Along with an increased online presence, as well as expanded trade agreement between EU countries, the Swedish online gambling market has been facilitated and made more accessible than ever before. As a consequence, this growing gambling market has also correlated with increased gambling-related health- and economical issues amongst Swedish gamblers. At the same time online gambling companies keep increasing their investments in external communication and marketing activities. In order to protect the public, the governmental initiative “Spelinspektionen” initiated the new law, spellagen (2018:1138), which from the 1st of January 2019 is supposed to regulate marketing from online gambling companies. Based on a multimodal critical discourse analysis, the purpose of this study is to examine how spellagen (2018:1138) has affected marketing strategies from three different gambling companies; Leovegas, Ninja Casino and No Account Casino. The analysis studies a material based on six movies before the introduction of spellagen, and six movies after the introduction. Four central discourses has been identified, called The Hero, Action, Escapism, and Alonetime. Based on these discourses, the analysis used different tools from a multimodal discourse analysis in order to distinguish the strategies upon which the hidden- or open message was communicated. The analysis found that the gambling companies regularly used Per Binde ́s motives for gambling in their commercials. At least three out of five motives were identified through identity-creating strategies and emotional strategies which could be connected to Bindes motives “chances of winning”, “the jackpot-dream” and “moodswings”. The most prominent strategy for all of the commercials was the use of symbols and representation, which allows the company to communicate hidden or subtle meanings through connotations the company know that their target group will make. This main strategy did not make any drastic changes after the introduction of spellagen (2018:1138). The same message was still communicated, but now more often through visual elements rather than linguistic ones. The conclusion pointed out that in order for spelinspektionen to protect Swedish gamblers, spellagen (2018:1138) must be more concrete and descriptive, so that no alternative interpretations can be made. Other measures for spelinspektionen to consider is the amount of gambling commercials which the Swedish public are exposed to today.

Konsumenter använder varumärken dagligen och exponering av varumärken sker överallt: i reklam, böcker, filmer, människor och så vidare. Tidigare forskning visar att konsumenter använder varumärken för att bygga upp sin självbild och skapa sin identitet, samt att konsumenter kan ha mer eller mindre starka relationer till varumärken. Varumärken i sig är bara materiella markörer, de blir meningsfulla för konsumenterna först då de sätts in i ett sammanhang och får en individuell historia uppbyggt kring sig. Studiens syfte är att utifrån ett konsumentperspektiv visa hur meningsskapande i en relation mellan ett varumärke och en konsument kan se ut. Detta genom att reda ut frågeställningen: ”Hur kan en konsument skapa mening i sin relation till ett varumärke?”. En fallstudie har genomförts, där en individs meningsskapande kring ett varumärke har undersökts. Fallstudien bestod av två djupgående intervjuer och fem observationer. Resultatet har analyserats med hjälp av teorier kring bland annat meningsskapandeprocesser och varumärkessymbolik. Slutsatsen är tre faktorer som kan bidra till meningsskapande kring ett varumärke: överensstämmelse med konsumentens ”jag”, symbolisk innebörd och visuellt tilltalande, och användning. / Consumers use brands daily and the exposure of brands takes place everywhere: in advertisements, books, movies, people, and so on. Previous research shows that consumers use brands to create their self-image and identity, and that consumer can have stronger or weaker relationships with brands. Brands in their selves are only material markers, brands become meaningful to consumers when they are put into a context and receive an individual story built around them. The purpose of this paper is to show how consumers can create meaning in their relationship with brands. This is by sorting out the issue: “How can a consumer create meaning in the relationship with a brand? “. A case study has been carried out, in which an individual's meaning creation to a brand has been investigated. The case study consisted of two interviews and five observations. The results were analyzed using theories about meaning creation processes and brand symbolic. The conclusions are three factors that may contribute to the creation of meaning towards a brand: correspondence with the consumer's “self”, symbolic meaning and visually appearance, and the use of the brand.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how men and women experience personalized advertising, whether it affects the purchase decision and whether there are differences between men and women. A qualitative method has been used with the help of structured interviews within a delimitation of the Stockholm area. The theories used in this study consisted of the AIDA model, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Relationship Marketing (RM), Customization and Personalization and Consumer Culture Theory. Results of the study show that there are clear differences in how men and women experience Instagram. The main difference is that women have a more positive view of personalized advertising, which leads to actual purchases to a greater extent than men. The men in the study, on the other hand, show that it is negative to individualized advertising to a greater extent.

This study aimed to examine how a company like Anamma creates a platform where people can connect and inspire others to buy vegan food and what strategies they use to do so. The empirical material consisted of eight posts on Instagram made by the Swedish vegan company Anamma. The posts are showing how vegan meals can be healthy, tasteful but also how it is good for the environment. Since the material in these posts were both text, pictures and animated videos a multimodal analysis was most suitable to get a valid and true result. Initially the posts were analyzed one by one. Then we summarized the result into three themes based on what was discovered during the first analysis. The study shows that Anamma is using strategic tools like the theory of Two-step-flow, or Word of mouth to make people hear about them. By using hashtags and tagging people they are creating a chain of equivalence, using the digital platform to spread their message. They also use words like, “together”, “all of us” and “save the planet” et cetera, which is assumed to make people want to be a part of making the world a better place. Also, they frequently use statistics as a strategy of persuasion to show how much less effluent vegan food is to the environment compared to meat. Using the word “Anamma-friends” is a strategy that helps create a strong community for their customers. All their strategies combined contributes to creating social identity and a feeling of belonging. However, this study is not a study of communication effects, since that would require a different approach. Therefore the conclusion of this study is that Anammas communication is effective and adequate towards the social context and can be seen as successful in relation to the purpose of the study.

The use of the social media platform Instagram has increased the fastest and has given the opportunity for the phenomenon of influencer marketing to grow in the fashion industry. The increase of influencer marketing has led marketers to understand that a change of focus is needed. Much of the previous research done in the field has focused on what distinguishes or does not distinguish effective use of influencer marketing for a company. Therefore, it is interesting to study the actual role of influencers in a fashion company’s brand communication and this by studying the fashion companies’ choice of influencers and the way consumers perceive the role of influencers in a fashion company. To operationalize the study, a semiotic analysis has been applied where images have been analyzed to answer the purpose of the study from a business perspective. The results from this are the basis for the design of a qualitative method which is then followed up by a quantitative method for answering the purpose from a consumer perspective. The data was collected through the themes formulated with the support of previous research and theories. These were consumption, the consumer’s approach to influencers and belonging to a group and identity. Within the framework of these themes, the study’s findings showed that influencer marketing is beneficial to use for a company in some areas and in others not. The semiotic analysis showed with certain deficits in the match that the companies choose influencers based on the respondents’ preferences and wishes. / Användningen av det sociala mediet Instagram är den plattform som idag ökar snabbast och har gett möjlighet för fenomenet influencer marketing att växa fram främst inom modebranschen. Ökningen av influencer marketing har lett marknadsförare till att förstå att det behövs ett fokusskifte. Mycket av den tidigare forskning som gjorts inom området har fokuserat på vad som utmärker eller inte utmärker effektiv användning av influencer marketing för ett företag. Därför är det intressant att studera den faktiska rollen av influencers i ett modeföretags varumärkeskommunikation och detta genom att studera modeföretags val av influencers och på vilket sätt konsumenter uppfattar rollen av influencers i ett modeföretag. För att operationalisera studien har en semiotisk analys tillämpats där bilder analyserats för att besvara studiens syfte utifrån ett företagsperspektiv. Resultaten från denna ligger som grund för utformningen av en kvalitativ metod som sedan följs upp av en kvantitativ metod för att besvara syftet utifrån ett konsumentperspektiv. Datan samlades in genom de teman som formulerats med stöd av tidigare forskning och teorier. Dessa var konsumtion, konsumentens förhållningssätt till influencers samt grupptillhörighet och identitet. Inom ramen för dessa teman visade studiens resultat att influencer marketing är gynnsamt att använda för ett företag i vissa avseenden och i andra inte. Bildanalysen visade med vissa brister i matchningen att företagen väljer influencers utifrån respondenternas preferenser och önskemål.

I kontrast till fast fashion, som tampas med snabbt mode och massproduktion med korta ledtider har slow fashion-rörelsen kommit och anammats av flera aktörer på modescenen. Med hjälp av slow fashion vill man således inspirera till en hållbar och tidlös garderob som är genomtänkt och står stark mot modevärldens snabba svängar och därpå, bidra till att konsumtionen inte ökar i kvantitet utan i kvalitet. Problemet i hållbar konsumtion är att konsumenter ofta väljer att inte handla utifrån ett hållbart perspektiv trots att deras intention säger det. Forskning visar att det uppstår ett gap mellan vad konsumenter tänker göra och vad de faktiskt gör, ett attityds-beteende-gap. Studiens syfte är att fastställa egenskaper och undersöka kundbeteenden i samband med att handla slow fashion. Samtida forskning har presenterat gapet och dess existens, i vår studie vill vi bygga vidare på tidigare forskning och ta in teorin till slow fashion och kundbeteendet bakom ett sådant köp. Vad får en konsument att välja slow fashion produkter och vad profilerar en slow fashion konsument? För att förstå och tolka det empiriska materialet utformades en teoretisk referensram kring tre olika teorier, Attityd-beteende-gapet, Consumer culture theory och teorin kring behovsidentifikation. Studiens resultat visar att faktorer såsom identifikation, pris, tidlöshet och hög produktkvalitet påverkar konsumenten till att handla slow fashion-produkter. Vidare presenteras hur dessa faktorer prioriteras och planeras i köpprocessen. Planeringen är genomgående hos studiens alla respondenter och insikten diskuteras djupare. Slow fashion konsumeras således med ett stort engagemang och en hög pris-acceptans. / In contrast to fast fashion, which is tussled with mass production and with short lead times, the slow fashion movement has arrived and been adopted by several actors on the fashion scene. Slow fashion wants to inspire with a sustainable and timeless wardrobe that is well thought out and stands strong against the fashion world's quick turns and then, contribute so the consumption is not increasing in quantity but in quality. The problem in sustainable consumption is that consumers often choose not to act on the basis of a sustainable perspective even though their intention says it. Research show that there is a gap between what consumers intend to do and what they actually do, so called attitude-behavior gap. The aim of this study is to determine characteristics and examine customer behavior in connection with shopping slow fashion. Contemporary research has provided support for the gap and its existence, in our study we want to develop that result into further analysis. We want to investigate the theory about the attitude-behavior gap in contrast to slow fashion and its customer behavior and the reasons behind a purchase.Why does a consumer choose to buy slow fashion products and what is the profile of a slow fashion consumer? To understand and interpret the empirical material from this study, a theoretical framework was designed around three different theories, the Attitude-behavior gap, the Consumer culture theory and the theory of needs identification.The result of this study shows that reasons such as identification, price, timelessness and high product quality affect the consumer to buy slow fashion products. Further, it shows how these reasons will get prioritized and planned in a consumer journey within the buying process. The planning itself is through all stages by every respondent and the insights will be discussed further. Slow fashion are therefore consumed with engagement and a strong price acceptance. The study will continue in Swedish

La consommation collaborative désigne un ensemble de pratiques très variées – parmi lesquelles la location, le prêt, le don, le troc ou le partage entre consommateurs –, qui remettent en question la primauté accordée à la propriété individuelle. Ce phénomène en plein essor fait l’objet de nombreuses recherches tentant de définir, de cartographier ou d’expliquer le phénomène, en identifiant ses déterminants ou en évaluant ses impacts. Peu de travaux se sont penchés sur l’arrière-plan culturel de ce mouvement. C’est l’objet de ce travail, qui étudie la consommation collaborative dans une perspective anthropologique, autour de la question, centrale, du rapport à la propriété. Cette recherche, ancrée dans la Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), adopte une approche phénoménologique centrée sur le sens des expériences vécues par les consommateurs. Elle s’appuie au plan empirique sur une ethnographie menée sur trois terrains reflétant la diversité des pratiques collaboratives – l’habitat participatif, la plaisance collaborative et les bibliothèques de vêtements. Et elle a pour première assise théorique la mobilisation d’un cadre d’analyse original – l’infrastructure cosmologique –, inspiré des travaux de Stoczkowski (2008), qui permet de révéler les traits saillants d’une vision du monde. Les résultats mettent en lumière l’émergence, au sein d’un mouvement qui reste largement consumériste, d’une contre-culture, proche de la simplicité volontaire, caractérisée par un rapport nouveau à la propriété, dans laquelle celle-ci n’est pas simplement remplacée par l’usage mais se charge d’un sens différent. Nous l’avons nommée « cosmologie de l’alter-possession ». Cette recherche permet de mieux comprendre les comportements de consommateurs qui entretiennent un rapport ambivalent aux possessions, entre détachement et recherche de liens durables, et aspirent à des formes de propriété plus ouvertes et plus collectives en réponse aux enjeux sociaux et environnementaux d’un monde aux ressources finies. / Collaborative consumption refers to a highly varied range of practices – including rentals, loans, gifts, bartering and sharing between consumers – that challenge the primacy of individual ownership. This rapidly growing phenomenon has been the subject of many research studies that have attempted to define, map or explain it by identifying its determinants or evaluating its impact. Few researchers have focused on the cultural background to this movement. That is the focus of this study, which studies collaborative consumption from an anthropological perspective, looking at the central question of our relationship with ownership. This research, rooted in Consumer Culture Theory (CCT), adopts a phenomenological approach centred on the meaning of consumer experiences. In empirical terms, it uses an ethnographic study conducted in three different fields that reflect the diversity of collaborative practices: co-housing, collaborative pleasure boating and clothes libraries. Its main theoretical foundation is the use of an original analytical framework – cosmological infrastructure, inspired by the work of Stosczkowski (2008) – which highlights the salient traits of a particular worldview. The results reveal the emergence, within a movement that remains largely consumeristic, of a counterculture that is comparable to voluntary simplicity and characterised by a new relationship with ownership, which, for proponents of this counterculture, is not only replaced by the notion of usage but is also charged with different meaning. We call this the “cosmology of alter-possession”. This research provides a better understanding of the behaviour of consumers who maintain an ambivalent relationship with possessions, somewhere between detachment and the search for lasting links, and aspire to more open and collective forms of ownership in response to the social and environmental challenges in a world with finite resources.

[pt] Dentre as diversas vertentes do turismo, o Dark Tourism (ou turismo sombrio, macabro, ou tanaturismo) é voltado para a visitação a atrações ligadas a tragédias, como antigos campos de batalha, prisões, campos de concentração e cemitérios. Apesar de ser um tema abrangente, os estudos sobre esta área do conhecimento carecem um maior aprofundamento, pois somente o positivismo não seria suficiente para proporcionar resultados satisfatórios, uma vez que a compreensão do significado por trás deste tipo de exploração pode ser mais bem entendido por meio de investigações de cunho interpretativo. Para cumprir este objetivo, a Consumer Culture Theory pode representar uma alternativa válida, pois engloba temas como a compreensão dos estilos de vida, formação de identidade, valores e significados culturais. Assim sendo, o objetivo do presente estudo foi analisar o significado simbólico por trás do consumo de atrações classificadas no espectro do dark tourism. Para isso, foi feito um estudo interpretativista, com coleta de dados a partir de entrevistas em profundidade. / [en] Among the various strands of tourism, Dark Tourism (or macabre, or thanatourism) is aimed at visiting attractions linked to tragedies, such as old battlefields, prisons, concentration camps, and cemeteries. Despite being a comprehensive theme, studies on this area of knowledge need further studies, as positivism alone would not be sufficient to provide satisfactory results, since understanding the meaning behind this type of exploration can be better comprehended through interpretive investigations. To fulfill this goal, Consumer Culture Theory can represent a valid alternative, as it encompasses topics such as the understanding of lifestyles, identity formation, values and cultural meanings. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to analyze the symbolic meaning behind the consumption of attractions classified in the spectrum of dark tourism. For this, an interpretive study was carried out, with data collection from in-depth interviews.

The notion of deterritorialization occupies a central role in contemporary interpretations of immigrants’ home-related consumption engagements. Through their work on home maintenance, consumer researchers have unveiled a remarkable set of insights related to consumption patterns immigrants develop with the purpose of maintaining previous home-ties. Consumer researchers have for instance demonstrated how immigrants transform and get transformed by the home-related consumption goods available in host countries. The notion of home maintenance has been largely applied with the meaning of immigrants “keeping up” with a past life context they can no longer enjoy in contemporary home places. Yet, less attention has been devoted to migrants’ willingness to preserve existential connections with places of origin and/or childhood. <p>Drawing on the stories of 14 Latin American migrants living in Belgium, this doctoral research relativizes this deterritorialized perspective through the means of the philosophical notion of narrative identity. This philosophical point of view puts forward the open link that exists between current life stories and past experiences. Individuals reconfigure their own personal narratives by integrating both past and present experiences. Accordingly, there is a continuity of narrative that contrasts with frequent disruptions in life, implying a perpetual interpretation <p>and re-interpretation of one’s life. This exercise is not a self-reflecting process of an individual that is distinct from his or her cultural references. The construction of a personal narrative identity is also a dialogue with many others and their past and future stories. In the case of migrants, even many years after “successful” experiences of migration, they can experience recurring tendencies to return, homecoming tendencies. These tendencies, which are not necessarily aimed at a final and long term return, reflect the notion that preserving affiliations to one’s place of origin or childhood is not only a matter of consuming resources available in receiving contexts, but also of consuming and sharing with many others in places of origin. While Home maintenance relies heavily on migrant’s willingness and or capacity to remember home places as they were before they migrated. The homecoming tendencies notion, here proposed, is oriented towards migrants’ eagerness to constantly re-discover home places in their contemporary situations and towards their active goal for avoiding disappearing from view back home. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis seeks to analyze how social position is negotiated by particular consumption practices. Thesis is theoretically based upon social-constructivist claims that reality is a social construct that comprises of continuously negotiated meanings. That implies that observed phenomena, such as among others consumption and social position, are seen as constituted by the cultural and symbolic dimensions of society. Methodological basis of the thesis is qualitative research. In the context of consumer behavior research I follow the research stream of consumer culture theory. Key findings of the study are that discourses on consumption are partially determined by social position while higher classes are comparatively more reflexive in their interpretations of consumption. However, social boundaries are not strictly given which creates a space for negotiating one`s social position. That might be accomplished by reinterpretation of social position. Prominent strategies of such reinterpretations were defined by discourses of neoliberalism and egalitarism. Another option consists of transgressing the economic boundaries by utilizing cultural capital. However, in the Czech society there has not yet been developed a clear consensus on what cultural capital consists of - that creates even more potential for negotiating one`s own social position.