In these days of globalization, with a higher level of openness and interaction over geographical, cultural and economical borders, the importance of the company?s intangible asset, its brand, is gaining importance as a differentiating factor. Building a strong brand and the emphasis on strategic brand management is something that before was given less attention in firms but today we can see a general increase in awareness and relative emphasis in the strategic work of companies.Countries as brands: Is it possible to consider a nation or a country as a brand the same way you consider a product? Well, looking in to the subject it seems to be a rather complex matter and there are many questions to be asked and answer. Nations around the globe are indeed marketing and positioning themselves for several purposes.

Abstract Title: Veckorevyn.com. A study from power relations in the world of blogs Author: Klara Sigfridsson Department for Media and Cultural Studies, Malmö Högskola Tutor: Kristoffer Gansing This is a report that aims to research upon Fairclough´s Critical discourse analysis to emphasise the power relationship between professional bloggers and former amateur bloggers at the fashion-entertainment web page Veckorevyn.com. Professional bloggers as they appear in the research object and their power within the Media seem to be a subject that is very relevant these days. This paper will look at different factors that make professional bloggers popular and as an example on their responsibility as a role model. However, amateur bloggers do have an importance in this discussion as they are more and more competing with the professionals.

This thesis aims to explore the use of costumed interpreters at museums. Firstly the thesis examines how extensivethe use of historical costumes is in Sweden, along with some international comparisons. Later on the differentways that the clothes are used is examined, and the costume as a resource for learning is discussed. In the lastpart of the thesis the ?function? of the costume is examined.

Title: Shop at us ? and we?ll carbon offset! ? How large and well-known companies affect consumers feelings towards their brand by using green marketing and CSR.Authors: Emilie Jäfvert & Carolin RuthbergAdvisor: Christine TidåsenLevel: Bachelor thesis in Marketing, (15 Swedish credits), Spring 2011Keywords: Green marketing, CSR and branding.Question: How do large and well known companies affect their customer?s view towards their brand by using green marketing and CSR?Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how high consumer?s value companies who works with green marketing and CSR, and also to find out how it affects the company brand.Method: We have chosen to do a qualitative research with a deductive approach. We have done five open interviews with companies and ten open interviews with consumers to conduct our research.Theoretical framework: Our theoretical framework includes four different areas; CSR- Corporate Social Responsibility, green marketing, brands and consumers. These sub-chapters include theories that will help the reader get a better understanding of the areas.Empirical studies: We have gathered empirical data by multiple open interviews. Two of the five interviews with the companies were face-to-face, two via email and one over the phone.

Thesis Purpose: The purpose of our thesis is to explore different plausible scenarios concerning the future of the Swedish produce industry with regards to branding. Methodology: In order for us to answer the research question and fulfill its purpose, we have utilized a qualitative approach combined with of both an inductive and deductive theoretical approach. Our study is both explorative and speculative. Theoretical Perspective: The theoretical framework of our research is based upon Porters Five Forces and Competitive Advantage combined with Kapferers Brand Identity Prism and his ideas on Brand Innovation. Additionally, we have utilized the Game Theory.

This study examines whether it would be profitable for travel distributors in the charter to expand its offerings to other travel related products, and also the products that are in demand. We are also studying the role that brand has for customers' choice of travel.According to Hellman, e-commerce is to be preferred since it is competitive because it gives the travel distributors the opportunity to lower down prices. Therefore, we also investigated the proportion of respondents who would consider buying these travel-related goods through the travel distributors? websiteIn support of this study, is a survey with a population of 100 charter travellers. Respondents are divided into two groups where the first group consists of people who have booked their trip in stores, and the other via the Internet.

The value of a good reputation for organizations is increasing today as consumers and citizens become more aware of brands. If a crisis hits an organization, there is now more to lose than before concerning reputation. Therefore the organization?s communication strategies must be developed to sustain the organization?s reputation during and after a crisis.In the field of crisis communication there are two distinguished theories which concern what an organization with help from crisis communication should do to undergo a crisis without losing its reputation. These theories are image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory (SCCT).

Holmen Skog is currently using a GPS-program called TraktInfo, originally developed within the company. They are now planning to switch to a new GPSprogram or allowing the contractors to buy other programs available from the logging equipment manufacturers. To be able to offer this flexibility, Holmen Skog needs to obtain information about the features offered by the different manufacturers in their specific programs, and also when the manufacturers are planning to start selling programs adapted to the new standard called StanFord2010. According to the study, the manufacturers are hesitant to StanFord2010 and there has also been a lack of clear signals from the customers and clients about what kind of different new features to include in the programs. The feature most frequently used by forest machine operators today is the option to keep record of the harvester?s path by creating a ?log plot?. This feature was not used to its full potential however, since only one out of eight of the forwarders included in the study had computers that were compatible with the harvester?s computer.

This paper examines a popular music song (Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez) as a sign system in television advertising. The study was conducted through qualitative questionnaires in connection to an audio-visual method of analysis called Masking. The method facilitates the analysis of isolated parts in the audio-visual spectrum by masking/hiding parts of the audio-visual totality.The survey had seven respondents where a hermeneutic epistemological approach was used. For the analysis Cooper's theory of brand identity (Practical and Symbolic Attitudes to Buying Brands) was used together with an interaction model for music in audio-visual advertising called "Modes of music-image interaction?.

This essay aims to describe and problematize gender roles and master suppression techniques in Stephenie Meyer?s Twilight Saga. This is done in order to enable me, in my future profession as a teacher, to start an emancipatory discussion in class where pupils can become conscious of different ways of reading the love story. I will use the following two research questions to fulfil the purpose: 1) investigate which gender roles that appears in the book?s main characters Bella and Edward and 2) which master suppression techniques that colours their relationship.To answer the questions gender theory and ideology-critics are used.

One of the main goals in this study is to investigate how young children's identity formation and social relationships are depicted by today's consumer society.  In order to reach the goals of the study I also concentrated myself on questions regarding the reflection of symbolic aspects consumption in younger children's interaction and preschool-teachers' ideas about how and in what ways children's consumption patterns are created and developed nowadays. In order to answer the presented research questions I used the theoretical arguments of researchers in the field of pedagogy Gert Biesta in connection with the ideas and concepts of the consumer society characteristics developed by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.The thesis' methodological approach consists of a combination of semi-structured interviews with teachers and observations of children's interaction, which contributed to a systematic investigation of the thesis' problem area and served as a tool for obtaining answers to the research questions.The results demonstrate that consumption occupies a lot of space in young children's lives, which means that it greatly affects their social relationships today. Both consumption and knowledge of the known brands prove to be the child's path to the desired community on the one hand, and the children's way to the consumer world on the other (hand), which in turn points to an obvious dependence between children's consumption and their social relationships.The results also show that there is a tension between the perception of identity formation as preschool-policy-document on the one hand and the attitude of the identity prescribed by consumer society norms and regulations on the other..

This thesis project has been written and accomplished in cooperation with HABO AB. The objective of the project was to develop a standard stated packaging system. The background to this is that HABO is not pleased with the system currently in use. The system which HABO is currently using consists of to many sizes. The largest benefit of a standard stated system is that it becomes much easier to organize the packaging with the aid of a computer program.

The personal brand derives from the marketing brand, and argues that a person can take control over other people?s perceptions about him or her. The personal brand can benefit the person but it can also give advantages to his or her company. The interest in, and the purpose of the personal brand, has increased the last ten years. Leaders of large companies in Sweden consider it to be of utmost importance to have an influence on their co-workers.

The purpose of this study is to describe the traceability of products that protect against counterfeiting and examine how protection against counterfeit products have been developed to date, and to display the opportunity to streamline the protection of products and brands.Nowadays, in the global world, it is getting increasingly more difficult to track the products. Especially for the last link in the chain, which in most cases is the customer and who is constantly exposed to risks. This report deals with the possibilities of preventing and detecting counterfeit products. Fake products are not unusual in an historical perspective. It has been common with counterfeits ever since the Middle Ages continuously until today. Forgers have become more skillful and they are successful in most industries. Many of the fake products are of poor quality and can be downright dangerous to the customer.To answer the question, the author used a qualitative collection method.

AbstractA useful tool for companies to use in their differentiation process is proposed to be employee branding. Employee branding is developed and put forth by the management with the main task to formulate the brands vision and values, and communicate them to the employees. To promote the employee engagement and their relationship with the company, corporate storytelling can be applied, with is an internal communication that strengthens the internal rumour and values that represent the brand. Since engagement and motivation is important factors when creating a strong employee brand, there is a need for further research on how corporate storytelling is used by companies to influence employee engagement and motivation, as corporate storytelling leads to deeper commitment among employees.PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how companies use corporate storytelling to influence their employee branding.MethodologyThe authors conducted a qualitative case study on how the retail organization Boomerang. The empirical material was collected thru semi-structured interviews with Boomerangs management and employees.ConclusionThe conclusion shows that the employees prefers when corporate storytelling and various communication is put in context, this because it?s easier for the employees to understand.