An alternate reality game, often abbreviated as ARG, is a mix between a game and a crossmedia interactive story using mainly the Internet as a platform. The game is built around the idea of teamwork among its participants. The players cooperate to solve puzzles allowing them to go forward in the story of the game. The marketing element is in different ways included in the story. A few Alternate Reality Games such as The Beast, The Art of the H3ist and The Lost Ring have previously been launched as marketing campaigns. This bachelor thesis aims to examine the possibilities of Alternate Reality Games as an alternative marketing tool for profit-driven companies. The method includes interviewswith Swedish advertising agencies as well as individuals in the ARG business. The prototype used in the thesis is an earlier ARG named Den Dolda Sanningen, which was produced in the fall semester of 2008 as an assignment for a course at Växjö University.

Målet med uppsatsen var att se hur man producerar fram en reklamkampanj, framför allt hur man gör det för första gången samt hur retoriken kan bidra till ett lyckat koncept. Vilka förutsättningar krävs? Arbetar man på ett annorlunda sätt? Vilka medel använder man för att få en framgångsrik reklam? Detta har undersökts genom att intervjua personer som varit med och producerat den prisbelönta och världskända reklamkampanjen från IKEA  ”Drömkök åt alla” ur ett retoriskt perspektiv. Resultatet visar på en resa rätt i tiden  i hur man med ny teknik får fram något helt unikt. / The purpose of this essay was to see how to produce a commercial campaign, and most of allhow to do it for the first time and how rhetoric’s can contribute to a successful concept. Whatare the conditions? Does it demand a different work approach? Which means do you use tocome up with a successful advertising? This has been investigated by interviewing the peoplewho produced the award winning and world famous commercial-campaign from IKEA"Dream kitchen for everyone" from a rhetoric point of view. The results display a journeymade at the right period of time, and how you with new technology, can come up withsomething unique.

This essay is a qualitative study of the Swedish joint-stock company Svenska Spel AB’s television commercial from 2008. The commercial is called “Spela lagom - When I grow up”, and is meant to serve as an informational commercial about being underaged in situations regarding gambling. Using semiotics and rhetoric’s, we are analyzing how elements seen in the commerical affects the rhetorical situation the clip is bound to; how the marketing is done to enhance Svenska Spel’s brand; and what strategies are used to make sure the public service announcements regarding persons involved with underage gambling gets acceptance. The results show that arguments using pathos and ethos are used widely in this commercial, to enhance the feeling of responsibility from Svenska Spel. Another conclusion drawn is that the context, together with visual language known to the underaged, makes this commercial fit that target group. The company integrates with the theory of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and by this commercial they show the viewer’s their ideology about the importance of responsibility.

I en värld där konsumenten dagligen överöses av kommersiella budskap är det många gånger svårt, för att inte säga omöjligt, för företag att synas. Ett tuffare klimat kräver tuffare tillvägagångssätt, vilket har resulterat i nya marknadsföringsmetoder. En av dessa nya metoder är provokativ marknadsföring som vänder sig till betraktarens känslor genom provokation. Provokativ reklam och dess effekter på konsumenter har undersökts tidigare. Dessa studier har emellertid övervägande fokuserat på provokation i form av sexuella stimuli, varför det råder stor osäkerhet om hur andra provokationsformer i reklamsammanhang mottas av konsumenter. Som ett första led att ge råd i denna fråga har därför en kvalitativ studie med fokusgrupper som undersökningsmetod utförts, i syfte att identifiera vilken typ av känslor och attityder som väcks hos konsumenter när de exponeras för provokativ reklam innehållande andra element än sex, nakenhet och erotik. Fyra reklamfilmer innehållande provocerande element har studerats och resultaten visar att nämnd form av provokation väcker många känslor som är av både bipolärt och komplext slag. De attityder till avsändaren som uppstår har visat sig vara av främst positivt slag när ändamålet är gott. Vidare har provokativ reklam visat sig vara mer lämplig när målet är att uppnå erinran snarare än att informera om specifika produkter. / In a world where consumers are showered with commercial messages, being noticed is hard, not to say impossible. A tougher climate requires tougher approaches, which has led to new marketing methods. One of those new methods is provocative advertising, which appeals to the consumer’s feelings by means of provocation. Provocative advertising and its effects on consumers might have been studied before. However, those studies have mainly been focused on provocation in terms of sexual stimulus. How other provocations than those affect consumers are therefore associated with a lot of insecurity. As a first step in giving advice in this matter, a qualitative study with focus groups has been executed, with the aim of identifying which kind of feelings and attitudes take place in the consumers’ mind after being exposed for provocative TV commercials, including other elements than sex, nudity and erotic. Four TV commercials containing provocative elements have been studied and the results show that the kind of provocation mentioned above raises a lot of feelings which are both bipolar and complex. The attitudes to the sender that arises have appeared to be positive when it is for a good purpose. Provocative advertising furthermore appears to be more useful when the aim is to remind consumers rather than giving information about specific products.

<p>An alternate reality game, often abbreviated as ARG, is a mix between a game and a crossmedia interactive story using mainly the Internet as a platform. The game is built around the idea of teamwork among its participants. The players cooperate to solve puzzles allowing them to go forward in the story of the game. The marketing element is in different ways included in the story.</p><p>A few Alternate Reality Games such as <em>The Beast, The Art of the H3ist</em> and <em>The Lost Ring </em>have previously been launched as marketing campaigns. This bachelor thesis aims to examine the possibilities of Alternate Reality Games as an alternative marketing tool for profit-driven companies. The method includes interviewswith Swedish advertising agencies as well as individuals in the ARG business. The prototype used in the thesis is an earlier ARG named <em>Den Dolda Sanningen</em>, which was produced in the fall semester of 2008 as an assignment for a course at Växjö University.</p>

ICA AB is Sweden’s largest retail and wholesale firm, a cooperation of retail proprietors. Here it is studied as the nation’s largest media firm. It is the largest advertiser, the largest publisher of consumer magazines, and plausibly the most advanced user of household shopping data for marketing purposes. ICA’s marketing media system is operated by a constellation of different professional groups, and the study at hand asks questions about how practitioners in different professional communities relate to the idea of value and value creation, how their social practices pushes them towards divergent understandings and priorities, and what such differences do to their opportunities to collaborate within ICA’s marketing processes. We are all ‘practitioners’ in the sense that we go about our daily lives conducting various practices that create value for ourselves and for others. We act in routinized fashions surrounded by social codes that guides us in how to combine and integrate tools, skills and products in different combinations. Since they seem to capture the very purpose of marketing, ‘value’ and ‘value creation’ are concepts which long have been central to the academic debate. However, if our value-creating practices are guided by social codes, this has consequences for marketers and marketing that has been largely left aside in the mainstream marketing theory. Over two years, 2007-2008, through qualitative interviewing and participant observation, the study follows ICA’s marketing communications process and some of its most central practitioners – marketing managers, media agency specialists, editorial staff, and TV network sales representatives. It describes their involvement in TV advertising campaigns, in the customer magazine Buffé, and in the introduction of mass-customized direct marketing in the project Mina varor. Combining some of the most widely cited marketing theories on value creation with a sociological view on activity forwarded by Practice Theory, this thesis suggests that value is best seen as being formed along two intertwined processes – value creation which is the process of physical activity, and value construction which is a social process of understanding what is to be regarded valuable. The findings provide firstly a detailed mapping of how practitioners articulate marketing communications value, what aspects they emphasize, and how they interpret the objective of their practices. Secondly, the study links the articulations of value to 16 value-forming marketing communications practices. Marketing managers, media agency specialists, editorial staff, and TV network sales representatives are all described as acting according to a ‘practical logic’ of their respective professional communities. These logics combine practices for marketing communications production, for mutual interaction, and for valuation of processes, products and outcomes. The benefits of coordination and collaboration have been forwarded in marketing (relationships and networks) and marketing communications (integrated marketing communications) literature over the past decades. The concluding discussion concerns how and to which extent practical logics can be altered, changed, or aligned towards mutually rewarding goals. In other words, how can two parties work together if they have divergent understandings of value, and conversely how can two parties learn to understand value by working together? It thereby puts focus on marketing communications management, and contrary to many textbooks in the field, this study does not describe marketing communications as a de-humanized instrument in the marketer’s toolbox, but as a challenge of coordinating practitioners, practices, and understandings.

Denna studie är grundad i intervjuer som ägde rum på en reklambyrå. Studiens syfte är att utforska innebörden av 'kreativitet' i reklamvärlden. I intervjuerna betonade informanterna i synnerhet vikten av att reklam kommunicerar genom känslor och emotioner. I denna uppsats ges en närmare inblick i vad informanterna anser att känslor och emotioner har för innebörd för reklamskapande. Detta görs genom att tillämpa fenomenologisk teori. Den fenomenologiska analysen förser oss med en djupare och mer vidsträckt förståelse för den intuitiva kunskap informanterna förmedlar. Den öppnar således upp förståelsen för varför känslor och emotioner anses vara grundläggande för reklamskapande. Utifrån en fenomenologisk förståelse för känslor och emotioner diskuteras sedan reklamens roll i samhället i helhet. / This study is based on interviews that took place in an advertising agency. The purpose of the study is to explore the meaning of 'creativity' in the world of advertising. In the interviews, the interviewees especially pointed out the importance of feelings and emotions as a means for communication in advertisement. This thesis provides a closer view of the significance feelings and emotions are considered to have in advertising. This is done by ways of phenomenological theory. The phenomenological analysis provides us with a deeper and more far-reaching understanding of the intuitive knowledge that is brought forth by the interviewees. It opens up an understanding of why feelings and emotions are considered to play a fundamental part in the creation of advertisement. Based on a phenomenological understanding of feelings and emotions I will then discuss what part advertising plays in society as a whole.

No description available.

Bakgrund: I dagens samhälle utsätts konsumenter ständigt för en mängd olika typer av reklam. För att fånga upp deras intresse och uppmärksamhet är det viktigt att kunna differentiera och utmärka sig på marknaden genom att välja rätt kommunikationsmedel. Om ett företag vill lansera en ny produkt eller tjänst finns oftast inte all kompetens som behövs tillgänglig för att marknadsföra detta i ett och samma företag. Därför väljer företag att outsourca, som innebär att externa verksamheter hjälper ett företag med dess marknadsföringsprocess. På grund av detta har en mängd reklam- och PR-byråer vuxit fram för att kunna komplettera den kompetensen som ett företag saknar. Hur dessa reklam- och PR-byråer väljer att marknadsföra produkten eller tjänsten varierar mycket från gång till gång men slutmålet är alltid detsamma, att exponera en produkt eller tjänst.   Syfte: Undersöka arbetsprocessen hos ett företag och dess anlitade reklam- och PR-byrå samt belysa relationen mellan de tre parterna. Metod: En deskriptiv fallstudie bestående av fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer. Teori: Fem teorier som är länkade till ämnet, arbetsprocessen och relationen mellan ett företag och dess reklam- och PR-byrå har noga valts ut för att ge stöd åt uppsatsens syfte. Empiri: De fyra semistrukturerade intervjuerna består utav personer med olika befattningspositioner inom en reklambyrå, en PR-byrå samt ett företag som samarbetar med dessa två byråer. Respondenterna erhåller stor kompetens inom ämnet och bidrar med relevant information för att besvara uppsatsens syfte. Slutsats: Varje arbetsprocess mellan ett företag och en reklam- och PR-byrå är unik. Detta beror på att varje uppdragsgivare har sina specifika krav och mål som byråerna måste anpassa sig efter. Även relationen och kontakten mellan en byrå och kund varierar vilket i sin tur formar arbetsprocessen. Författarna konstaterar dock att grunden till de flesta arbetsprocesser och relationer mellan ett företag och dess anlitade reklam- och PR-byrå är sig lik. / Background: In today's society consumers are constantly exposed to a variety of different types of advertising. In order to capture customers' interest and attention, it is important to differentiate and distinguish yourself on the market by choosing the right channels of communication. If a company is going to launch a new product or service all the skills needed to promote are usually not available in the same firm. That is the reason why companies choose to outsource this work to an external organisation to help the company with the marketing process. Because of this, a lot of advertising and PR agencies have emerged to complement the expertise that a company lacks. Purpose: Describe the working process of a company and its hired advertising and PR agency and also explain the relationship between the three parties. Method: A descriptive case study consisting four semi-structured interviews. Theory: Five theories that are linked to the subject, the work process and the relationship between a company and its advertising and PR agency have been carefully selected to support the purpose of the essay. Empirical studies: The four semi-structured interviews consist of people with different job positions in an advertising agency, a PR agency and a company that collaborates with these two agencies. The respondents obtain substantial expertise of the topic and contribute relevant information to answer the purpose of the essay. Conclusion: Each work process between a company and an advertising and PR agency is unique, since each client has specific requirements and objectives that agencies must adapt to. The relationship between an agency and a client varies which in turn shapes the work. The authors have concluded, however, that the basis for the work processes and relationship between a company and its hired advertising and PR agency is similar.

Barn är konsumenter, får reklam riktad till sig och syns i reklam. Men om det är rätt och på vilka sätt det bör ske ger upphov till diskussion, såväl i som utanför akademin. Den här studien granskar hur barn görs till en del av konsumtionssamhället genom det lag- och regelverk som omgärdar barn, konsumtion och reklam samt i tre typer av vardagsreklam där barn på olika sätt synliggörs; adresserad direktreklam som skickas hem till tre nyblivna föräldrar under barnets första år, reklam i ett års utgivning av 12 tidningar för barn samt annonser med bilder av barn publicerade i ett års utgivning av fyra tidningar med en vuxen målgrupp. I studien undersöks hur barn framställs och görs som social kategori och som konsumenter i materialen och vad det säger om barns roll och plats i konsumtionssamhället. Med hjälp av kritisk visuell diskursanalys och begreppet barnighet visar analysen med vilken komplexitet och ambivalens barn uppfattas, framställs och bemöts. Lag- och regelverket är komplicerat och ger en dubbeltydig bild av barns rätt till skydd respektive rätt till deltagande. Vardagsreklamens bilder av barn gör dem till objekt att konsumera visuellt samtidigt som normer om den ideala barndomen och den goda betraktaren produceras och reproduceras. Till nyblivna föräldrar framställs diskurser av barn som konsumtionsbehövande på sätt som osynliggör reklamens övertalande budskap. Reklam som riktas till barn själva utgörs av hybridformer där annonser bara är en del, vilket innebär att det som är reglerat som reklam inte är detsamma som det som gör reklam till barn. Utsatthet och skydd, kompetens och rättigheter samt lärande och ålder är tematiker som på olika sätt aktualiseras i samtliga empiriska material. Studien bidrar med förståelse och problematisering av vad barn är och tillåts vara i dagens visuella konsumtionskultur. / Children are consumers and they are marketed to and visible in advertising. But how children, consumption and advertising should be combined cause debate, both in the public sphere and in academia. The dissertation investigates how children are visualized and made as a social category and as consumers in the consumer society by studying the legal framework regarding children, consumption and advertising as well as three types of advertising that people encounter in their everyday lives; advertisements showing children published during one year in four magazines with an adult target group; and addressed direct marketing that was sent to three first-time parents; advertisements in one year's publication of 12 magazines for children. Using critical visual discourse analysis and the concept of childity, the analysis shows the complexity and the ambivalence that characterizes the ways in which children are seen, represented and addressed. The legal framework is complicated and is ambiguous regarding children's right to protection vis-à-vis their right to participate. Advertisements that visualize children produce and reproduce norms concerning the ideal childhood. In order to get parents to consume on behalf of their children, neutral and factual discourses about children's character and needs are articulated. Advertising that is aimed at children consists of hybrids between adverts and editorial material, indicating that it is not only marketing that is regulated by the legal framework that actually markets to children. Vulnerability and protection, competence and rights as well as learning and age are themes that are actualized in different ways in all of the empirical material. The study contributes a new understanding and problematization of what children are, and are allowed to be, in our contemporary visual consumption culture.