The global spread of the Internet has enabled busniesses and consumers in all industries to be better informed. Consequently, the buying process has appeared to become different from what tratditional models implies. As the buying behaviour among customers is evolving, selling companies are responding to this change. This thesis evolves around the consequences that the developing relationship between buyer and seller in business-to-business companies has led to. The topic in focus is the buzzword and phenomena "content marketing" with its marketing and selling strategy.

The purpose of this study is to analyze and specify the characteristics of servicescapes in the hotel industry and its role when building a brand. Further, the aim is to put forward how Management in this sector strategically utilizes the location to manage the staff in order to help build a strong lasting brand. To fulfill our purpose we have targeted one overall question - What purpose does servicescape have when building a solid brand name in the hotel sector?In today?s society brands play an integral part in influencing our buying behavior and are now considered to be a new business tool to communicate a business trough. Also services have become a widespread phenomenon, which is seen as a competitive tool not only for companies in the service sector.

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine query expansion. Query expansion is the process of adding new terms to a query to improve the retrieval effectiveness. In this study the baseline query was expanded in five different modes. The first expansion strategy was formulated by the inflected terms as the system does not allow truncation, I have inflected the terms, e. g.

The usage of visions and strategies is something that helps an organisation to create an imaginary scenario and guide them of how to realize these goals. During the years of 2006-2008 Region Gotland presented a document that was supposed to show the region's visions. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on the stakeholder theory, Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and Management Control Systems Package (MCS). Personal interviews were conducted within the organisation Region Gotland, with individuals whom are directly linked to the visions and strategies of the organisation. The purpose of this study is to clarify the concepts of vision and strategy, and what their impact is on the organisation's work on the operation level.

Background: Today many companies are competing to get space in our minds. Companies spend a tremendous amount of money on building strong brands. It is not just about making us aware of their logo, today it?s more about giving the brand a ?soul? and to load it with different values. Due to today?s globalization there is also interesting to look at it from a cultural perspective.

Konsumenten är idag inte en rationell individ i lika stor utsträckning som tidigare. I dagens postmoderna kunskapssamhälle söker kunden en emotionell upplevelse kring en produkt och vill uppleva en spänning i sitt konsumerande.Idag fokuserar företag främst kring synliga intryck i sin kommunikation mot kunden, men att rikta sig till människans samtliga sinnesintryck - syn, ljud, känsel, smak och lukt - är idag av större betydelse. Genom att kunden på så sätt påverkas på ett djupare plan finns det möjligheter för företag att stärka dess varumärke i kundens medvetande.Strategisk marknadsföring kring kundens fem sinnesintryck benämns med Brand Sense. Detta begrepp är relativt nytt inom marknadsföringen - säväl teoretiskt som praktiskt. Syftet med vår uppsats är att undersöka om företag på den svenska marknaden beaktar tillämpandet av Brand Sense..

Despite narrative advertising being an increasingly popular strategy among brands today, little research has examined the different expressions of repetition variation strategy in comparison to its alternative, argumentative advertising. Still unexplained is whether the appreciation and recognition created from successful storytelling-based commercial campaigns is a result of execution or the format itself. This study aims to investigate four repetition variation strategies, three narratives and one argumentative, to determine which one is the most effective and also which one that generates the highest advertising equity. An experiment was conducted through exposing four groups of Swedish High School students to text-based advertising manuscripts customized after format, where each group was exposed to ads on two separate occasions. The result showed evidence of narrative advertising being easier to comprehend, which according to theory should lead to higher advertising effectiveness.

I Sverige råder det hög konkurrens och låg kundrörlighet på bankmarknaden samtidigt som många banker har dålig kunskap om vad de ska erbjuda för att locka till sig nya kunder. Ett specifikt segment som Swedbank är intresserade av att locka till sig är universitetsstudenter. I dagsläget erbjuder Sveriges stora banker enbart klassiskt finansiella mervärden till dessa studenter. Detta innebär att bankerna inte särskiljer sig, vilket i sin tur gör att studenterna inte lockas till att byta bank eftersom samma mervärden redan erbjuds hos deras nuvarande banker. Därmed finns det en möjlighet att utforska nya mervärden som en student kan tänka sig att byta bank för.

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.

The notion of door policy has received little academic investigation. In the media this phenomenon has however received much attention and has been connected to allegations of discrimination. The authors of this thesis take another view in trying to identify the mechanisms behind door policy from an economic perspective.Based on case studies in nightclubs in Stockholm the authors conclude that there are two types of door policy: including and excluding. While including door policy aims to comply with regulations and commonly is part of a cost-leadership or focus strategy, excluding door policy is primarily a tool for attracting and selecting a certain audience in line with a product differentiation strategy. It thrives on the principles of exclusivity and reciprocity.Forming the identity of a club, audience is of great importance and excluding door policy is found to be an important tool in creating the correct composition of audience, which ultimately aims to increase profitability..

Essay in political science, C-level by Lisa Kringsberg, spring semester 2007. Tutor: Susan Marton. ?Democracy by force ? A case study of Iraq?The purpose of this essay is to examine how the new Iraq strategy, formed by the United States, is going to effect Iraqs possibilities to become a democracy. To come to any conslusions about this I ask two questions: 1) Did the United States take in considiration what researchers think should improve the possibilities for a country to develop democracy? and 2) Did the United states take in consideration researchers presumptions in relation to Iraqs possibilities to become a democracy?My examination is a case study of the Iraq strategy from 2007.

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.

Background: Competence development has become more important since the pressure on effectiveness is increasing and organisations are expected to constantly improvement. The design of the competence development activities is governed by the strategy which in turn will affect the outcome of the same. A knowledge intense business in which changes recently have taken place is healthcare, a business in which competition also has increased as a result from globalization. Due to this, it is highly important to take care of and improve the competence of individuals. According to this, we have found that healthcare is an interesting business to study with regard to competence development.

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.