2.3. Synopsis on the article “Avoid “Me too” Marketing”

This article stresses emphasis on the problem that is very urgent nowadays – companies have lost their peculiar features and have become the exact copies of their rivals. The main key aspects (specialization, company’s values, experience and so on) which help to create a unique image of the company are in the focus of the reader’s attention. The author gives a thorough description of each characteristic, providing the readers with vivid examples.

2.4. Аннотация к статье “Avoid “Me too” Marketing”

Данная статья указывает на довольно актуальную проблему для современного общества – компании перестают чем-либо отличаться друг от друга, становясь точными копиями своего конкурента. В статье приводится список наиболее ключевых аспектов (таких как специализация, моральные ценности, опыт и т.д.), на основе которых компания может создать свой неповторимый, запоминающийся имидж. Автор подробно расписывает каждый пункт, приводя яркие примеры на каждый из них.

The Medical Properties of Marriage

by Jennifer Ward

The Times

Miriam Kamin is feeling a lot better now, thank you very much. It was rough there for a while- infertility, a crippling case of endometriosis, the collapse of her nine-year marriage, and four years of single parenting while building a career as a corporate blogger. Then last May, she married Mark, a longtime friend. And that, she says, has made all the difference.

“I’ve struggled with depression for most of my life’’, she explains. ”Yet, despite the fact that I’ve moved, relocated my kids and am working harder than I have in a very long time, I`m not on medication right now. I had no idea marriage was supposed to be this much fun.”

Never mind the popular palaver about marriage as a source of bliss for the couple, security for the kids and societal stability. Pair up any two people with often clashing needs, add the pressure-cooker variables of kids, doctor bills, career, housework, and the fact that someone- he knows who he is- can` t pull himself away from the TV during college-basketball season, and there are bound to be problems. Marriage is criticized as a source of stress (and it is), conflict (that too) and endless crises that need to be resolved (guilty there as well).

But it` s also something more. Decades of data collection have shown that marriage – for all its challenges-is like a health-insurance policy. A 2006 paper that tracked mortality over an eight-year period found that people who never married were 58% likelier to die during that time than married folks were. And no wonder. Marriage means no more drinking at bars until closing, no more noodles and calling it a meal. According to a 2004 report from the U.S. Centers for disease Control and Prevention (CDC), married people are less likely to smoke or drink heavily than people who are single, divorced or widowed. These sorts of lifestyle changes are known to lower rates of cardiovascular diseases. And while you might sometimes gripe that your spouse drives you nuts, just the opposite is true. Married people have lower rates of mental illnesses and suicide. Researchers have found that all the health benefits of marriage are consistent across age, race, education and income groups. Equally exhaustive studies of gay couples haven` t been conducted, but the benefits probably flow to them, too. Some of the reasons for this are obvious. Smoking and drinking naturally decline if you have got a spouse at your side flashing you a don` t-you-dare look when you reach for a cigarette or a third glass of wine. Depression and other emotional ills are less likely to go undiagnosed if there is someone at home who` s mindful of your moods and notices if they darken. But there are other, less self-evident things at work too-things that doctors are only now beginning to appreciate fully.

For all the safeguards spouses erect around each other, much of what makes marriage so healthy takes place within our bodies. A lot of those benefits come down to the management of stress. Stress incites a biological cascade involving hormones, glands, neural circuits, all activating one another in a complex feed-back loop. When you are stuck in traffic or overwhelmed at work or worn down by the kids, the hypothalamus- a structure buried deep in the midbrain-tells your adrenal gland to pump out the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol, in turn, tells your body to stop worrying about its basic metabolic needs and instead to” do the things you need to do save yourself from whatever created the stress”, says University of Virginia neuroscientist James Coan.

For all its benefits, marriage is not a gift certificate for good health. For one thing, it` s fattening. According to a CDC study, married people are most likely to be overweight or obese. Married men are nearly 20 % more likely to be overweight or obese than are men who have never married- perhaps because they simply have someone to sit down to dinner with each night or perhaps because the often empty refrigerator of a onetime bachelor fills up fast when someone is making sure to do the shopping.

But the more important thing is that when the protective bonds of marriage break, watch out. Those tales of spouses who die within days of each other have more than a little truth to them. A 2007 British study found that a bereaved spouse has a greater risk of death from just about any cause (except, oddly, lung cancer) than a still married person.