Today, Sweden has about forty companies owned by the government. These are active on markets with variable competition. Some have been given special areas of responsibility that in a practical notion make them monopolists. The period when most public companies where formed (and with that the following subjection to competition) during the nineties and early 2000's, forced the formerly protected businesses to act on the terms of the open market. Parallel to this development the brand has for the last twenty years evolved into something great strategic importance for the business, including the business-to-businesses (B2B).

Avsikten med studien är att beskriva vilka problemområden som kan uppstå vid skillnader mellan varumärkesidentitet och image hos ett köpcentrum. För att undersöka detta har vi valt att studera hur Galleria Duvan i Karlstad arbetar med sin varumärkesidentitet. Därefter har vi undersökt hur konsumenterna uppfattar denna identitet och vilken image denna organisation har hos dem.För att genomföra våra studier har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ metod där de intervjuer vi har utfört har varit djupintervjuer. En intervju på en representant från Galleria Duvans marknadsgrupp har genomförts samt tio stycken intervjuer på konsumenter. Resultatet av studien har gett indikationer på att det finns skillnader mellan köpcentrumets identitet och den image som konsumenterna upplever. Dessa skillnader ligger främst i kommunikationen av budskapet via sin marknadskommunikation.

Advertisers of today are facing a great challenge in a landscape where it becomes even more difficult to break through the clutter and convince consumers to buy their products. In order to succeed, they need to come up with new ways of communicating with their customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if micro-blogging could be considered an effective media choice in order to enhance the perception of brand associations and traditional communication effects. The subject is of interest as brands are putting increasingly more resources into this communication channel. However, at the current date the marketing effects of micro-blogging is unexplored in academic research.

The consumer today is affected by a considerably larger number of world surrounding factors than she used to be, borders between different cultures and other consumer differences are being erased to a growing extent. The consumer can easily get its inspiration from many different directions which become clear in the common life. We eat sushi for lunch, we?re driving German cars and we?re having dinner with international business partners. The community also exposes the consumer for a more intense noise from offers, impact and marketing.

This thesis treats the topic of user-generated comments connected with news stories on news sites, meaning electronic word-of-mouth combined with PR. The writers have examined how different types of comments affect consumers' perception of the article and also what communication effects these comments generate in terms of attitudes, purchase intent and word-of-mouth intent. The results interesting to the news site owners, is that lots of comments and negative comments generate a negative effect by making the actual article less credible, attractive and worth reading (relative to the subsequent comments). On the positive side, serious comments imply that the news story is perceived as more interesting, than a news story followed by non-serious comments. From a brand equity perspective, the interesting results show that few comments compared to lots of comments, generate a better attitude to the brand, even though there is no difference in how positive or negative the comments are.

This thesis describes new methods for automatic crack detection in pavements. Cracks in pavements can be used as an early indication for the need of reparation.Automatic crack detection is preferable compared to manual inventory; the repeatability can be better, the inventory can be done at a higher speed and can be done without interruption of the traffic.The automatic and semi-automatic crack detection systems that exist today use Image Analysis methods. There are today powerful methods available in the area of Computer Vision. These methods work in higher dimensions with greater complexity and generate measures of local signal properties, while Image Analyses methods for crack detection use morphological operations on binary images.Methods for digitalizing video data on VHS-cassettes and stitching images from nearby frames have been developed.Four methods for crack detection have been evaluated, and two of them have been used to form a crack detection and classification program implemented in the calculation program Matlab.One image set was used during the implementation and another image set was used for validation. The crack detection system did perform correct detection on 99.2 percent when analysing the images which were used during implementation.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the application of sensory marketing in malls.Problem discussion: The competition between malls is increasing, where visitors are increasing demands on the shopping malls layout. Shopping malls surface and its atmosphere becomes essential in the design of a mall so it will be attractive enough. Sensory marketing can be an appropriate method to stand out from the crowd and attract visitors. Sensory marketing is a process of engaging visitor?s senses to create a strong relationship between the brand and visitors.

I denna uppsats har vi tydligt urskiljt olika inslag och delar som är viktiga att ta hänsyn till vad gäller att stärka klädbutikers varumärke och image. Genom dem så har vi utvecklat en egen modell som förklarar hur en klädbutik kan bygga upp och stärka sitt varumärke och sin image. Vi har delat upp modellen i två steg, det första steget tar upp de delar och inslag som är fundamentala och den andra delen är en påbyggnadsdel, om klädesbutiken vill förstärka sitt varumärke och sin image ytterligare. Det första steget innefattar hur inslag och aktiviteter från de två sinnena, ljud och syn påverkar klädbutiken. I denna del speglas dessutom vilken roll personalens attityder och bemötande har för kundens upplevelse av butiken.

The market of today consist of products/services who resemble each other, the differences are small. Their for it?s necessary for the companies to provide added values to the product so it will stand out from the rest of the products and lead to purchase. A well used strategy in the fashion industry is marketing with celebrities, this is considered successful because it brings attention and strengthening to the brand. Because of this, the strategy also branch out to other industries, but the question is if it?s as successful there? There?s also a serious down-side with the strategy and that is that there?s a great risk with using celebrities.

Title: Images of Sweden in ItalyNumber of pages: 5252 (589 including enclosures)Author: Oskar GustafssonTutor: Martin NilssonCourse: Political Science C level ? Bachelor?s ThesisPeriod: Spring term 2010University: School of Social SciencesLinnaeus UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose of my research study is to, through the use of political science theories on soft power and marketing theories about nation branding and in comparison to previous studies on the image of Sweden in Italy, gains a better understanding of the image of Sweden in Italy, with special focus on national political institutions and young Italians.Method: The method of analysis is a combination of qualitative methods: interviews where information about the image of Sweden amongst national political institutions were gathered and a survey where information was gathered about the image of Sweden amongst young Italians.Main results: On the basis of the results I have gained it can be concluded that a positive and well informed image of Sweden emerges when it comes to cultural and social factors but a more restricted and somewhat negative image come to light when asking national political institutions and young citizens in Italy about their views and knowledge on Swedish domestic and international politics and economics.Keywords: Soft power, Public Diplomacy, Nation Branding, Images of Sweden, Italy..

I denna uppsats belyses Polisen i Uppsala län ur ett varumärkesbyggande perspektiv med syfte att undersöka om teorier avsedda för företag i konkurrenssituation även kan appliceras på en offentlig myndighet. En kartläggning av Polisen Uppsalas arbete med personifiering av sitt varumärke i sociala media görs genom intervjuer, innehållsanalys och sekundärdata. Insamlad data avseende hur deras varumärkesbyggande stämmer överens med teorier om corporate brand, corporate brand personality och corporate brand personality traits avser besvara uppsatsens syfte. Resultatet visar att en stark koppling mellan Polisen Uppsalas varumärkesbyggande och uppsatsens teoretiska ramverk finns. I undersökningen framkommer att arbetet med personifiering är grundligt utformat genom Polisens värdegrund.

This essay has aimed at exploring how different companies work with CSR. We want to highlight their opinions about the topic, what it means for the companies that work with it and how important it is to apply CSR in a business. The reason why we chose this subject is because of the possibilities that come with working with CSR. We think there are a lot to be done when it comes to corporate social responsibility and we want to be a part of this new type of marketing. The win-win-situation that occurs with CSR is unique and it makes the subject interesting.

The advantages with product placement in blogs compared to traditional media is shown in earlier empirical findings where consumers found blog posts more credible and informative than a corresponding article in a web paper. It can therefore be argued that the informal structure and personal tonality of the blog reinforces the effects of product placement on brand attitude and intention to buy as the consumer has no persuasion knowledge and does not detect the rewriting of the product as commercial.This paper?s overall aim is to provide concrete implications for how to manage product placement on fashion blogs. The purpose of the essay is therefore to investigate the communicative effects of product placement in fashion blogs as well as to examine if a revelation of commercial interest behind a blog posts about a certain brand effects the consumers? attitude towards the blog and/or brand attitude and intention to buy.

AbstractTitle: External communication and brand strategies in Swedish municipalities? Author: Philip Hagne & Einar Svensson? Tutor: Jessica Gustafsson? Purpose: The aim of this thesis was to study and obtain greater understanding on how Swedish municipalities use external communication and branding strategies to gain and attract more residents. The key questions to be answered in this thesis were: What does the external communication look like in the selected municipalities? Are the selected municipalities trying to establish their own brand? What does the work on creating the brand look like??Method/Material: This thesis is based on material collected trough interviews with people working with external communication in eleven swedish municipalities. The selected municipalities where divided into two groups based on their negative or positive population growth between 2005 and 2012.

The retailing industry has an extremely high density of brands. In order to differentiate its offer, both retailers and suppliers, are constantly forced to come up with new ways to launch their products. A collaborative strategy between two brands is called co-branding, which means that both the private label and the supplier's brand are displayed on the new product packaging. Several studies have shown that a co-branding strategy is successful, but many operators are still reluctant to use co-branding in fear of long-term losses due to potentially damaged business relations. The objective of this study is to explain how the product- and brand related value for customers, retailers and suppliers is affected by co-branding between private labels and national brands.