This study will focus on the luxury market and how this market has been affected by the present recession. The economic downturn have had a major impact on today?s business and consumption, practically all industries have been affected. However there exist different opinions about how the luxury market have been influenced, certain experts mean that this segment is recession proof while others believe that this market will experience the worst side-effects. For that reason we find it interesting to analyze the luxury market and develop our own opinion about the impact of the recession.

 The luxury market has steadily grown from the industrial revolution and onwards. Changes in society, trends and the increased living standards has enabled more people to consume luxury goods.The world is going through a major economic crisis at the moment. Studies shows that companies that have focused on added value rather than lowering prices has survived past financial crisis. It is also obvious that companies act very different during times of crisis. Adding to the problem is trends that point to a more careful consumption and environmental awareness.

The implementation of this research increases the awareness of the value for luxury fashion brands in utilizing social media as a communication channel to reach young consumers globally. It provides a general understanding of young consumers? perception of luxury fashion brands on social media in regards to geographic cultural background, attitude towards new luxury, and preferred way of contacts..

The main drivers of Luxury consumption is to obtain prestige and status, therefore the possibility of visible consumption of products is a key dimension of the product. Typical examples of luxury goods include cars, handbags and watches. These are consumed in the public arena where the possibility to show off the product and the brand is the greatest. When examining luxury products and what drives men and women to pay premium prices for a brand and for a logo, a fascinating finding is that there are products that fundamentally lacks these attributes, but which are considered to be classic luxury products. An example of this is perfume.

Many? luxury? companies? within? the? fashion? industry? today? choose? to? extend? their? brands downwards? in? order? to? reach? new? customer? segments? and? hence? increase? their? profitability.? A? brand? extension? strategy? that? leverages? the? core? values? of? the? luxury? brand? is? a ?new ?possibility ?for ?luxury ?brands ?to ?position ?themselves ?towards ?a ?broader ?customer ?base.?? Meanwhile? there? is? a? risk? that? the? extension? dilutes? the? image? of? the? luxury? brand? and? has? a? negative? effect? on? the? company? in? the? long? term.? Thus? a? tradeoff? exists? between? becoming? more? accessible? and? maintaining? the? exclusivity? of? the? luxury? brand.? The? objective? of? this? thesis ?is ?to ?investigate ?how ?luxury ?brands ?that ?perform? downward ?brand ?extensions ?to? reach? new? markets? can? succeed? with? this? strategy? without? diluting? the? brand? image.? This? is? achieved? by? studying? the? perceptions? of? the? new? target? segment? towards? the? extension? of? luxury? brands.? The? results? of? the? study? show? that? the? risk? of? brand? dilution? is? minimized when? the? core? values? of? the? luxury? brand? are? transferred? to? the? brand? extension? while? the extension ?at ?the ?same ?time ?is ?successfully ?targeted ?towards ?the ?specific ?customer? segment..

Our purpose with this research has been to obtain a deeper insight and understanding for the phenomenon and term ?weekday-luxury.?Through our research, we have found a link between value, service, brands and consumer behaviour into a relationship that we termed ?weekday-luxury.? This link of values is particularly interesting to us and we are curious about the underlying motivation to ?weekday-luxury? and the driving forces underlying the phenomenon. We have noticed in society that people need something extra in their daily lives and we attempt to speculate where their perceived value lies through the concept of ?weekday-luxury." Our goal is to determine a deeper understanding and insight into this phenomenon and how it meets our needs through an identifiable pattern. We also analyze the nature of ?weekday-luxury? and its meaning.

Today, we live in a consumption society. We buy products to soothe our needs and desires. Thru material things we can express our own personal identity and shopping is seen more as a pleasure than a need to survive. With the background media- and communication studies, the reason of this study was to explore how blogs as a social medium can influence the consumption ideal in society. With dialogical analysis and semiotic analysis we wanted to see if we could find a specific consumption culture in the content of six blogs we did our studies on. We found that the blogs showed us that there is normal to have everyday luxury and spoil oneself with expensive things.

Intresset för lyxprodukter har ökat runt om i världen vilket också blivit allt mer framträdande i Sverige. Marknaden för lyxprodukter har de senaste åren förändrats och banat väg för en ny kategori av lyx tillgänglig för en globalt växande medelklass. Den nya kategorin benämns ofta som new luxury vilket innebär en åtkomlig kategori av statusgivande produkter som är lägre i pris än de traditionella lyxprodukterna. Allt fler lyxföretag väljer att expandera för att kunna nå en bredare kundbas och tillämpar därför produktlinjeutvidgning eller varumärkesutvidgning. En alltför omfattande expandering kan dock innebära risker eftersom den uppfattade exklusiviteten hos ett lyxföretag kan gå förlorad.

The purpose of this study was to examine two relatively similar product industries, of which one is successful in its commercialization and the other one is not successful. The two industries observed in this paper are both Swedish industries, and both of them produce slow moving consumer goods for the luxury consumer. The successful industry is represented by the Swedish fashion industry, more precisely The Swedish Fashion Wonder (TSFW) - a term describing the success of a specific coalition of fashion designers from Sweden. The unsuccessful industry is represented by the luxury watch industry in Sweden (LWIS). The method used to examine the two industries' inequalities is based on a qualitative study, consisting of in-depth interviews with industry expertise from both of the industries.

Service quality occurs in service encounters where both customers and employees come together in an interaction. It is therefore important that the staff give their best because the interaction usually takes place in real time, which is referred to as the moment of truth.The aim of this study was to find out how luxury hotels are working to ensure good service quality, and how the staff are motivated to deliver this service. We wanted to examine this from a management perspective, and an employee perspective. Information was gathered through various interviews, where the staff at the Hotel Kämp in Helsinki and at the Sheraton Hotel Stockholm participated.Survey results show that employee motivation, training and empowerment have a significant impact to provide service in high quality. The results also show that the surveyed hotel, to certain level work in the same way, but it reveals some differences even when both hotels are part of the same concern..

The consumption levels in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway have been rising fo r the last decade. Even after the financial crisis of 2008, consumption levels continued their upward trend, regardless of the recession. The explanation seems to be, at least partly, that households tends to increase their debt ratio in order to continue the same standard of living as before in terms of consumption. It is clear, based of our results, that there is a connection between increased consumption and debt ratio for households. And the consequences of allowing loans to finance a sustained or increasing consumption may ultimately be difficult to manage.

Making accurate predictions of private consumption expenditures is a difficult task. This thesis examines if consumer confidence can be used to forecast consumption. Using regression analysis, the link between consumer confidence and private consumption expenditures is analyzed for Sweden between the years 1994 and 2005. Two different models are estimated. In the first model consumption is regressed only on consumer confidence, while model two is extended to contain more variables.

The presence of nostalgic emotions during consumption is often seen as something purely positive to a product. To evoke these emotions has become a very common tool in marketing and advertising. Paradoxically very few studies have focused on the effects of nostalgia. The purpose of the thesis has been to understand how the presence of nostalgic emotions during consumption effect consumers. The research model used is a quantitative study with testing of hypotheses generated from theory.

Swedish consumption habits led to a discourse on consumption needs of the general public during the first half of the 20th century, involving primarily several institutions, but also a variety of popular movement organizations, among which we find Kooperativa Förbundet. In this discourse, ascetic consumption and a rationalized outlook on consumption were idealized, as the Swedes needed to be economical not to live beyond their means. The objective of this study is to investigate the ideals this type of discourse conveys throughout the latter half of the 20th century. This will be achieved by investigating selected editions of the cookbook ?Vår Kokbok? published by Kooperativa Förbundet.

This report is an inventory of the street lighting in half of the residential estates owned by Karlstad Bostads AB, a public housing company. The inventory was made to reduce the environmental impact of the street lighting. From the inventory an estimation of the total installed power and the energy consumption was made. The total estimated power of the street lighting was 125 kW and the energy consumption was 500 000 kWh/year with an estimated running time of 4 000 h/year. The dominating source of light was 125 W discharge mercury lamps.