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).

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 purpose of our study is to examine the bloggers? influence on the brand?s image to see whether and if so in what way the blogging trend affects the brands. We also want to analyze how companies use bloggers in their marketing. This is a subject that has attracted our interest and that experience has not been touched in a higher extent. Our purpose has led us to the following research questions;Which relationships occur in collaborations between businesses and bloggers from a marketing perspective? In what way in terms of reciprocity can relations be described? To what extent can the credibility through blogs be affected in terms of how brands are presented in the blog? In this study we have used a qualitative method with an abductive nature to create a deeper understanding of our chosen subject.

Background: Previous studies have shown that intuition occurs in decision making in small enterprises. However, these studies have not illuminated which decision attributes leads to intuitive decision making.Purpose:The purpose with this study is to contribute with an increased understanding of which decision attributes leads managers in small enterprises to use intuition in decision making and why these decisions attributes have an impact on the role of intuition. The follow-ing research question will be answered in our study: Which decision attributes leads to intui-tive decision making in small enterprises, and why?Method: To answer the research question we have conducted semi structural interviews with managers in small enterprises to achieve a deeper understanding of the role of intuition. We have also used a method called Visual Card Sorting as a complement to the semi structural interviews.Result/conclusion: The result of our study indicates that the relevance and the uncertainty of a decision have the greatest significance in the use of intuition in decision making in small enterprises.

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.

The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of five students searching for information in the context of writing a bachelor thesis. The main questions regard what strategies they use whilst searching for information, their relevance judgements and their feelings. The method used is the qualitative interview. The students were doing their third term in psychology. All the students were interviewed twice while working on the thesis.

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.

Problem: Is the free cash flow a value relevant accounting measure in relation to the Swedish stock market?Objective: The aim is that by using an investment strategy to examine whether the free cash flow is an accounting measure that could be perceived as value relevant in relation to the Swedish stock market.Method: The paper is based on a quantitative survey of empirical evidence that has been collected from companies listed on the Large and Mid-Cap lists of the Swedish stock market.Theoretical Frame of reference: value relevance, cash flow, portfolio theory, drive theoryResults: It was concluded that the study results conform to the Finnish survey results. The portfolio shows higher returns than the OMX index..

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.

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.

Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze how insurance companies work to create value and confidence in their brands and then compare whether consumers perceive brands as companies seek.Method: The study is a gap analysis of both qualitative and quantitative in nature containing both interviews with insurance companies and a survey carried out on consumers. The study has been developed by analytical induction.Data: Consists of interviews with representatives from the insurance companies and survey responses from 99 consumers.Conclusion: From the study it can be concluded that the insurance industry is unique in its kind as a difficulty and complexity is obviously applicable to convey an overall impression to the consumer, which in turn will produce a brand value to the company. Creating a high brand value through good marketing where it maintained a good congruence between firms striving and consumer perception, is according to the scientists complicated because the lack of perceived quality affects the the big picture..