This is a brand and innovation dominated era; a clear and strong brand makes a company easily identified by consumers in an intensively competitive market, and innovation leads a company to a high value blue ocean. Notebook is one kind of global products of which different stages of a value cahin are dispersed to those locations around the globe where value added is maximized or where costs of value creation are minimized. Since notebooks of different brands have similar global products attributes, brands are what make those notebooks differentiated from competitors; thus, the band origin effect may be a factor that influences a consumer¡¦s purchasing dicision. The research takes notebook as an empirical study object to discuss the interrelationship among product innovation, brand country-of-origin effect, brand equity and purchase intention. The research finds that product innovation and brand country-of-origin effect are significantly related, and there is significant difference of product innovation based on differenct brand country-of-origin. Besides, brand country-of-origin has significantly positive effect on brand equity and purchase intention. Though product innovation, however, doesn¡¦t have significantly direct effect on purchase intention, it has significantly direct effect on brand equity, and it has indirect effect on purchase intention if mediated by brand equity. Moreover, there are significantly differences on product innovation and brand equity based on different notebook brands. Also, brand equity has significantly direct effect on purchase intention.

ABSTRACT Users¡¦ opinions and needs of the underlying products and services are allowed to gather at the Internet communities. Thus, Internet communities play information sharing roles in modern society. This thesis serves laptop computers as the object being studied and asks consumers¡¦ opinions about Internet communities and their purchase behaviors. In addition, brand awareness and risk of awareness played major roles in consumers¡¦ purchase decisions. As a consequence, this research took the three dimensions into consideration and examined the relations between the dimensions and consumers¡¦ purchase decisions for the sake of providing suggestions to laptop firms. The questionnaire answerers are generally students whose age between 20 and 30. The outcomes show that the Internet group bears the greatest loading while the other two dimensions reported significant results as well. Gender, on the other hand, showed no significant differences in dimensions except the male value brand publicity more. Thus, this study gave suggestions to firms based on the results.

In recent years, many sexually attractive PR females can be seen at every exhibition. They are top models, stars, adult video actresses, poster girls, show girls, etc. A lot of literatures have mentioned that females are frequently objectified and commercialized in order to satisfy the desire of males in a patriarchal and capitalistic society. Due to the changing trends, saleswomen reveal different appearances in various frameworks of exhibition. Sexually attractive females have become the key persons in the exhibition; their mission is not only to soften the atmosphere permeated by cold hard products, but also to attract visitors, engage in customer relations, and achieve the expected turnover. The study subjects were visitors at the 2007 Kaohsiung Computer Multimedia and Audio Exhibition. By answering the questionnaires their ¡§visiting purpose¡¨ and ¡§purchase intention¡¨ as well as the ¡§demographic statistic variables¡¨ were all investigated. All data were analyzed via: descriptive statistics, reliability factors, correlation and single-factor variation (one way ANOVA). The correlation and study assumptions can therefore be verified. The research results showed that there is a correlation among ¡§visiting purpose¡¨, ¡§purchase intention¡¨ and ¡§demographic statistic variables.¡¨ It proved that the sexually attractive females did not necessarily attract consumers with pure intentions to purchase their desired products, but they did attract consumers who love to ogle scantily clad females or who just want to spend their free time at the exhibition. The demographic statistic variables presented that those sexually attractive females did attract many students under the age of 25, and they were willing to change their purchase intention. Companies can refer to this research in planning their sales strategies and determine special promotions where sexually attractive PR females can be used to help hawk their products, so that the best benefits can be achieved. Keywords: exhibition, feminism, sexually attractive females, visiting purpose, purchase intention

Along with economy growth, trends of merger and acquisition (M&A) between organizations have become an important issue in both geographical and strategic terms. Through M&A, firms are able to utilize their resources, enhance their marketing channels and penetrate markets with better efficiency. However, how do products grab consumers¡¦ eyes against competitors? And how do firms maintain consumer loyalty? ¡§Brand¡¨ is a critical factor. When discussing issues relating brands, ¡§brand equity¡¨ is something one would never skip. The ¡§brand equity¡¨ means the value added of a brand, containing the overall conception and attitudes of consumers. Only through constructing and creating brand equity, firms could gather the unique value possessed by their brands. This thesis aims at discussing the relation between M&A, brand associations, the fit of target product, willingness to purchase and brand equity. This study served cellphone products as example and conducted four experiments. According to experiment result, the relationship between brand image of product and the product we want to buy is high before M&A, the brand equality and purchase intension are better than the relationship between brand image of product and the product we want to buy is low. This thesis use different fit of brand image to buy of different types of ingredient brand alliance, could affect the brand equity. Besides, different kinds of consumer could have different level of emphasising on the ingredient of integral brand alliance. When acquirers¡¦and acquirees¡¦possess high brand association and fit of brand image, brand equity of the acquirers¡¦would rise, especially in the parts of trustworthiness. Thus firms could cooperate with specialized firms in order to gain trusts from consumers. It is mention worthy that negative relations are documented in the product performance parts, thus, firms should pay attention on after-sales services and other parts instead of product alone after the M&A for the sake of brand equity and to let consumers enjoy better services.

The latest data reveals, in 2008, the total market value of tea beverage in Taiwan exceeded 20 billion NT dollars. Because the tea beverage market is extremely large, there are dozens of brands in the market. When a customer wants to choose a product from kinds of choices, what factors does he/she consider? According to former research, we know that the factors include price, brand, package design, sales promotion and advertisement. However, we still didn¡¦t know how they affect consumers buying tea beverage. Consequently, this study researched that if both package design and brand image have notable influences on consumers¡¦ purchase intention for packaged tea by regression analysis. The major results for the research are as follows: 1.Approximate 90% of respondents usually buy packaged tea in convenient stores. Half of them indicate that their motivations of buying packaged tea are thirst-quenching. More than half of respondents buy Uni-president most frequently, and then is Vitalon. 2.This study uses two tea brands as subjects to test the hypothesis repeatedly. The results revealed that package design have notable influence on purchase intention. So, manufacturers should change the package design irregularly and try to analyze the merits and drawbacks to improve the package. 3.The results also revealed that brand image have notable influence on purchase intention. It represents that brand image play a significant role in a consumer¡¦s purchasing process. Manufacturers should pass through the basic threshold, or their products would not be acceptant by consumers.

The main subject of this study is about Taiwanese girls and ladies clothing brand called Scottish House, and to discuss the consumer whether or not be influenced by extrinsic cues such as image of the country of origin, brand image and prices when purchasing clothing, thereby affecting the perceived quality and purchase intention. The main conclusions of the study are as follows: 1. Image of COO and COD will indeed have a positive impact on perceived quality, indicating that female consumers of Scottish House think the image of COO and COD make them feel that the clothing has high quality. And the impact of image of COD on perceived quality is more than image of COO. 2. Brand image will also have a positive impact on perceived quality and the influence of brand image of the Scottish House on perceived quality is the strongest over image of COO and COD. 3. Perceived price will have a positive impact on perceived quality, and the female customer regards Scottish House as high price. However, the influence of perceived price on perceived quality is far lower than the image of COO and COD. 4. Perceived quality will have a positive impact on purchase intention, customers thinks Scottish House has high quality and thus increase their willingness to buy. The conclusions above are significant to the management in the following aspects. 1. COD is relatively important. 2. Brand image is a key extrinsic cue for judging product quality. 3. Price has a limitation to explain product quality. 4. High product quality leads to high purchase intention.

Word of mouth has been playing an essential role while consumers make their purchase decision since ever, and its diffusion is becoming much faster via the internet nowadays. Surfing the internet gathering information before making the purchase, the so-called ¡uWisdom of Crowds¡vshopping pattern is taking its shape and possibly going to become the main trend in the future. Thus, electronic word of mouth does play an important part during the process of consumers¡¦ decision making, and more and more consumers start to ponder what to believe on the internet. As a result, trust is becoming the key factor if the consumers can take electronic word of mouth into their consideration or not. This research discusses how message sideness appeal and emotion in electronic word of mouth affect consumers¡¦ trust under a positively framed message and a negative framed message. This research adopts experimental method, distributes questionnaire and analyze the data with SPSS12.0. The results present message sideness appeal and emotion have impacts on consumers¡¦ trust. Two-sided appeal can cause higher consumers¡¦ trust than one-sided appeal whether under a positively framed message or a negative framed message. Emotion also plays an important part between message sideness and consumers¡¦ trust during the process of diffusion of electronic word of mouth. The results can not only help the word-of-mouth senders to develop an appropriate writing pattern to make electronic word of mouth more credible and effective, but also provide the business a brand-new point of view and some practical suggestions to develop a new marketing strategy.

Abstract For years, due to the lack of sound public transportation system, Kaohsiung citizens depend on motor cycles and their own cars for transportation. In the early this year, they started to have a new choice with the completion of Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit system (KMRT). Will the KMRT bring them more convenience and make them give up the dependence on motor cycles or cars, which eventually will become an important factor in choosing housing just as what has been observed in Taipei over the past decade? The research aims to study the influence of the KMRT to Kaohsiung people¡¦s daily habit of transportation and their housing choices. The study has adopted the planned behavior theory to explore the behavior intentions of Kaohsiung citizens in housing choices and to analyze the factors for purchases. The research adopted the questionnaire survey procedure to those people who were 25 years old and had taken the KMRT. The grand total of the questionnaires is 450 ones, of which 409 ones were effective. From the result through the regression analysis, it has been found that the location of the KMRT has indeed become a factor in housing choice for those who have taken the KMRT. However, it should be pointed out that an average of only ten percent Kaohsiung citizens per day use the system while in Taipei, above one third of people use the MRT every day. The low percentage for Kaohsiung people in using the new system tells the fact that the new system has not affected the people¡¦s lives so much as Taipei¡¦s MRT.

Traditionally speaking, some firms believe that great brand awareness will affect consumers¡¦ purchasing intention and bring much more profit in returns. Hence, a large number of entrepreneurs are spending a tremendous amount of capital on enhancing their brands and brand awareness but they often ignore the importance of word-of-mouth communication on internet. Recently, the internet has become much more popular and common than decades ago and such channel has changed consumers¡¦ purchasing habits. In fact, there are more consumers who share their experience on those products and services that they have used through internet. Furthermore, there are also more consumers who use internet to receive the information that they need for specific products and services. Thus, the importance and effectiveness of ¡§word-of-month of communication¡¨ on internet are much more important than the traditional ¡§word-of-mouth communication¡¨. This research study will be focused on hotels in Kenting area to discuss the effectiveness of purchasing intentions based on the brand awareness of that hotel and messages from the word-of-mouth communication on internet. More importantly, this research study will use customers¡¦ involvement as moderators to further understand the relationships between brand awareness & purchasing intentions, and word-of-mouth communication on internet & purchasing intentions. This research study has chosen two hotels in Kenting area. One hotel has high brand awareness while the other one has low brand awareness. This dissertation has also conducted on-line research based on their word-of-mouth communication on internet and the questionnaire participants are customers who have been to Kenting hotels. After collecting all data, this research has discovered that a hotel¡¦s brand awareness will affect customers¡¦ purchasing intentions. In other words, higher the brand awareness, more purchasing intentions from consumers. In addition, messages from word-of-mouth communication on internet will also affect customers¡¦ purchasing intentions. When the word-of-mouth communication on internet is negative, there will be fewer customers with lower purchasing intentions. Yet, the messages from word-of-mouth communication on internet will have higher effectiveness than the brand awareness of that specific hotel. Nevertheless, consumers¡¦ involvement will not affect the brand awareness, word-of-mouth communication on internet, and purchasing intentions. Last, the conclusion of this research study will provide some practical recommendations for hotel owners. Key words: brand awareness, word-of-mouth on internet, customers¡¦ involvement, and purchasing intentions.

Authors: Malin Karlsson, Sandra Karlsson, Amanda Malmberg Tutor: Dr. Setayesh Sattari Examiner: Prof. Anders Pehrsson Background: Consumers increasingly purchase products online due to the widespread use of the Internet. The decision for consumers to purchase online is predicted by their purchase intentions, which in turn is affected by their information privacy concerns. There is a lack of research on IPC and purchase intentions in the context of online personalized advertising. Purpose: To extend the understanding of purchase intentions considering information privacy concerns and involvement in the context of online personalized advertising. Methodology: A survey in form of a questionnaire was conducted in order to gather the information necessary to be able to analyse the relationship between IPC and purchase intentions in the context of online personalized advertising. The sample consists of 18-70 year olds from cities in southern Sweden. Conclusion: Conclusions drawn in this thesis is that when applied in the context of online personalized advertising, there is no significant relationship between IPC and purchase intentions. However, involvement is suggested as having a positive relationship to purchase intentions, as well as a positive moderating effect on the relationship between IPC and purchase intention in the context of online personalized advertising. Keywords: Purchase intentions, Information privacy concerns (IPC), Online personalized advertising, Involvement.