The social network services (SNS) on the Internet are becoming more common, and are starting to have a higher range of users, which is affecting Internet marketing. We (the authors) have a feelingthat a growing online marketing within social networks could interrupt the order of social standards. That is why we in this paper have tried to figure out what position marketing has ? and might have ? within SNS, and what impact it will have on social relations.During qualitative interviews along with both representatives of public relation offices as well as with SNS users, we became aware of the occurring strategies of online marketing, and the usersunderstanding of it. In the information from the interviews, we found some interesting contradictions on which this paper underlies.

Within the last year many companies have proactively started to communicate their flaws and weaknesses, believing that this will lead to they being perceived as more personal and human. Dominos Pizza is one of many examples of a company using this practice as a strategic tool for communication. However, the problem concerning the above arises as we found that there was a very limited amount of research defining the effects of communicating flaws, where the company's both dispatcher and initiator. Our study aims to fill the gap between this growing trend and the limited research explaining the communication effects. The study was carried out as an experiment where a total of 420 respondents participated.

Marketing research has acknowledged the concept of authenticity. It is argued that consumers in modern society increasingly search for something real, in contrast to what they perceive as mediated and distorted. Producers of regional food brands has acknowledged this trend, and started to market their products as being authentic. Given the potential practical and theoretical contributions in studying the concept of authenticity in this context, this study aims to explore how consumers perceive these claims of authenticity. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to extend knowledge on how consumers come to perceive a regional food brand as authentic.