Konsumenter använder varumärken dagligen och exponering av varumärken sker överallt: i reklam, böcker, filmer, människor och så vidare. Tidigare forskning visar att konsumenter använder varumärken för att bygga upp sin självbild och skapa sin identitet, samt att konsumenter kan ha mer eller mindre starka relationer till varumärken. Varumärken i sig är bara materiella markörer, de blir meningsfulla för konsumenterna först då de sätts in i ett sammanhang och får en individuell historia uppbyggt kring sig. Studiens syfte är att utifrån ett konsumentperspektiv visa hur meningsskapande i en relation mellan ett varumärke och en konsument kan se ut. Detta genom att reda ut frågeställningen: ”Hur kan en konsument skapa mening i sin relation till ett varumärke?”. En fallstudie har genomförts, där en individs meningsskapande kring ett varumärke har undersökts. Fallstudien bestod av två djupgående intervjuer och fem observationer. Resultatet har analyserats med hjälp av teorier kring bland annat meningsskapandeprocesser och varumärkessymbolik. Slutsatsen är tre faktorer som kan bidra till meningsskapande kring ett varumärke: överensstämmelse med konsumentens ”jag”, symbolisk innebörd och visuellt tilltalande, och användning. / Consumers use brands daily and the exposure of brands takes place everywhere: in advertisements, books, movies, people, and so on. Previous research shows that consumers use brands to create their self-image and identity, and that consumer can have stronger or weaker relationships with brands. Brands in their selves are only material markers, brands become meaningful to consumers when they are put into a context and receive an individual story built around them. The purpose of this paper is to show how consumers can create meaning in their relationship with brands. This is by sorting out the issue: “How can a consumer create meaning in the relationship with a brand? “. A case study has been carried out, in which an individual's meaning creation to a brand has been investigated. The case study consisted of two interviews and five observations. The results were analyzed using theories about meaning creation processes and brand symbolic. The conclusions are three factors that may contribute to the creation of meaning towards a brand: correspondence with the consumer's “self”, symbolic meaning and visually appearance, and the use of the brand.

Our modern society is based on a culture of consumption, where individuals are in an on- going search for self-realization through consumption. But in a society with buzz a of commercials and information, a society where media users are getting more critical towards commercialized messages it’s harder for companies to be heard. To be heard, companies need to create messages that their customers choose to listen to. Content marketing is a marketing strategy that aims to do just that. The purpose with this study is to get a deeper understanding of content marketing as a phenomenon within a consumption society by studying IKEAs series Vad gafflar ni om?. The study has a starting point in Bauman’s theories about consumption life, Giddens theories about the reflexive self, Jenkins theories about convergence culture and Faircloughs critical discourse analysis. The critical discourse analysis was made through Faircloughs three-dimensional conception of discourse, which is a model consisting a linguistic analysis of the text, the discourse practise and the social practice. To get a deeper insight in the reception of the text, qualitative interviews with text consumers where also made. The result of the analysis showed that different types of identities and norms where presented by IKEA in the series, which all could be achieved through consumption. The text consumer is most likely influenced by the ideology consumerism, which can be why they agree with how IKEA present different identities. IKEA presents a narrow image of the typical swede, where that are presumed to be middle class and own their own house. A distinct promotion discourse could not be identified, although a consumption discourse was identified throughout the series. The text consumers felt that the content was mostly entertaining and educating, which could be the result of the non-exiting promotional discourse but also the use of an entertaining-genre. The text consumers were also positively disposed by the content that can be, in comparison to Grusells study, because they choose to see it by themselves.