Brand Identity and Image in B2B Factory Automation Context

The goal of this thesis is to study how a solution-oriented business-to-business company can utilize its brand as a strategic asset by using the concepts of brand identity and brand image. The study analyses the intended brand message (identity) contrasting it with the customer perceptions (image) to reveal points of parity and congruence. The study uses a case company as an example and discusses the benefits of brand management as well. Internally, brands can be studied by performing a set of interviews amongst top and middle management. The interviews need to consider the various elements of branding from associations to differentiation and value creation. Customers’ perceptions can be reliably studied via online survey designed to compare the intended brand message with customers’ experiences. From the perspective of industrial management the incentive for brand development lies in both monetary and managerial benefits. In literature the four essential benefits of B2B branding are risk dilution, efficiency of communications, strategic direction and price premiums. As a result, suggestive models for brand identity and image were devised and compared. The Case Company perceives itself as a technically oriented open-integrator, with a strong focus on reliability and customer service. Customers agree with the picture in general, but there are some points of parity as well: they are quite satisfied with the company and perceive it as reliable and providing the promised value. The problematic areas revolve around customer interaction and maintaining the leadership position. The results confirm previous findings in B2B branding theory, where the reliability and credibility of the supplier are in major role. The results also suggest a holistic, corporate approach on branding.

The grand voyage : the experience, the narrated experience and the experience economy : an analysis of ocean cruisers' travel blogs

Lectio praecursoria, Åbo Akademi University 7 June 2013.

European luxury brands made in China: the effect of low-cost country manufacturing on brand image and purchase decisions

European luxury brands have an image of manufacturing their products in the same country where the brands originate. However, in the past years many luxury brands have shifted their manufacturing to countries outside Europe. China is now a common manufacturing country for European luxury brands despite the country’s poor image as a manufacturer. Chinese manufacturing is often associated with bad quality, bad labour conditions, mass production, and counterfeits. The image of China does not quite match the image luxury brands enjoy including characteristics such as high end quality, craftsmanship, details, design, or premium price. A negatively perceived country-of-manufacture may have an effect on a brand’s image and consumers’ purchase decisions. This thesis is focused on European luxury brands manufacturing in China, and how this effects the brand image and purchase decisions among luxury consumers. The empirical part of this thesis is based on focus group research, which is a popular method in the field of qualitative research. The main focus group is female luxury consumers in Finland. This main group has been divided into three categories: 1) the university students, 2) the young career women, 3) the experienced luxury consumers. This categorization has been done based on their different stages in luxury consumption. All in all, the empirical research consisted of 11 interviews and 29 participants. The main contribution of this thesis was that there is a difference between the opinions of the younger groups (university students and young career women) and the experienced luxury consumers when discussing the effect of country-of-manufacture on brand image and purchase decisions of luxury brands. The younger participants thought that manufacturing luxury products in China might affect the brand image, but their purchase decisions would not be that much affected by the country-of-origin. The experienced luxury consumers had quite a different view on the country-of-origin of luxury brands – they found it an important decisive factor prior making purchases. The majority of experienced luxury consumers would not buy luxury products made in China, and they would always check where these products are made in.

Multi-source ingestion of publisher articles - The SCOAP3 repository experience

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Data Management [in eprints] for arts research: the experience at University of the Arts London

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Hacking User Experience in a Repository Service: ScholarSphere as a Case Study

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Big Data Processing in the Cloud: a Hydra/Sufia Experience

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

The impact of long-term brand development strategies on brand value of companies operating in high-technology markets

The objective of the current research is to investigate brand value generation. The study is conducted in the context of high-technology companies. The research aims at finding the impact of long-term brand development strategies, including advertising investments, R&D investments, R&D intensity, new products developed and design. The empirical part of the study incorporated collection of primary and secondary data on 36 companies operating in high-technology sector and being rated as top companies with the most valuable brands by Interbrand consultancy. The data contained information for six consequent years from 2008 to 2013. Obtained data was analyzed using the methods of fixed effect and random effect model (panel data analysis). The analysis showed positive effect of advertising and R&D investments on brand value of high-technology companies in the long run. The impact of remaining three strategies was not approved and further investigation is required.

The role of emotional branding in building brand personality from a consumer perspective

The purpose of this exploratory research is to study the role of emotional branding in building brand personality. The research is conducted from the perspective of the consumer, more specifically the Finnish Generation Y females. The aim of the thesis is to gain insights and understanding on the key concepts and contribute to the Generation Y literature. In addition, the research examines the effect of certain cultural implications on the process of building brand personality. The research was conducted as an embedded single-case study, in which qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with a sample of six consumers and personal observation within one of the concept stores of the case company. In order to triangulate the data, secondary sources were utilized to gain more information about the case company. The results indicated a connection between emotional branding and the formulation of brand personality, which can be manipulated according to the brand personality drivers. Congruence with consumer self-conceptualization and set of values were discovered to strengthen the emotional bonding. As the end result, the research was able to clarify the process-thinking behind emotional branding.

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.

Brand Identity of an Ecological Oriented SME

Tämän eksploratiivisen tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on tutkia yrittäjän persoonallisuuden roolia ekologisesti suuntautuneen brändin identiteetin ja assosiaatioiden rakentamisessa. Tutkimus on tehty yrittäjän näkökulmasta, jonka kontekstina ovat pienet ja keskisuuret yritykset. Tämä tutkimus pyrkii laajentamaan ja saamaan ymmärrystä keskeisistä käsitteistä, ja samalla edistämään PK-yrityksiin liittyvää kirjallisuutta. Tämän lisäksi tutkimus tarkastelee mitä assosiaatioita ekologisesti suuntautunut brändi korostaa identiteetissään. Tutkimus suoritettiin tapaustutkimuksena. Laadullista primääridataa kerättiin teemahaastattelemalla yrittäjää, havainnoimalla yhtä case-yrityksen messuosastoa, sekä keräämällä yrittäjän persoonallisuusattribuutteja. Jotta tutkimus saavuttaisi myös datan triangulaation, sekundääristä dataa kerättiin vahvistamaan aiempaa tutkimusta. Yhtenä sekundäärilähteenä toimivat kaksi artikkelia, jotka auttoivat vahvistamaan aiemmin esiin nostetut yrittäjän persoonallisuusattribuutit. Persoonallisuusattribuutteja verrattiin case-yrityksen brändin identiteettiin, jotta yrittäjän persoonallisuuden rooli brändin identiteetin rakentamisessa saataisiin selville. Tulokset osoittivat yhteyden brändin identiteetin ja yrittäjän persoonallisuuden välillä ekologisesti suuntautuneessa case-yrityksessä. Tulokset paljastivat myös joitakin yleisiä assosiaatioita joita luodaan ja vahvistetaan brändin identiteetin eri osa-alueiden avulla.

Creating a Branding Process Model for Living Area Brands - Developing and managing a new living area brand

The objective of this thesis is to understand how to create and develop a successful place brand and how to manage it systematically. The thesis thoroughly explains the phenomenon of place brands and place branding and presents different sub-categories of place branding. The theoretical part of the thesis provides a wide overview on the prevailing literature of place branding, place brand development and place brand management, which form the basis of the thesis’ theoretical framework. The theoretical evidence is gathered from a case living area. The living area is developed by one construction company, which has a significant role in the construction industry in Finland. The empirical evidence is gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews by interviewing the new living area’s carefully selected stakeholder groups. Afterwards the empirical data is analyzed and reflected to the theoretical findings. After examining the case living area, the thesis will present a new living area branding process model based on prevailing theories and empirical findings.

User Experience of Geocaching and Its Application to Tourism and Education

Advances in technology have provided new ways of using entertainment and game technology to foster human interaction. Games and playing with games have always been an important part of people’s everyday lives. Traditionally, human-computer interaction (HCI) research was seen as a psychological cognitive science focused on human factors, with engineering sciences as the computer science part of it. Although cognitive science has made significant progress over the past decade, the influence of people’s emotions on design networks is increasingly important, especially when the primary goal is to challenge and entertain users (Norman 2002). Game developers have explored the key issues in game design and identified that the driving force in the success of games is user experience. User-centered design integrates knowledge of users’ activity practices, needs, and preferences into the design process. Geocaching is a location-based treasure hunt game created by a community of players. Players use GPS (Global Position System) technology to find “treasures” and create their own geocaches; the game can be developed when the players invent caches and used more imagination to creations the caches. This doctoral dissertation explores user experience of geocaching and its applications in tourism and education. Globally, based on the Geocaching.com webpage, geocaching has been played about 180 countries and there are more than 10 million registered geocachers worldwide (Geocaching.com, 25.11.2014). This dissertation develops and presents an interaction model called the GameFlow Experience model that can be used to support the design of treasure hunt applications in tourism and education contexts. The GameFlow Model presents and clarifies various experiences; it provides such experiences in a real-life context, offers desirable design targets to be utilized in service design, and offers a perspective to consider when evaluating the success of adventure game concepts. User-centered game designs have adapted to human factor research in mainstream computing science. For many years, the user-centered design approach has been the most important research field in software development. Research has been focusing on user-centered design in software development such as office programs, but the same ideas and theories that will reflect the needs of a user-centered research are now also being applied to game design (Charles et al. 2005.) For several years, we have seen a growing interest in user experience design. Digital games are experience providers, and game developers need tools to better understand the user experience related to products and services they have created. This thesis aims to present what the user experience is in geocaching and treasure hunt games and how it can be used to develop new concepts for the treasure hunt. Engineers, designers, and researchers should have a clear understanding of what user experience is, what its parts are, and most importantly, how we can influence user satisfaction. In addition, we need to understand how users interact with electronic products and people, and how different elements synergize their experiences. This doctoral dissertation represents pioneering work on the user experience of geocaching and treasure hunt games in the context of tourism and education. The research also provides a model for game developers who are planning treasure hunt concepts.