This bachelor thesis is conducted as a Minor Field Study (MFS) in Sri Lanka, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The tourism industry have become a key factor for economic growth in several developing countries. A section of branding which refers to branding of a whole country is place branding. Place branding is seen as a complex process which involves multiple parts of the country. In order to ease for brand managers and to develop the theory of place branding, Hanna and Rowley (2011) have developed a new model of place branding. The model is named the Strategic place brand management model (SPBM- model) and consists of components which are argued to be essential parts in the process of branding a place. Developing countries have a need for place branding practices in order to create economic growth. The SPBM-model could therefore be a useful contribution to the research field of place branding in developing countries. The research questions of this research was therefore firstly to see how Sri Lanka work with the components in the SPBM-model, and second to find out which components in the SPBM-model that can be seen as important based on Sri Lankan conditions. This to answer the purpose of this thesis: explore how the SPBM-model can be applied on the process of branding Sri Lanka. The study was made through a case study of the developing country of Sri Lanka. In order to gain data, seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with officials working with branding Sri Lanka as a tourism destination. By putting the SPBM-model on the Sri Lankan place branding process it can be interpreted that all components are tightly connected to each other, and some parts seems to be more important for Sri Lanka then others. If Sri Lanka put more time and effort in the three components of infrastructure, stakeholders and evaluation, also the other six components of the SPBM-model (identity, brand experience, WOM, architecture, communication andarticulation) indirect will be affected in a positive way.

在網際網路快速發展下，大量使用者在獲取知識與新聞的管道，已由傳統媒體轉移到網路上。網路活動下使用者互動後所留下的訊息，也就是網路口碑，也逐漸受到重視。而隨著經濟發展，國人在固定薪資下無法負擔高房價、高物價的生活，如何透過投資理財來增加自身財富，已是非常普遍，其中又以股市投資為大眾所重視之途徑。 網路新聞的發布，除了具有網路的即時性外，配合使用者閱讀內化後所留下的評論，應含有比網路新聞本身內容更多的資訊，投資者便可藉此找尋隱含之中大量市場消息與資訊。 本研究為了在龐大的資料量中，幫助使用者挖掘其背後之涵義，進而提供投資預測，將蒐集網路新聞及其閱讀者評論共1068篇，並分為訓練資料與測試資料，使用文字探勘及相關技術做前處理，再透過kNN分群技術，計算訓練資料文件間相似度，將大量未知資料依其相似度做分群後，利用歷史股價訊息對群集結果之特徵分析解釋之並建立預測模型，最後透過測試資料將模型分群結果進行評估，進而對股價趨勢做出預測。 / With the rapid development of the Internet, the way of user access to knowledge and news transfer from traditional media to the network. Internet word-of-mouth, the message generated from users' interaction on internet, attracts more and more people's attention. With economic development, people in the fixed salary cannot afford high prices and high price in live. People increase their own wealth through investment is very common, among which the stock market is the way to public attention. Internet news has the immediacy of the Internet. And the comments left with the user to read the internalization should contain more information than the Internet news. Investors can find the market news and information by Internet news and comments. In this study, in order to help the user to find the meaning behind the huge amount of data, and thus provide investment forecast. We will collect 1068 of internet news and reader reviews to divide into training data and test data using text mining and related technologies to do the pre-treatment, and then calculate the similarity between the training data by kNN, a lot of unknown data according to their similarity clustering. Cluster through the historical share price analysis and modeling. Finally, the model clustering results were evaluated through the test data to predict price trends. The prediction model from training data clustering, use test data to do the evaluation found: k = 15, the similarity threshold value = 0.05, cluster the results of the F-measure performance up to 56% rise in the cluster. K values and the similarity threshold will be adjusted to obtain the most favorable results of the model

The Purpose of the thesis is in the theoretical part to describe the complete marketing as a whole including marketing mix with a special focus on the new trends in the marketing having regard to the pharmaceutical industry. The practical part will be focussed to an aplication the new trends in marketing to the pharmaceutical industry with respect to the etic code and to the law in the Czech Republic.

Submitted by Adriana Alves Rodrigues (aalves@espm.br) on 2018-10-09T19:15:51Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MPCC - ALEXANDER GREIF.pdf: 2183930 bytes, checksum: 8e64312a9935d55fbc64dace705154de (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Alves Rodrigues (aalves@espm.br) on 2018-10-09T19:16:13Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MPCC - ALEXANDER GREIF.pdf: 2183930 bytes, checksum: 8e64312a9935d55fbc64dace705154de (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Debora Cristina Bonfim Aquarone (deborabonfim@espm.br) on 2018-10-09T19:22:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MPCC - ALEXANDER GREIF.pdf: 2183930 bytes, checksum: 8e64312a9935d55fbc64dace705154de (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-09T19:23:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MPCC - ALEXANDER GREIF.pdf: 2183930 bytes, checksum: 8e64312a9935d55fbc64dace705154de (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-05-03 / Over the last 15 years, the relationship between industry, services and consumers has been changed a lot, mainly due to the expansion of new media social habits by consumer markets. Within the changes of this new market approach, the media social platforms became relevant elements to the business model and the customer care of the global companies. This research aimed to compare satisfaction with customer service between traditional telephone SAC channels and social media channels without human voice interaction. To achieve this objective an experiment was conducted with 60 dissatisfied customers in the Pay-TV segment. The results were statistically evaluated using the "t" test with significance range p <0.1. There was a preference for service through social media (0.008), and suggests that Facebook, as a customer care tool, had a superior result compared to the traditional SAC. As contributions, this study innovates by showing the results of managing with dissatisfied customers through a 100% digital customer care service, without voice interaction. In addition, there are few studies in Brazil on the care of unsatisfied clients carried out solely on social media, which will help reduce this gap in academic literature. / Nos últimos 15 anos, com o surgimento e a expansão do uso de mídias sociais por consumidores, a relação que existia entre indústria, serviço e cliente mudou completamente. Dentre as mudanças provenientes dessas novas relações mercadológicas, as mídias sociais ganharam relevância como modelo de gestão e atendimento. Esta investigação teve como objetivo comparar a satisfação com o atendimento aos clientes entre os canais tradicionais de SAC telefônico, e os de mídias sociais sem interação da voz humana. Para alcançar esse objetivo foi realizado um experimento com 60 clientes insatisfeitos do segmento de TV por assinatura. Os resultados foram avaliados estatisticamente por meio do teste “t”. Houve preferência pelo atendimento através das mídias sociais (0,008) e conclui-se que o Facebook como canal de atendimento teve um resultado superior ao tradicional SAC. Como contribuições, este estudo inova ao mostrar os resultados de uma gestão com clientes insatisfeitos através de um relacionamento totalmente digitalizado, inclusive mais econômico. Além disso, existem poucos estudos no Brasil sobre atendimento de clientes insatisfeitos realizados unicamente em mídias sociais, o que contribuirá para reduzir essa lacuna na academia.

O mercado cinematográfico pode ser caracterizado como uma indústria de entretenimento com a produção de bens de informação que são também bens de experiência, cuja qualidade só é conhecida após o consumo. Deste modo, a revisão crítica se torna importante para induzir seu consumo, fornecendo previamente algum grau de informação sobre a qualidade do bem. Segue-se o trabalho de Reinstein e Snyder (2005) para determinar se as revisões críticas conduzidas por consumidores e por críticos profissionais online afetam o tempo de exibição de filmes no mercado americano de cinema, medido em quantidades de semanas, conforme modelos de duração/sobrevivência na literatura. Para esta finalidade foi gerado, a partir de sites de cinemas americanos (Box Office Mojo e Rotten Tomatoes), um banco de dados extremamente rico com informações semanais de todos os filmes disponíveis no cinema americano de 2004 a 2015. Especificamente, investigou-se os efeitos das revisões críticas de críticos profissionais de primeira linha (Tops) e de consumidores, conforme a média das notas atribuídas na semana de lançamento de cada filme. No que se refere à avaliação dos consumidores foi aplicada a computação afetiva, que reconhece o sentimento e a emoção em suas resenhas online para captar o efeito boca a boca potencializado pelas mídias sociais e fornecendo, portanto, uma análise mais profunda do boca a boca online. O estudo controla por possíveis problemas de endogeneidade decorrente de simultaneidade, usando as críticas somente antes e durante a semana de lançamento dos filmes. Os resultados sugerem que os críticos profissionais exercem grande influência no tempo de duração dos filmes em cartaz, bem como a positividade dos consumidores em relação ao filme. No entanto, o efeito dos críticos profissionais é em média 3 vezes maior do que dos consumidores. Adicionalmente, pode-se observar que algumas emoções afetam a expectativa de vida dos filmes a depender do gênero do mesmo / The movie market may be considered as entertainment industry, which produces experience goods that is also information goods, whose quality is only known only after consumption. Thus, critical reviews becomes important to induce consumption, since it provides some level of information about product quality. We follow Reinstein and Snyder (2005) works in order to determine if experts and consumers online critical reviews affect the survival time of movies at the American movie market, measured by number of weeks, according to survival analysis models in the literature. For this purpose, an extremely rich database with weekly information on all the films available in American cinema from 2004 to 2015 was generated from American movie sites (Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes). Specifically, we investigate the effects of critical reviews from top professionals and from consumers, according to the average ratings assigned in each movie\'s release week. As far as consumer assessment was concerned, affective computing was applied, which recognizes the sentiment (sentiment analysis) and emotion (emotion mining) in their online reviews to capture the word-of-mouth effect boosted by social media. The study controls for possible problems of endogeneity due to simultaneity, using the criticisms before and during the week of release of the films. The results suggest that the professional critics exert a great influence on the duration of the films in exhibition, as well as the positivity of the consumers in relation to the film. Thus, the effect of professionals are 5 times greater, generally, than the effect of the consumer critics. Additionally, it can be observed that some emotions affect movie life expectancy depending on the its genre

Intérêt du sujet : Avec l’avènement du web2.0, l'influence interpersonnelle inclut désormais son extension dans le cyberespace avec le bouche-à-oreille électronique (eBAO). Internet modifie ainsi en profondeur les relations établies avec les consommateurs et conduit à une redéfinition de la relation marque -consommateur. Le web 2.0 apparaît ainsi comme un outil formidable au rééquilibrage des pouvoirs entre eux. Cependant, au-delà de ce constat, nous nous interrogeons quant à l’asymétrie entre les consommateurs et les marques dans ces conversations : le marketing est-il prêt à jouer le jeu ? Quelle perception le consommateur a-t-il de ce rééquilibrage ? Objectif de recherche : L’objectif de cette recherche est de comprendre les perceptions du web 2.0 par les consommateurs et les comportements qui en résultent. Thèse défendue : Face à cette redéfinition des relations entre consommateurs et entreprises, nous suggérons que les entreprises souhaitant des consommateurs engagés doivent accepter de céder une partie du pouvoir. Contribution attendue : Cette thèse vise à contribuer aux études précédentes et à pallier leurs limites. Alors que la littérature académique étudie les motivations des consommateurs à poster des avis en ligne en général (Hennig-Thurau et al, 2004 ; Sher et Lee, 2009), il manque des études empiriques considérant l’impact de facteurs individuels des consommateurs sur leur participation et sur leur engagement vis-à-vis d’une marque en particulier sur le web 2.0. Nous chercherons ainsi à comprendre le rôle des capacités de pouvoir du consommateur sur cette participation et cet engagement en ligne. Méthode : Une combinaison des approches qualitatives et quantitatives a constitué notre méthodologie de recherche. Dans un premier temps, une étude qualitative et une étude quantitative ont été réalisées auprès des consommateurs dans un contexte touristique. Celle-ci s’est déroulée en collaboration avec les offices de tourisme du Grand Bornand et d’Aix les Bains. Dans un deuxième temps, une expérimentation a été réalisée auprès des jeunes consommateurs (de 18 à 30 ans) dans le secteur spécifique des Smartphones et des tablettes mobiles. Principaux résultats : L’étude exploratoire nous a permis de souligner dans un premier temps les multiples paradoxes générés par l’eBAO diffusé sur les plateformes d’opinions. L’eBAO apparaît comme utile pour les consommateurs et les entreprises, cependant, un fort scepticisme règne face à celles-ci. La première étude quantitative nous a permis de mettre en avant les facteurs de participation et d’engagement : l’aide à l’entreprise, la sincérité perçue des avis postés, le scepticisme des consommateurs concernant les pratiques en ligne et l’attachement à la marque. D’une manière générale, nous constatons la volonté des consommateurs d’influencer. La seconde étude quantitative, l’expérimentation, nous montre que les caractéristiques des plateformes d’opinions en ligne ont un impact sur l’intention d’engagement et le comportement engageant. Cette étude nous montre l’importance de la véracité des commentaires en ligne et le risque infime de voir une plateforme d’opinions se transformer en défouloir. / Topic of interest : With the advent of Web 2.0, the interpersonal influence now includes its extension in cyberspace with electronic word of mouth. Therefore, the Internet deeply modify relationships between consumer and the brand and led to a redefinition of the relationship brand -consumer. Web 2.0 appears as a great tool rebalancing powers between them. However, beyond this, we wonder about the asymmetry between consumer and brand in these conversations: is marketing willing to play the game? What perception the consumer has of this rebalancing? Research Objective : The objective of this research is to understand the perceptions of Web 2.0 by consumers and resulting behaviors.Thesis defended : Faced with this redefinition of the relationship between the consumer and the brand, we suggest that companies wishing to engage consumers must agree to give up some power. Contribution expected : This thesis aims to contribute to previous studies and to overcome their limitations. While the academic literature explores the motivations of consumers to post online reviews in general (Hennig -Thurau & al , 2004; Sher &Lee, 2009) , it lacks empirical studies considering the impact of individual factors on their consumer participation and engagementtoward a particular brand on the web 2.0 . Thus, we seek to understand the role of consumer power capacities on online participation and engagement. Method : Our research methodology consists in a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Firstly, a qualitative study and a quantitative study were conducted with consumers in a tourism context. It was held in collaboration with the tourist offices of the Grand-Bornand and Aix-les-Bains. Secondly, an experiment was conducted among young consumers (18 to 30 years) in the specific sector of Smartphones and mobile tablets. Main results The qualitative study allowed us to initially highlight multiple paradoxes generated by eWOM broadcast on opinion platforms. EWOM appears useful for consumers and businesses; however, a strong skepticism is facing them. The first quantitative study allowed us to highlight the determinants of participation and engagement: Helping company, perceived sincerity of posted comment, consumer skepticism regarding online practices and brand attachment. In general, we see consumer willingness to influence.The second quantitative study, the experimentation, shows that the characteristics of online opinion platforms have an impact on the intention of engaging and engaged behavior. This study shows the importance of online review accuracy of and the small risk for an online opinion platform to become a way to get out consumers anger.

O mercado cinematográfico pode ser caracterizado como uma indústria de entretenimento com a produção de bens de informação que são também bens de experiência, cuja qualidade só é conhecida após o consumo. Deste modo, a revisão crítica se torna importante para induzir seu consumo, fornecendo previamente algum grau de informação sobre a qualidade do bem. Segue-se o trabalho de Reinstein e Snyder (2005) para determinar se as revisões críticas conduzidas por consumidores e por críticos profissionais online afetam o tempo de exibição de filmes no mercado americano de cinema, medido em quantidades de semanas, conforme modelos de duração/sobrevivência na literatura. Para esta finalidade foi gerado, a partir de sites de cinemas americanos (Box Office Mojo e Rotten Tomatoes), um banco de dados extremamente rico com informações semanais de todos os filmes disponíveis no cinema americano de 2004 a 2015. Especificamente, investigou-se os efeitos das revisões críticas de críticos profissionais de primeira linha (Tops) e de consumidores, conforme a média das notas atribuídas na semana de lançamento de cada filme. No que se refere à avaliação dos consumidores foi aplicada a computação afetiva, que reconhece o sentimento e a emoção em suas resenhas online para captar o efeito boca a boca potencializado pelas mídias sociais e fornecendo, portanto, uma análise mais profunda do boca a boca online. O estudo controla por possíveis problemas de endogeneidade decorrente de simultaneidade, usando as críticas somente antes e durante a semana de lançamento dos filmes. Os resultados sugerem que os críticos profissionais exercem grande influência no tempo de duração dos filmes em cartaz, bem como a positividade dos consumidores em relação ao filme. No entanto, o efeito dos críticos profissionais é em média 3 vezes maior do que dos consumidores. Adicionalmente, pode-se observar que algumas emoções afetam a expectativa de vida dos filmes a depender do gênero do mesmo / The movie market may be considered as entertainment industry, which produces experience goods that is also information goods, whose quality is only known only after consumption. Thus, critical reviews becomes important to induce consumption, since it provides some level of information about product quality. We follow Reinstein and Snyder (2005) works in order to determine if experts and consumers online critical reviews affect the survival time of movies at the American movie market, measured by number of weeks, according to survival analysis models in the literature. For this purpose, an extremely rich database with weekly information on all the films available in American cinema from 2004 to 2015 was generated from American movie sites (Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes). Specifically, we investigate the effects of critical reviews from top professionals and from consumers, according to the average ratings assigned in each movie\'s release week. As far as consumer assessment was concerned, affective computing was applied, which recognizes the sentiment (sentiment analysis) and emotion (emotion mining) in their online reviews to capture the word-of-mouth effect boosted by social media. The study controls for possible problems of endogeneity due to simultaneity, using the criticisms before and during the week of release of the films. The results suggest that the professional critics exert a great influence on the duration of the films in exhibition, as well as the positivity of the consumers in relation to the film. Thus, the effect of professionals are 5 times greater, generally, than the effect of the consumer critics. Additionally, it can be observed that some emotions affect movie life expectancy depending on the its genre

本研究的目的主要在於探討消費者在初進入陌生環境，不具備決策所需的相關資訊時，口耳相傳資訊的搜尋行為在消費者決策的過程中所扮演的角色，以及口耳相傳資訊在最終決策時發揮有效性的影響因素。 本研究以選課決策、參加社團選擇決策、學校附近飲料購買地點選擇決策等消費者會展現出不同涉入程度的三類決策為實驗標的，並以較不具備環境知識的大學新鮮人為受測對象，以實驗方法來探討涉入程度不同的決策類型與口耳相傳資訊搜尋行為、社會關係強度之關聯。 由實證結果可知，消費者在進行涉入程度較高的決策類型時，對於口耳相傳資訊的搜尋將愈趨積極，並愈傾向於向與本身具有較強社會關係的口耳相傳資訊提供者探詢意見。此外，當消費者對於口耳相傳資訊的搜尋愈趨主動時，也會愈傾向於向與本身具有較強社會關係的口耳相傳資訊提供者探詢意見，且由口耳相傳資訊搜尋活動中所獲致的助益也愈高。 在消費者個人的特質方面，本研究引入消費者國籍此一變數，受限於樣本的數目，本研究對於國籍議題所作成的初步結論為：來自不同國家的消費者，當其面對涉入程度不同的決策類型時，其對口耳相傳資訊的搜尋數量是有所差異的。

My dissertation aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how consumers make sense of online word-of-mouth. Each essay in my dissertation probes beyond the effect of rating valence and explores the role of textual content. In the first essay, I explore negativity bias among online consumers evaluating peer information about potential sellers. I propose that both the likelihood of negativity bias and resistance to change after a trust violation will depend on the domain of information discussed in a review. Three experiments showed that negativity bias is more prominent for information regarding sellers' integrity than information regarding their competence. These findings suggest that the universality of negativity bias in a seller review setting has been exaggerated. In the second essay, I examine the impact of emotional arousal on the perceived helpfulness of text reviews. I propose an inverse U-shaped relationship by which the arousal conveyed in a text review will be associated by readers with lower perceived helpfulness only beyond an optimal level, and that the detrimental effect of arousal is present for negative reviews even when objective review content is controlled for. To test these hypotheses, two studies were conducted in the context of Apple's mobile application market. In Study 1, I collected actual review data from Apple's App Store, coded those reviews for arousal using text analysis tools, and examined the non-linear relationship between arousal and review helpfulness. In Study 2, I experimentally manipulated the emotional arousal of reviews at moderate to high levels while holding objective content constant. Results were largely consistent with the hypotheses. This essay reveals the necessity of considering emotional arousal when evaluating review helpfulness, and the results carry important practical implications. In the third essay, I explore effects of the emotions embedded in a seller review on its perceived helpfulness to readers. I propose that over and above the well-known negativity bias, the impact of discrete emotions in a review will vary, and that one source of this variance is perceptions of reviewers' cognitive effort. I focus on the roles of two distinct, negative emotions common to seller reviews: anxiety and anger. In Studies 1 and 2, experimental methods were utilized to identify and explain the differential impact of anxiety and anger in terms of perceived reviewer effort. In Study 3, actual seller reviews from Yahoo! Shopping websites were collected to examine the relationship between emotional review content and helpfulness ratings. These findings demonstrate the importance of discriminating between discrete emotions in online word-of-mouth, and they have important repercussions for consumers and online retailers.

Word of mouth (WOM) communication has been a form of additional information for consumers wishing to make a purchase decision where there was uncertainty, lack of knowledge or just a general desire for more information. The increased access and use of social media as well as anonymous opportunities for consumers to provide their reviews on products or services is changing how WOM is used and sought. There is little research on the impact and use of WOM with respect to consumer decision making in a recreation and leisure context. Much research has been focussed on retail experiences and more tangible outcomes. The purpose of this study was to explore the process consumers undertake to seek out, listen and engage in WOM communication when making service purchase decisions. This study took place in a municipality in York Region that offered swimming lessons to the public. Participants were chosen using convenience sampling methodology. 500 surveys were distributed with 301 returned surveys completed to some degree. Study participants were recruited from observers watching a swim class offered by a municipal recreation provider. The survey instrument asked participants to describe themselves in terms of their experience level with municipal recreation programs. It also included three scales relating to susceptibility to influence, self confidence and need for cognition. Participants were exposed to one of five scenarios – one control message contained no treatment information and four scenarios with treatment messages relating to self-confidence and perceived risk. Treatment group members received information suggesting either high and low levels of perceived risk with purchase and high and low levels of self-confidence with knowledge (regarding the purchase decision). Respondents in this study possessed a very high level of self confidence in their program selections; they knew where to find the information and also how to explore program options. Overall this seemed a very well informed and confident group. Results suggest that susceptibility to influence (t = 5.889, p = .000) and self confidence (t = -2.174, p = .037) influenced their search for WOM communication. Need for cognition did not influence the likelihood they would seek WOM communication (t = -1.098, p = .280). Together all three variables explained 50% of the variance (adjusted R2 = .505) in the dependent variable (likelihood they would seek out WOM to make the purchase). These results indicate that participants were more likely to seek WOM when they were susceptible to influence and when their self confidence levels were low. Results also suggest that consumers were open to on line sources of word of mouth communication. More than that, study participants were generally willing to trust online reviews from people who were not necessarily known to them. As a result, online reviews could greatly influence the program registration numbers. A key question for future research could focus on the role shared experience plays in the evolution of trust between strangers. Many of these respondents would trust the advice of others simply because they reported having shared experience. How far does this trust go? How much risk must be present before they hesitate to take advice from unknown individuals? What are the characteristics or traits that consumers look for when assessing the validity of the reviews. Word of mouth seems a very pervasive and resilient concept. This may be particularly important in situations characterized by risk. Additional research could further explore the concept of word of finger and its influence on the traditional concept of WOM communication.