Background: Advertising channels in today's marketplace are becoming more limited with the development of ad-free sources of entertainment. The phenomenon of product placements is therefore becoming one of the most important sources for advertising in media. Especially film productions have turned into a canvas for companies to display their brands upon. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the case of product placements in Hollywood blockbuster movies. In particular, brand recognition and audience's ac-ceptance of a brand’s presence in movies were examined. Method: A mixed method approach was applied in order to fulfill the purpose of this thesis and answer research questions. A questionnaire in the form of a handout and focus group discussions were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data from audiences consisting of international students. The questionnaires were handed out after the movies had been shown in a setting resembling that of a movie theater, meaning that respondents were not aware of the study beforehand and were therefore not biased. The focus group discussions gave us information needed in answering the second research question and getting more insights of the practice. Conclusions: Our research showed that product placements in movies lead to brand recognition, and audience’s acceptance of a brand’s presence is influenced by congru-ency of product placement in movies. This outcome resulted from the combination of four determining factors: movie genre, execution factors, appropriateness in the movie setting and brand characteristics.

The aim of this study is to examine whether search engine marketing may influence consumers’ brand awareness in terms of brand recall and brand recognition. The theoretical background derives from the definition and rationale of brand awareness. The study is further based on a theoretical outline of search engine marketing and its components. Furthermore, the Hierarchy of Effects Model is used in order to describe the steps a company may influence consumers in their purchase process. In order to capture consumers’ reasoning and behaviour in the search engine context, a two-way study approach was conducted. Firstly, by letting ten participants conduct a log related to their search engine behaviour, spanning for a period of ten days. Secondly, by conducting semi-structured interviews, using their logs as a base for further discussions. Results from this study show that search engine marketing can have an effect on consumers’ brand awareness by creating initial awareness or by building upon existing awareness. Secondly, in the context of unknown brands, the results show that it had a particular strong effect on brand recognition among the participants. Thirdly, it appeared that SEM can work as a gateway for brands and an enabler for building a brand attitude amongst its potential customers. Lastly, the website experience is a crucial step for brands in order to positively influence consumers in their purchase process.

Brands have become valuable assets that play a central role in differentiating the products and services to catch the attention of the customers. This research examines the significance of branding strategies for companies’ growth and survival. For this paper, models and theories from previous researches are used to give an in-depth understanding of the different brand strategies and SMEs. The data was collected through qualitative interviews with 10 companies of which five were conducted in Kampala, Uganda and the other five were in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. Although SMEs play a significant role in economic development, they are facing challenges of building brands due to the scarce resources. Financing was shown among the key prohibitions to brand establishment. The research identifies the need for SMEs to adapt branding strategies. Research findings pointed out the benefits of brand recognition in both countries. The respondents indicated that brand communication was an effective tool in creating brand recognition in SMEs. Also price, quality, innovation, and a clear vision among others are enabling factors for building strong brands.

The environmental horticulture industry, also known as the “Green Industry”, is the second most important sector in the United States’ agricultural economy in terms of economic output and one of the fastest growing segments of agriculture; however, it has experienced a steady slowdown in growth in the past years. Floriculture and nursery crops average annual growth rate decreased from 13.64% in the 1970s to approximately 2.87% in the 2000s, and the industry is currently considered to be facing a mature market. The Texas A&M Agricultural Program, in an attempt to help Texas’ green industry producers compete effectively in an evolving marketplace, developed the Texas Superstar TM and Earth-Kind TM programs. Both of these programs intend to raise awareness among consumers of Texas-grown plant material while promoting environmental responsibility, and to increase producers’ profitability by providing them with products that can be sold at a price premium. In spite of the considerable investments on research and marketing that have been done in order to assure the release of every new plant, no research has investigated the effectiveness of these branding efforts in terms of consumer’s behavior. This research seeks to evaluate brand awareness and willingness-to-pay on the part of lawn and garden consumers. The discrete choice models used were the logit and probit model on brand awareness and the tobit model on the conditional willingness-to-pay. Results from this study conclude that consumers’ awareness of Texas Superstar TM and Earth-Kind TM in the Texas area is low, but the satisfaction level among aware consumers is high. The presence of awareness was found to increase willingness-to-pay for Texas Superstar TM and Earth-Kind TM by about 10%. Furthermore, profiles of the consumers’ behavioral and demographic characteristics that are more likely to influence brand awareness and willingness-to-pay were identified.

A corporation which is aiming to create a world class brand should evaluate its existing product portfolio as a first step to configure its future products better. Therefore, this study is performed with the collaboration of Temsa Global Company, who desires to create a global brand in the commercial vehicle area: Temsa. The aim of the study is to find out the relationship between the brand specific design characteristics and visual product design features with a semantic approach, through a case study on a local commercial vehicle manufacturer: Temsa Global Company.

This paper focuses on the brand attitudes of generations Y in the areas of Canada and Sweden on YouTube advertisements. The goal of the paper was to see if there is a difference between the attitudes of the two different locations and how these attitudes affect brand recognition and purchase intentions of the products or services being advertised.

Product placement as one of the modern tools of marketing communication has become very important. This is also the case of the Czech Republic, especially after recent legislative changes and related legalization of product placement. The thesis characterizes product placement, states its particular forms and methods of evaluating its effectiveness. The aim of the thesis is to determine the difference between product placement in a situation when in an audiovisual work is presented in the first case known brand, in the second case unknown brand and in the third case fictitious brand. This is examined by the executed experiment based on watching a video with three type situations and filling in a subsequent questionnaire survey. Analysis of the survey results reveals that product placement is the most effective when displaying known brand, using unknown brand is considerably less effective and that the effectiveness of fictitious brand is the lowest. On the basis of statistical hypothesis testing, it is confirmed that there is a statistically significant relation between brand knowledge and its effectiveness.

Advertisers keep seeking new ways to target a wider audience while game developers are trying to monetize their game. This study investigates how Virtual Reality (VR) interactions influence user's sense of presence and brand awareness; specifically brand recall and brand recognition. A 2 (familiar/unfamiliar brands) x 2 (high/low game interactions) between subject design user study was created where 40 participants were recruited to participate in a self-made Virtual Reality game built in Unity. The game objective was to walk through a virtual city and locate the stadium while passing by billboards with static advertisements which the users were not informed about. The data have been collected through post and pre-experiment surveys in addition to two memory tests; brand recall and brand recognition. The results show that users that have the option to interact more with the VR environment can have a slight increase in their sense of presence as well as their recognition to both familiar and unfamiliar brands. Virtual reality in-game advertising can make advertisers unlock new audiences who can not target with traditional media while developers can unlock new revenue streams through entire gaming sessions without disrupting the user experience. / Marknadsförare letar ständigt efter nya vägar att nå ut till en bredare målgrupp samtidigt som spelutvecklare strävar efter att utveckla spel som genererar inkomster. Denna studie undersöker hur interaktioner i Virtual Reality (VR) påverkar användares känsla av närvaro och medvetenhet gällande varumärken; specifikt vad gäller varumärkesåterkallelse och varumärkesigenkänning. En 2 (kända/okända varumärken) x 2 (hög/låg spelinteraktion) mellan-ämnesdesign har använts i en användarstudie där 40 deltagare rekryterades till att delta i ett egentillverkat VR-spel skapat i Unity. Spelet gick ut på att gå genom en virtuell stad för att hitta Stadion och samtidigt passera skyltar med statisk reklam som användaren inte informerades om i förväg. Data har samlats in genom undersökningar före och efter experimentet och två minnestester har genomförts; varumärkesåterkallelse och varumärkesigenkänning. Resultaten visar att användare som har möjlighet att interagera i större utsträckning med VR-miljön kan ha en ökad känsla av närvaro och igenkänning av kända och okända varumärken. Genom att marknadsföra i VR in-game kan marknadsförare nå ut till nya målgrupper de inte når via vanlig media samtidigt som spelutvecklare kan skapa nya inkomstströmmar i spelsessioner utan att störa användarupplevelsen.

Titel: När mediabruset tar över- Hur en butik kan använda sig av gerillamarknadsföring Kurs: 2FE07E Examensarbete i företagsekonomi, Kandidatuppsats 15hp, VT2011 Författare: Rebecca Einarsson, Lejla Kurtovic och Izla Seffo Handledare: Martin Amsteus Examinator: Frederic Bill  Nyckelord: Gerillamarknadsföring, Generation Y, Målgruppsanalys, Attityder, Varumärke:företagsidentitet och företagsimage, Varumärkeskännedom. Syfte: Att skapa kunskap rörande hur en butik kan marknadsföra sig mot Generation Y med hjälp av gerillamarknadsföring.    Metod: Studien är av kvalitativ karaktär med ett induktivt angreppssätt. Det är även en fallstudie och primärdata samlades först in genom en djupgående intervju med fallföretaget, därefter utfördes en målgruppsanalys genom en fokusgrupp samt enkät.                                                                                                   Empiri: Det empiriska kapitlet påbörjas med en presentation av Rut m.fl. som följs av en intervju där målgruppen definierades till Generation Y. Utefter intervjun utformades en målgrupssanalys genom en fokusgrupp och enkät. Teori: De teorier som presenteras har härletts av det empiriska materialet och är relevant för de ämnen som tagits upp. Kapitlet behandlar målgruppsanalys, Generation Y, Varumärke:företagsidentitet och företagsimage,varumärkeskännedom samt gerillamarknadsföring. Avslutning: Studiens slutsatser är att gerillamarknadsföring är användbar då den är kostnadseffektiv, tilltalar Generation Y, ökar varumärkeskännedom och igenkänningsfaktorn samt kan skapa Buzz vilket kan leda till Word-of-mouth.                  Vidare forskning: Förslag till vidare forskning skulle kunna vara att studera ämnet mer ingående och skapa vetenskapligt material då gerillamarknadsföring är ett relativt outforskat område. Det skulle även vara intressant att mäta responsen till gerillamarknadsföring, speciellt de förslag som resulterat från denna studie. / When the media noise is taking over – How a store can make use of Guerrilla marketing Authors: Rebecca Einarsson • Lejla Kurtovic • Izla Seffo Tutor: Martin Amsteus Examiner: Frederic Bill 2FE07E Bachelor thesis in Business administration • Marketing programme School of Business and Economics atLinneaus University in Växjö • Spring 2011 Keywords: Guerrilla marketing • Generation Y • Target audience analysis • Attitudes • Brand: corporate identity and corporate image • Brand recognition Traditional marketing has been caught in a vicious circle. People have limited attention and are also limited by money, which means that consumers cannot pay attention to all advertising or buy everything. As companies invest more money on advertising it results in even more messages for people to take in and then it may be difficult for the company to get through the "noise". The consumers also tend to build up defenses against these types of traditional messages and actively avoid it, which do not make it easier for today's marketers so therefore marketers must simply find new ways to catch their attention. The purpose of this thesis is to generate knowledge regarding how a store can advertise to Generation Y by means of Guerrilla marketing. The research undertakes a qualitative data collection. Primarily a case study was undertaken and primary data for the main study was collected through an in-depth interview with the case business, and thereafter through a focus group and a survey that were based on an target audience analysis in order to understand the target audience, which in this study is limited to Generation Y.  Secondary data was collected from academic literature, scientific articles, dissertations and webpages. The theories that are researched are derived from the topics that arose from the empirical data. The findings and conclusion of the study is that Guerrilla marketing is cost-efficient, more appealing to Generation Y, enables a dialogue with the customers, increases brand recognition and recognition factor in general, but mostly it can create Buzz which can turn into Word-of-mouth communication. Guerrilla marketing is a relatively unexplored field and suggestions for further research would be to study the subject more profoundly and to create more scientific material in general. It would also be of interest to measure the response to guerilla marketing and especially to test the Guerrilla marketing suggestions that have resulted from this study on Generation Y.

Šimkevičienė, D. (2008) Didmeninės prekybos įmonės ir jos atstovaujamų prekių ženklų žinomumo vaidmuo formuojant vertybinį pasiūlymą darbuotojams. Magistratūros baigiamasis darbas. Vilnius: ISM Vadybos ir ekonomikos universitetas. Darbo tikslas – Nustatyti didmeninės prekybos įmonės ir jos atstovaujamų prekės ženklų žinomumo reikšmę renkantis didmeninės prekybos įmonę, kaip darbdavį. Darbo dalys. Pirmajame darbo etape atlikta mokslinės literatūros analizė ir apibendrinimas. Joje išnagrinėta darbdavio, kaip prekės ženklo žinomumo vertė esamiems ir potencialiems darbuotojams. Taip pat darbuotojų įsitraukimo į darbdavio prekės ženklo kūrimą svarba ir prekių ženklų architektūros tipai. Šio etapo rezultatas – nustatyti patrauklaus darbdavio prekės ženklo kūrimo atributai ir įvardintas prekių ženklų architektūros tipas atitinkantis didmeninės prekybos įmones. Antrajame šio darbo etape empiriniu tyrimu nustatyta kokį svorį didmeninės prekybos įmonės darbdavio pasiūlymo krepšelyje sudaro kompanijos ir jos atstovaujamų prekės ženklų žinomumas. Rezultatai. Tyrimas leido nustatyti ir įvertinti didmeninės prekybos įmonės ir jos atstovaujamų prekės ženklų žinomumo santykinį suvokiamą naudingumą renkantis didmeninės prekybos įmonę, kaip darbdavį, bei per matuotus atributus įvertinti kompanijos ir jos atstovaujamų prekių ženklų žinomumo lygius, kurie buvo išreikšti per atlyginimo dydį procentais. Darbo mokslinė reikšmė. Išnagrinėti iki šiol mažai tirti ryšiai tarp didmeninės prekybos įmonės... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Šimkevičienė, D. (2008) The role of brand recognition and brands representing a distribution company in modelling employee value propositions. Final Master‘s Thesis. Vilnius: ISM University of Management and Economics. Objective of the Thesis: to identify the significance of brand recognition and brands representing a distribution company in selecting a distribution company as an employer. Parts of the Thesis. The first phase of the Thesis included the analysis of scientific literature and summary. During this phase, the analysis of an employer’s value as brand recognition for current and potential employees was executed. The importance of involvement of employees into the employer’s branding, and types of brand architecture were highlighted. The outcome of this phase of the Thesis is: identification of attributes an engaging employer branding; specification of the type of brand architecture complying with the distribution companies. During the second phase of the Thesis the empiric survey provided for specification of standing of a company’s brand recognition and representing brands in the employer’s package offer of a distribution company. Outcomes. The survey provided for the identification and evaluation of relative perceptible utility of brand recognition and brands representing a distribution company in selecting a distribution company as an employer; and evaluation, through the measured attributes, the levels of brand recognition and brands representing a company... [to full text]