How to increase brand quality perception with audiovisual content? : Exploring the role of emotions in B2C and B2B contexts

This study discusses how audiovisual content can influence brand quality perceptions. The purpose of this study is to explore how audiovisual content creation can increase brand quality perceptions. This research problem is addressed with three sub questions, which aim at clarifying the role of emotions between content marketing and brand quality perception, explaining how different functions of audiovisual content can increase brand quality perception, and by identifying and comparing the key differences in content creation in business-to-consumer and business-to-businesscontexts. The theoretical background of the study is in brand personality, consumer emotions, consumerbrand relationships, content marketing and B2B branding literature. The empirical research part includes a single-case study. The case company was a Swiss startup that wished to build a highquality brand for both B2C and B2B segments. The empirical data was collected in September 2014. Eight interviews were conducted; seven with target segment representatives and one with an existing customer of the case company. The empirical findings were analyzed with thematic analysis and finally a 5-stage framework was created based on the findings of the research, offering a guideline for high-quality content creation. This study finds that emotions play an important role in brand quality perceptions. Psychological processes, emotion, cognition and conation, influence the engagement process of the target segment which ultimately can lead to activation and electronic word-of-mouth. Brand quality perception is the result of the overall emotion of the brand. The overall emotion derives from brand personality, brand concept, product attributes and utilitarian benefits of the brand. The entertaining and educational functions of the audiovisual content can target and evoke these emotional processes, and result in increased quality perceptions. In the B2B context, emotions are found to play a relatively smaller role in the quality perception processes. However, the significance of emotions cannot be ignored, since they can emphasize the value for the buying organization, and build on the trust and loyalty among the potential customers. The final framework presents five stages of content creation that ultimately improve brand quality perceptions. These stages help marketers to design and implement their content and evoke positive emotions in their target segment as part of a quality-based marketing strategy. Further research is warranted to quantitatively test the generalizability of the framework. Further research is also suggested to make the framework adaptable to different stages of the brand life cycle.

Planering hur person- och kollektivtrafiken skall ordnas på området : Kaskö - Korsnäs - Kristinestad - Malax - Närpes

Planeringen av hur person- och kollektivtrafiken skall ordnas på området påbörjades i mars 2015. Planen var klar i september 2015. Arbetet syftade till att ge kommunerna och NTM-centralen ett verktyg varmed de i fortsättningen ska kunna säkerställa att planeringen av persontrafiken gemensamt processeras på ett så ändamålsenligt sätt som möjligt så att man därmed kan se till att utbudet är tillräckligt högklassigt och effektivt i framtiden. Under arbetet utreddes nuläget för kollektiv- och persontrafiken inom planeringsområdet genomgående. Dessutom diskuterades kommunernas beredskap för gemensam anskaffning av olika trafiktyper och olika långa avtalsperioder samt utveckling av samarbetet .Kollektivtrafiksexpert Anders Pulkkis på NTM-centralen i Södra Österbotten har deltagit i styrgruppsarbetet. Som utvecklingsåtgärder i arbetet klassificerades kollektivtrafikens turer i fyra klasser enligt lönsamhet. Klassificeringen användes som verktyg i identifieringen av turernas betydelse och planeringen av anskaffningarna. För kommunernas och NTM-centralens anskaffning av trafik fastställdes ett förlopp för åren 2015–2019. Som utvecklingsåtgärder har man även begrundat utveckling av organiseringen av kollektivtrafikplaneringen till exempel genom en regionlogistiker som är gemensam för kommunerna.

Perception of privacy in smartphone applications: profiling users based on personality types.

This document is focused on studying privacy perception and personality traits of users in the context of smartphone application privacy. It is divided into two parts. The first part presents an in depth systematic literature review of the existing academic writings available on the topic of relation between privacy perception and personality traits. Demographics, methodologies and other useful insight is extracted and the available literature is divided into broader group of topics bringing the five main areas of research to light and highlighting the current research trends in the field along with pinpointing the research gap of interest to the author. The second part of the thesis uses the results from the literature review to administer an empirical study to investigate the current privacy perception of users and the correlation between personality traits and privacy perception in smartphone applications. Big five personality test is used as the measure for personality traits whereas three sub-variables are used to measure privacy perception i.e. perceived privacy awareness, perceived threat to privacy and willingness to trade privacy. According to the study openness to experience is the most dominant trait having a strong correlation with two privacy sub-variables whereas emotional stability doesn’t show any correlation with privacy perception. Empirical study also explores other findings as preferred privacy sources and application installation preferences that provide further insight about users and might be useful in future.