Bakgrund: Ett företagsekonomiskt problem som organisationer stöter på är förändringen som sker på arbetsmarknaden i samband med den ökade digitaliseringen. Den ökade digitaliseringen har lett till att organisationer har behövt ställa om sina employer branding strategier. Detta för att kunna tillmötesgå de nya förväntningar och efterfrågningar som ställs på organisationen från den externa miljön, och framför allt från arbetssökande. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att beskriva hur den ökade digitaliseringen inverkar på organisationers employer branding strategier vid attrahering av personal. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en induktiv ansats där roll av teori inte är studiens utgångspunkt. För att kunna beskriva den ökade digitaliseringens inverkan på employer branding, har en kvalitativ fallstudie utförts med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Informanterna har bestått av personer inom HR-avdelningar som arbetar strategiskt med employer branding. Därefter har en tematisk kartläggningsmetod använts för att kunna tolka informanternas svar. Slutsats: I studiens slutsats beskrivs de aspekter som har inverkat på en organisations employer branding strategier vid attrahering av personal på en ökad digitaliserad arbetsmarknad. Aspekterna som lyftes fram genom studiens empiriinsamling var organisationens synlighet, kommunikation, associering med interna ambassadörer och efterfrågan av hemarbete. Dessa aspekter beskriver hur organisationer har behövt ställa om sina strategier samt vilka förväntningar som finns på organisationer i samband med den ökade digitaliseringen. / Background: A business economic issue that organizations encounter is the change that is taking place in the labor market in connection with the increased digitalization. The increased digitalization has led to organizations having to change their employer branding strategies. This is to be able to meet the new expectations and demands placed on the organization from the external environment, and above all from jobseekers. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to describe how the increased digitalization affects organizations' employer branding strategies when attracting staff Method: The study was conducted with an inductive approach where the role of theory is not the starting point of the study. In order to be able to describe the impact of increased digitalization on employer branding, a qualitative case study has been conducted with the help of semi-structured interviews. The informants have consisted of people in HR departments who work strategically with employer branding. Subsequently, a thematic mapping method was used to be able to interpret the informants' answers. Conclusion: The study's conclusion describes the aspects that have influenced an organization's employer branding strategies in attracting staff in an increased digitalized labor market. The aspects highlighted through the study's empirical collection were the organization's visibility, communication, association with internal ambassadors and the demand for teleworking. These aspects describe how organizations have had to change their strategies and what expectations there are of organizations in connection with the increased digitalization.

Abstract A useful tool for companies to use in their differentiation process is proposed to be employee branding. Employee branding is developed and put forth by the management with the main task to formulate the brands vision and values, and communicate them to the employees. To promote the employee engagement and their relationship with the company, corporate storytelling can be applied, with is an internal communication that strengthens the internal rumour and values that represent the brand. Since engagement and motivation is important factors when creating a strong employee brand, there is a need for further research on how corporate storytelling is used by companies to influence employee engagement and motivation, as corporate storytelling leads to deeper commitment among employees. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how companies use corporate storytelling to influence their employee branding. Methodology The authors conducted a qualitative case study on how the retail organization Boomerang. The empirical material was collected thru semi-structured interviews with Boomerangs management and employees. Conclusion The conclusion shows that the employees prefers when corporate storytelling and various communication is put in context, this because it’s easier for the employees to understand. Boomerang seems to understand the importance of working with images and texts to develop an understanding of the brand and the corporate story they represent. It can be concluded that the informal internal sources have greater impact on the employees, this may be because the informal internal sources is put more in context to their work, rather the more formal internal sources. There is a need for better balance in the use of corporate storytelling, between the sources and what is stated in the information. Keywords: Branding, Employee branding, Corporate storytelling, Formal internal messages, Informal internal messages, Psychological contract, Brand commitment.

Title: Which is the student´s perception of the city? Aim: The aim is to describe and analyze how students perceive a city's image and the factors that characterize the city's place brand. The subsidiary aim is to observe the impact of the city's image has to attract students for residence. The research questions are: 1. What factors do students perceive as characteristic for the city's image? 2. What impact has the factors on students' choice of residence? 3. How do the students’ perceptions differ? Method: Data for the study were collected through preliminary study, an interview with the city's leaders. The pilot study gathered data, which gave basis to our web-based questionnaire sent out to the campus students at the University of Gävle. The study therefore mixes qualitative and quantitative method but relate to quantitative research design. Collected data were analyzed by descriptive-, factor, correlation and cluster analysis in SPSS. Results & Conclusions: The result shows that students associate the factors activity, feelings and environment as the strongest with Gävle´s place brand. The most significant in students' choice of residential location are restaurants, sports, challenge, site location and career. Various student groups have different opinions of what they associate most strongly with Gävle´s place brand and in their choice of residential location. Suggestions for future research: The current research examines the larger part of the physical aspects of a city's place brand which creates opportunities for future research to study the intangible factors of a place brand from a student perspective. Other recommendations are to conduct interviews with students to more deeply investigate the factors that influence their choice of residence. We also urge to test our model developed for other target groups in a city and a final suggestion is to test the study's research design and model for other student cities. Contribution of the thesis: The study presents the students´ perception of the Gävle´s place brand, important factors from the students´ perspective are presented in a new theoretical model. Practical use of this paper is given to the cities leaders by understanding what attracts student´s to choose residence. Keywords: Place branding, image, settlement, students, Gävle. / Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva och analysera hur studenter uppfattar en stads image och vilka faktorer som utmärker stadens place brand. Delsyftet är att undersöka vilken inverkan stadens image har för att attrahera studenter för bosättning. Framställning av studiens forskningsfrågor: Vilka faktorer uppfattar studenter som utmärkande för stadens image? Vilken inverkan har faktorerna på studenternas val av bosättning? Hur skiljer sig studenternas uppfattningar? Metod: Data till studien har samlats in genom förstudie i form av en intervju med stadens ledare. Förstudien samlade data vilket gav underlaget till vår webbaserade enkät som skickades ut till campusstudenter på Högskolan i Gävle. Studien blandar därför kvalitativ och kvantitativ metod men förhåller sig till kvantitativ forskningsdesign. Insamlad data analyserades genom deskriptiv-, faktor-, korrelations-, och klusteranalys i statistik programmet SPSS. Resultat & Slutsats: Resultatet visar att aktiviteter, känsla och miljö är de faktorer som studenter förknippas starkast med Gävles place brand. De variabler som associeras starkast till Gävle och är samtidigt mest betydande för studenternas val av bostadsplats är restauranger, idrott, utmaning, platsens läge och karriär. Olika studentgrupper har olika åsikter över vad som de förknippar starkast med Gävles place brand och för val av bostadsplats. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Den aktuella studien undersöker till större del fysiska aspekter hos en stads place brand vilket skapar möjligheter för framtida forskning att studera immateriella faktorer i ett place brand ur ett studentperspektiv. Andra rekommendationer är att utföra kvalitativa intervjuer med studenter för att djupare undersöka faktorer som har inverkan på deras val av bosättning. Vi uppmanar även att pröva vår modell på andra målgrupper i en stad och ett sista förslag är att testa studiens forskningsdesign och modell på andra studentstäder. Uppsatsens bidrag: Uppsatsen framställer studenternas uppfattning om Gävles place brand, vilka faktorer som är viktiga ur studenternas perspektiv och presenteras i en teoretisk modell. Praktisk användning av uppsatsen ges till stadens ledare genom förståelse för det som attraherar mest för studenternas val av bosättning.  Nyckelord: Place branding, image, bosättning, studenter, Gävle.

<p>Nowadays global market is quite attractive for high competition environment.  First is to reduce risks and uncertainties of the business in their home countries. Second is to exploit the growing global market for goods and services which can lead to economies of scale and the increasing of market share. In order to be visible in global market, brands can be used to play an important role. From marketing point of view, brands are the means that consumers use to distinguish products and services based on essential and non-essential attributes and they are a source of business’s differential advantage. Furthermore, brands communicate tangible and intangible advantages and are attractive to a range of feeling. In order to make decisions for brand strategy, branding plays an important role. Critical advantage of branding is for product identification, and it is also the key element for marketers to differentiate a product from its rivals. However, branding provides many benefits apart from identification and differentiation of products</p>

Aim: The aim of this study is to explore the factors that influence the brand building in startup companies. Method: This study implements a qualitative approach and consists of twelve startup companies located in Sweden. Results and Conclusion: The findings suggest that the design of a brand (name and visual aspects), the use of social media, event participation and establishing partnerships is important parts of brand building. In addition, startups frequently make use of employees’ and entrepreneurs’ individual personality for branding purposes. Not only do all participants view branding as an important part of their business but a few respondents even feel it is crucial for the survival of their business. Suggestions for further research: The participants of this study reside in separate industries. This, combined with the sample size is not evidence enough to draw conclusion upon similarities and differences between startups branding practices in terms of industry. Thus, this could be interesting undertaking in the future due to the limited research on this topic. Contribution of the study: This study adds to the existing body of knowledge by uncovering factors such as brand design and social media, to name a few, that is used by startups to build their brand. As a result of this study insights has been given on the importance of branding and the strategies used to increase the brand equity of startups.

Magister Commercii - MCom / The focus of branding is often externally focused, yet it is the employees through their direct interaction with the brand, that can make or break the brand promise. Despite the important role of employees in building the brand, they are often overlooked in brand building strategies. The purpose of the study was to test the effect of internal brand management on brand commitment and brand trust in a government organisation. Front-line employees of the South African Post Office, a state-owned organisation in South Africa was selected to collect the data using convenience sampling. Cronbach Alpha and content validity was used to test the reliability and validity of the measurement instrument. The data was not normally distributed and non-parametric tests were performed during data analysis. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the basic characteristics of the respondents and the correlation coefficient (Rho) was used to test the relationships between variables. All three hypotheses were accepted. The results are consistent with previous research, however, new developments are emerging. For front-line employees to commit to the brand, they must trust the brand, which in turn is created through brand identity. Negative external communication influences the ability of front-line employees to deliver the expected brand promise. Importantly, the role of top management in fostering internal brand management cannot be overlooked.

Orientador: José Carlos Marques / Banca: Marcos Américo / Banca: José Rocco Júnior / Resumo: O presente estudo tem como escopo contribuir com as reflexões sobre o universo da comunicação midiática. Em um mundo que se altera constantemente, as marcas se tornaram ponto de referência por meio do qual nos exprimem. Há anos as marcas fazem parte de nossa realidade, influenciando na forma como compreendemos o mundo e nos comportamos junto à sociedade, exercendo sobre nós um fascínio ou uma relação de proximidade. Isto implica dizer que as marcas, de maneira geral, são expressões de contextos e tendências que afirmam e enaltecem identidades e valores específicos de uma sociedade. Tendo como corpus as manifestações discursivas da marca Nike associadas à Seleção Brasileira de Futebol, o presente trabalho visa entender e analisar quais foram os valores sócio-históricos, ideológicos, culturais e simbólicos, bem como, como as estratégias discursivas trabalhadas nas comunicações midiáticas da marca veiculadas nas Copas do Mundo FIFA entre os anos de 1998 e 2018. Ao compreender a formação discursiva e as condições de produção do discurso, além dos mecanismos e as ressonâncias que circundam as mensagens produzidas pelos discursos das marcas, tem-se a possibilidade de agregar conhecimento em relação às conexões discursivas e ao percurso das produções de sentido da marca. Como procedimento metodológico, as análises foram realizadas de forma diacrônica e sincrônica, a partir de um recorte transdisciplinar, à luz dos pressupostos teóricos da Análise do Discurso de linha francesa / Abstract: The present study aims to contribute with the reflections on the universe of media communication. In a constantly changing world, brands have become a point of reference through which they express us. For years marks have been part of our reality, influencing how we understand the world and behave with society, exerting on us a fascination or a relationship of closeness. This implies that brands, in general, are expressions of contexts and tendencies that affirm and extol specific identities and values of a society. Having as corpus the discursive manifestations of the Nike brand associated to the Brazilian Football Selection, the present work aims to understand and analyze the socio-historical, ideological, cultural and symbolic values, as well as the discursive strategies worked on the brand's media communications in the FIFA World Cups between 1998 and 2018. Understanding the discursive formation and the conditions of discourse production, besides the mechanisms and resonances that surround the messages produced by the discourses of the brands, one has the possibility of adding knowledge in relation to the discursive connections and the course of the productions of brand sense. As a methodological procedure, the analyzes were performed in a diachronic and synchronic manner, from a transdisciplinary cut, in the light of the theoretical assumptions of the French Speech Analysis / Mestre

Purpose- The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of co-branding on brand images from consumers’ perspectives and whether the result of co-branding is consistent with the companies’ expectations or not. Design/methodology/approach- A qualitative research approach is adopted to allow a deeper insight into the impacts of Supreme co-branding from consumers’ perspectives. We conducted in-depth exploratory interviews with 7 consumers of Supreme to analyze the effect of co-branding and explain our research questions. Findings- Branding negligence can cause losses in attracting customers. Co-branding strategy has more advantages than disadvantages. Co-branding partners will influence customers’ brand image. Research limitations- The paper only focuses on the fashion industry and the research object is limited to a single brand’s customers, Supreme fans, without exploring the opinions of consumers of other partner brands. In addition, the age and gender of sample subjects are not evenly distributed.

O objetivo geral do estudo consiste em investigar os aspectos da linguagem da propaganda, das marcas escolhidas para o estudo de casos (Sândalo; Carmen Steffens e Democrata) utilizando como referencial a propaganda comercial (anúncios da mídia impressa) dos calçados da moda. Existe a necessidade de verificar dois aspectos fundamentais no processo de comunicação: o emissor e o receptor, respectivamente o profissional da área de marketing e o grupo de clientes. Sob o ponto de vista do profissional de marketing, o objetivo da ação, o posicionamento e a estratégia de comunicação; e sob o ponto de vista do consumidor, a percepção, a imagem, em relação às propostas teóricas e práticas das empresas. Adaptarem às mudanças solicitadas pelo mercado consumidor brasileiro, constitui o desafio das organizações. A metodologia empregada utiliza a divisão da pesquisa em três partes: a primeira trata de um levantamento bibliográfico constituído do conjunto de pensamentos de vários autores sobre os assuntos relacionados ao tema em estudo; a segunda parte apresenta uma pesquisa documental (mídia impressa) que resultou na coleta de um banco de dados composto por peças publicitárias de calçados das marcas veiculados em outdoors e revistas de moda no período de 2002 a 2006; e a terceira parte aborda a pesquisa qualitativa através de discussões nos grupos de foco (ou Focus Group) que tem o propósito de descobrir o olhar e a percepção do consumidor em relação aos aspectos da linguagem da propaganda. O estudo apresenta como conclusão que não há moda sem sujeitos. Esta idéia significa que na mensagem publicitária deverá existir uma prática lingüística referente ao exercício de uma subjetividade: um conjunto de exercícios de linguagem, baseados em palavras e em imagens, que remetam para a afirmação da existência de sujeitos na mensagem ou, à personalização das entidades comerciais. Pretende-se contribuir, com esse estudo, para um melhor entendimento das estratégias de comunicação utilizadas pelas marcas em estudo, da forma de participação social e cultural, e da influência sobre o comportamento dos jovens, assim como a discussão da relação dos conceitos: moda; propaganda; gestão da marca e branding. / The general objective of the study is to investigate the aspects of the advertising language of the chosen brands for the study of cases (Sândalo; Carmen Steffens and Democrata) taking as a reference the commercial advertising (print media advertising) of the trendy shoes. It is necessary to consider two essential aspects in the communication process: the emitter and the receiver, respectively the marketing area professional and the clients group. According to the marketing professional, the action objective, the positioning and the communication strategy; and according to the customer, the perception, the image in relation to the theoretical and practical proposals of the companies. The organizations aim at adapting to changes required by the Brazilian consuming market. The methodology applied uses the research division in three parts: the first considers a bibliographic raising made of the set of thoughts coming from different authors about the subjects related to the theme under study; the second part shows a documental research (print media) which resulted in the assessment of data bank made of shoe marketing campaigns displayed in billboards and fashion magazines from 2002 to 2006; the third part considers the qualitative research through the discussions in the focus groups which intend to discover the look and perception of the customer in relation to the aspects of the advertising language. The study concludes that there is no fashion without subjects. This idea indicates that in the advertising message there should be a linguistic practice related to the exercise of subjectivity: a set of language exercises based on words and images, which remit to the assertion of the existence of subjects in the message or to the personalization of the commercial groups. It is also the objective of this study to contribute to a better understanding of the communication strategies used by the studied brands, the cultural and social participation form, and the influence upon youngsters behavior as well as the discussion of the concepts relation: fashion; advertising; brand management and branding.

Den offentliga sektorn förändras genom så kallad ”företagisering” vilket innebär att organisationer inom den offentliga sektorn i allt högre grad strävar efter att likna den privata sektorn. Genom detta sker organisationsförändringar som i sin tur leder till ett förändrat arbetssätt inom offentliga organisationer. Employer branding är ett koncept som fått utrymme inom organisationer de senaste 10 åren och främst inom den privata sektorn. Studiens syfte blir därmed att få en fördjupad förståelse för hur man i kommunal kontext arbetar med employer branding för att behålla och utveckla befintliga kompetenser. Detta sker genom att analysera olika processer som sker inom organisationerna riktat mot medarbetarnas trivsel. För att uppnå syftet undersöktes två organisationer; kommunövergripande samt Region Norrbotten. Inom den kommunövergripande organisationen undersöktes två förvaltningar. Empirin utgjordes av fem intervjupersoner inom de två organisationerna varav alla fem hade expertkunskaper inom det valda området. Studiens resultat visade på att organisationerna inte arbetar under konceptet intern employer branding men att de har olika delar som de arbetar med vilka går att applicera under begreppet intern employer branding. De olika delarna redogjordes och analyserades sedan vilket gjorde det möjligt att konstatera att intern employer branding är ett koncept som den offentliga sektorn kan dra nytta av och även har möjlighet att implementera i framtiden. Employer branding är ett koncept som kommit att växa de senare åren vilket medför att det är ett relativt outforskat område och då speciellt inom de interna aspekterna. Mer framtida forskning kring konceptet employer branding med fokus på de interna delarna och den offentliga sektorn är något vilket därför lär vara nödvändigt.