmmakers like Jordan Belson, Stan Brakhage and Bruce Conner. For the next few years, Baillie's series, dubbed Canyon Cinema, toured local coffeehouses. These events became a magnet for the teenage Lucas and his boyhood friend John Plummer. The 19-year-olds began slipping away to San Francisco to hang out in jazz clubs and find news of Canyon Cinema screenings in flyers at the City Lights bookstore. Already a promising photographer, Lucas became infatuated with these abstract films.

"That's when he [George] really started exploring" Plummer recalled. "We went to a theater on Union Street that shows art films, we drove up to San Francisco State for a film festival, and there was an old beatnik coffeehouse in Cow Hollow with shorts that were really out there." It was a season of awakening for Lucas, who had been an uninterested slacker in high school. At an autocross track, Lucas met his first mentor in the film industry — famed cinematographer Haskell Wexler, a fellow aficionado of sleek racing machines. Wexler was impressed by the way the shy teenager handled a camera, cradling it low on his hips to get better angles. "George had a very good eye, and he thought visually," Wexler recalls.

Lucas then transferred to the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. USC was one of the earliest universities to have a school devoted to motion picture film. During the years at USC, George Lucas shared a dorm room with Randal Kleiser. Along with classmates such as Walter Murch, Hal Barwood and John Milius, they became a clique of film students known as The Dirty Dozen. He also became very good friends with fellow acclaimed student filmmaker and future ''Indiana Jones'' collaborator, Steven Spielberg. Lucas was deeply influenced by the Filmic Expression course taught at the school by filmmaker Lester Novros which concentrated on the non-narrative elements of Film Form like color, light, movement, space, and time. Another huge inspiration was the Serbian montagist (and dean of the USC Film Department) Slavko Vorkapich, a film theoretician comparable in historical importance to Sergei Eisenstein, who moved to Hollywood to make stunning montage sequences for studio features at MGM, RKO, and Paramount. Vorkapich taught the autonomous nature of the cinematic art form, emphasizing the unique dynamic quality of movement and kinetic energy inherent in motion pictures.

Lucas saw many inspiring films in class, particularly the visual films coming out of the National Film Board of Canada like Arthur Lipsett's 21-87, the French-Canadian cameraman Jean-Claude Labrecque's cinéma vérité ''60 Cycles'', the work of Norman McLaren, and the documentaries of Claude Jutra. Lucas fell madly in love with pure cinema and quickly became prolific at making 16 mm nonstory noncharacter visual tone poems and cinéma vérité with such titles as ''Look at Life'', ''Herbie'', ''1:42.08'', ''The Emperor'', ''Anyone Lived in a Pretty (how) Town'', ''Filmmaker'', and ''6-18-67''. He was passionate and interested in camerawork and editing, defining himself as a filmmaker as opposed to being a director, and he loved making abstract visual films that create emotions purely through cinema.

''Star Wars'' quickly became the highest-grossing film of all-time, displaced five years later by Spielberg’s ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial''. During the filming of ''Star Wars'', Lucas waived his up-front fee as director and negotiated to own the licensing rights (for novelizations, T-shirts, toys, etc.) —rights which the studio thought were nearly worthless . This decision earned him hundreds of millions of dollars , as he was able to directly profit from all the licensed games, toys, and collectibles created for the franchise. This accumulated capital enabled him to finance the sequel himself.

Over the two decades after the first ''Star Wars'' film, Lucas worked extensively as a writer and/or producer, including the many Star Wars spinoffs made for film, TV, and other media. He acted as executive producer for the next two ''Star Wars'' films, assigning the direction of ''The Empire Strikes Back'' to Irvin Kershner and ''Return of the Jedi'' to Richard Marquand, while receiving a story credit on the former and sharing a screenwriting credit with Lawrence Kasdan on the latter. Lucas also acted as executive producer and story writer on all four of the ''Indiana Jones'' films, which he convinced his colleague and good friend, Steven Spielberg, to direct. Other notable projects as a producer or executive producer in this period include Kurosawa's ''Kagemusha'' (1980), Lawrence Kasdan's ''Body Heat'' (1981), Jim Henson's ''Labyrinth'' (1986), Godfrey Reggio's ''Powaqqatsi'' (1986) and the animated film ''The Land Before Time'' (1988). There were also some less successful projects, however, including ''More American Graffiti'' (1979), the ill-fated ''Howard the Duck'' (1986), which was arguably the biggest flop of his career; ''Willow'' (1988, which Lucas also wrote); and Coppola's ''Tucker: The Man and His Dream'' (1988). Between 1992 and 1996, Lucas served as executive producer for the television spinoff ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles''. In 1997, for the 20th anniversary of ''Star Wars,'' Lucas went back to his trilogy to enhance and add certain scenes using newly available digital technology. These new versions were released in theaters as the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition. For DVD releases in 2004, this series has received further revisions to make them congruent with the prequel trilogy. Besides the additions to the Star Wars franchise, Lucas released Special Edition director's cuts of THX 1138 and American Graffiti containing a number of CGI revisions.

The animation studio Pixar was founded as the Graphics Group , one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm. Pixar's early computer graphics research resulted in groundbreaking effects in films such as ''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'' and ''Young Sherlock Holmes'', and the group was purchased in 1986 by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple after a power struggle at Apple Computer. Jobs paid U.S. $5 million to Lucas and put U.S. $5 million as capital into the company. The sale reflected Lucas' desire to stop the cash flow losses from his 7-year research projects associated with new entertainment technology tools, as well as his company's new focus on creating entertainment products rather than tools. A contributing factor was cash-flow difficulties following Lucas' 1983 divorce concurrent with the sudden dropoff in revenues from ''Star Wars'' licenses following the release of ''Return of the Jedi''.

The sound-equipped system, THX Ltd, was founded by Lucas and Tomlinson Holman . The company was formerly owned by Lucasfilm, and contains equipment for stereo, digital, and theatrical sound for films, and music. Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic, the sound and visual effects subdivisions of Lucasfilm, respectively, have become among the most respected firms in their fields . Lucasfilm Games, later renamed LucasArts, is well respected in the gaming industry .

In 1994, Lucas began work on the screenplay for the prequel ''The Phantom Menace'', which would be the first film he had directed in over two decades. ''The Phantom Menace'' was released in 1999, beginning a new trilogy of Star Wars films. Lucas also directed ''Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones'' and ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'' which were released in 2002 and 2005, respectively. Numerous critics considered these films inferior to the previously released ''Star Wars'', ''The Empire Strikes Back'', and ''Return of the Jedi''.

In 2008, he reteamed with Spielberg for ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull''.

Lucas currently serves as executive producer for ''Star Wars: The Clone Wars'', an animated television series on Cartoon Network, which was preceded by a feature film of the same name. He is also working on a so-far untitled Star Wars live-action series.

For the film ''Red Tails'' (2010), Lucas serves as story-writer and executive producer. He also took over direction of reshoots while director Anthony Hemingway worked on other projects. Lucas is working on his first musical, an untitled CGI project being produced at Skywalker Ranch. Kevin Munroe is directing and David Berenbaum wrote the screenplay.

Awards

In 1991, The George Lucas Educational Foundation was founded as a nonprofit operating foundation to celebrate and encourage innovation in schools. The Foundation's content is available under the brand Edutopia, in an award-winning web site and via documentary films. Lucas, through his foundation, was one of the leading proponents of the E-rate program in the universal service fund, which was enacted as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. On June 24, 2008, Lucas testified before the United States House of Representatives subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet as the head of his Foundation to advocate for a free wireless broadband educational network.

The American Film Institute awarded Lucas its Life Achievement Award on June 9, 2005. This was shortly after the release of ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'', about which he joked stating that, since he views the entire ''Star Wars'' series as one film, he could actually receive the award now that he had finally "gone back and finished the movie."

On June 5, 2005, Lucas was named among the 100 "Greatest Americans" by the Discovery Channel.

Lucas was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Directing and Writing for ''American Graffiti'', and Best Directing and Writing for ''Star Wars''. He received the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1991. He appeared at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony in 2007 with Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola to present the Best Director award to their friend Martin Scorsese. During the speech, Spielberg and Coppola talked about the joy of winning an Oscar, making fun of Lucas, who has not won a competitive Oscar.

In 2005, Lucas gave US$1 million to help build the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to commemorate American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. On September 19, 2006, USC announced that George Lucas had donated $175–180 million to his alma mater to expand the film school. It is the largest single donation to USC and the largest gift to a film school anywhere. Previous donations led to the already existing George Lucas Instructional Building and Marcia Lucas Post-Production building.

On January 1, 2007 George Lucas served as the Grand Marshal for the 2007 Tournament of Roses Parade, and made the coin toss at the 2007 Rose Bowl.

On August 25, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announced that Lucas would be one of 13 California Hall of Fame inductees in The California Museum's yearlong exhibit. The induction ceremony was on December 1, 2009 in Sacramento, California.

On September 6, 2009, Lucas was in Venice to present to the Pixar team the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the 2009 Biennale Venice Film Festival.

Personal life

In 1969, Lucas married film editor Marcia Lou Griffin, who went on to win an Academy Award for her editing work on the original ''Star Wars'' film. George and Marcia adopted a daughter, Amanda, in 1981, and divorced in 1983. Lucas has since adopted two more children: Katie, born in 1988, and Jett, born in 1993. All three of his children have appeared in the three ''Star Wars'' prequels, as has Lucas himself. Lucas had been in a long relationship with and engaged to singer Linda Ronstadt. He has been dating Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments, since 2006 and she has accompanied him to several events including the 79th Academy Awards ceremony in February 2007, an American Film Institute event in October 2007, the 2008 Cannes Film Festival held in May, and the 2010 Golden Globes.

Lucas was born and raised in a strong Methodist family. The religious and mythical themes in ''Star Wars'' were inspired by Lucas' interest in the writings of mythologist Joseph Campbell, and he would eventually come to identify strongly with the Eastern religious philosophies he studied and incorporated into his films, which were a major inspiration for "the Force." Lucas eventually came to state that his religion was "Buddhist Methodist". Lucas resides in Marin County.

Lucas has said that he is a fan of Seth MacFarlane's hit TV show ''Family Guy''. MacFarlane has said that Lucasfilm was extremely helpful when the ''Family Guy'' crew wanted to parody their works.

Lucas has pledged to give half of his fortune to charity as part of an effort called The Giving Pledge led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to persuade America's richest individuals to donate their financial wealth to charities.

Filmography

References

Sources

Rinzler, J.W. "The Making of Star Wars, The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film", Ebury Press, 2007.

Silberman, Steve "Life After Darth" Wired, November, 2005

"George Lucas: Interviews" University Press of Mississippi (February 16, 2007)

The Cinema of George Lucas (Hardcover) by Marcus Hearn, Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (March 1, 2005)

Michael Rubin, "Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution" (2005) [ISBN 0937404675]

External links

George Lucas biography at Lucasfilm.com

George Lucas biography at World Business Forum where Lucas is a featured speaker for the 2009 event

Category:1944 births Category:American billionaires Category:American Buddhists Category:American chief executives Category:American Cinema Editors Category:American cinematographers Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American film editors Category:American film producers Category:American science fiction writers Category:American screenwriters Category:American Methodists Category:American voice actors Category:Businesspeople from California Category:Film directors from California Category:Film producers from California Category:Film theorists Category:Disney people * Category:Indiana Jones Category:Living people Category:Mythopoeic writers Category:People from Marin County, California Category:People from Modesto, California Category:Science fiction fans Category:Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees Category:Special effects people Category:Star Wars Category:University of Southern California alumni

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