Competition and Markets

United Parcel Service, Inc. is the brand name that this paper seeks to analyze using its monopolistic characteristics and the advertising trends in the company. With its headquarters in Sandy Springs, Georgia, the company is so far the world’s largest package delivery company.

United Parcel Service, Inc major competitors in the US market are the United States Postal Services and FedEx which are also joined with other international operators among of them being: Royal Mail, Japan Post, LDH Express, and FCML Couriers among many other international delivery companies.

It is therefore practical to state that United Parcel Service, Inc does not enjoy a purely monopolistic market although various characteristics in its operations have enabled it to enjoy a larger share of the delivery market. In a single day for instance, it delivers over 15 million packages to 6. 1 million customers in m ore than 200 countries (Heijdra and Brakman 2004). UPS gained its popular brand name originally form its brown trucks which are responsible for ‘The Big Brown Machine’ name that is locally used to refer to it.

Advertising especially in firms characterized by monopolistic features aims at benefiting the producer to increase the sales levels (Semenik and O’Guinn 2008). On the other hand though, it is argued that advertisement serves a role in ensuring that consumers are more enlightened on market supply hence reduce the risks of making uninformed purchase decisions. Some economists though argue against advertisement stating that it leads to misallocation of resources in the economy as consumers are propelled into buying what they had not intended to initially.

It is also argued that it promotes unfair market dominance as firms aim at enhancing their brand name at the expense of other players in the industry. Basing on the reasoning, put above advertising is the only way for firms in monopolistic market to ensure they maintain their edge in the market (Kapferer 2008). References Kapferer, J, 2008, The new strategic brand management, K. P. P. , Washington D. C. Heijdra, B & Brakman, S, 2004, The monopolistic competition revolution in retrospect, C. U. P. , California. Semenik, R & O’Guinn, T, 2008, Advertising and Integrated Brand Promotion, Cengage Learning, Boston.