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The interest in topics such as the environment, health and sustainability has increased dramatically in recent years, due to concerns about global warming and demographic change, giving way to the concept of “green branding”.
This bachelor thesis proposes the application of a green branding strategy in order to position Irish agri-food products in the German grocery retail market, and explores its potential effectiveness and current relevance. Firstly, this work intends to offer an overall understanding of the characteristics and implications of a green branding strategy. Secondly, it analyses the connection with Ireland as a country of origin for agri-food products, by putting forward the different arguments for its suitability for the respective products. Finally, the key learnings regarding the successful implementation of a green branding strategy are discussed, based on a real-life best-practice case.
This research employed previous academic and trade literature to develop a theoretical foundation for understanding the concept of green branding in a marketing context. Various forms of industry, consumer and retail insights were used to identify the extent of demand for green brands in Germany and to analyse strength and weaknesses of the Irish agri-food industry in this regard.
An expert interview with the Marketing Manager for Kerrygold in Germany was conducted to uncover points arising from the best-practice application of a green branding strategy.
The findings indicate that there is significant theoretical and practical evidence to suggest that the application of a green branding would be an effective positioning strategy for Irish agri-food in the German consumer market.
Die SICK STEGMANN GmbH verkauft ihre Motor-Feedback-Systeme als Komponenten zum Einbau in Servo-, Linear- und Torquemotoren verkauft. Die Motoren werden wiederrum in Maschinen und Anlagen verbaut. Vor allem Motoren mit Einkabeltechnologie, die durch die Schnittstelle HIPERFACE DSL® von SICK bereitgestellt wird, gelten als entscheidender Vorteil für den Maschinenbauer, der dadurch letztlich einen geringeren Verkabelungsaufwand hat. Das Problem entsteht dabei, dass der Maschinenbauer nur den fertigen Motor sieht und die Produkte von SICK als Komponenten für ihn nicht ersichtlich sind. Weiterhin gewinnen umfangreiche Servicestrukturen immer mehr an Bedeutung, diese hatten in der Vergangenheit in der Business Unit „Motor-Feedback-Systeme“ einen geringen Stellenwert. Die Thesis soll klären, inwieweit der Wandel vom Komponentenhersteller hin zum Service- und Solution Provider vollzogen werden kann und welche Positionierungsmaßnahmen dafür notwendig sind. Im Rahmen von Experteninterviews und einer internen Kundenbefragung mit Hilfe eines standardisierten Fragebogens wird der Ist-Zustand beschrieben und daraufhin eine Soll-Analyse zur Klärung der Forschungsfragen abgeleitet. Die Analysen zeigen, dass Veränderungen auf Produkt- und Serviceseite notwendig sind, um vermehrt Maschinenbauer anzusprechen und hier einen Kaufwunsch zu platzieren. Im Detail beschäftigt sich die Thesis mit der Ausarbeitung neuer Positionierungsstrategien für Motor-Feedback-Systeme und Services. Ferner werden Handlungsempfehlungen zu weiteren strategischen Überlegungen beschrieben. Die Evaluierung schließt die Bachelorthesis ab.
The use of social media for marketing purposes has already begun replacing virtually all traditional marketing practices in order to cater to a generation of digital natives and young festival goers – a trend that can be especially observed in the music industry today. For all that, not all marketers of music festivals are fully informed about the necessity of a well-developed and multifaceted social media strategy. The goal of this study was to explore the topic of strategic social media in music festival organizations and to derive a model upon which music festival organizations can establish and form their social media strategy more effectively. For this purpose, a literature review was conducted and a combined social media model for assessing social media strategies of music festival organizations was proposed. Six prevailing themes pertaining to social media strategy that were identified constitute the model: 1. Channel selection and evaluation, 2. Audience analysis, 3. Communication style, 4. Social media content, 5. Social monitoring and risk management, and 6. Roles and responsibilities. In the second part of this study, a qualitative research design employing interviews and a case study was used in order to explore strategic social media use in leading festivals in Serbia, Croatia and North Macedonia. The findings of this study reveal about the impact of specific social media platforms, the use of analytics tools for gathering audience insights, the two-way interactive communication with the fans, the efficiency of content resulting from co-creation, the role and importance of PR in social media, as well as the position of social media in the organization and the staffing approach for social media marketing.
Companies operating in the grocery industry are facing low customer loyalty, resulting in strong customer switching behaviour. Additionally, the high similarity of the products predominantly prevents them from deriving benefits from switching barriers. As these issues represent decisive interfering factors for a sustainable and successful business, we intend to examine possible customer retention strategies, which target an increase in customer loyalty. We aim to identify the most appropriate reward strategy in the context of customer loyalty for direct sellers in the grocery industry.
In order to compare and evaluate different possibilities, we conducted an empirical study. Our study focuses on the concrete case of bofrost*, a representative of direct sellers. A total of about 430 bofrost* customer panel members participated in an online survey. With four different survey versions, four customer groups were influenced by different specific customer retention strategies. After being confronted with unfavourable situations, participants had to state how likely they would recommend the company, intend to stay loyal to the company and abstain from competitive offers.
The survey data reveals no significant differences among the four groups. Therewith, based on the study results, we cannot diagnose the best strategy. Nevertheless, based on the theory of cognitive dissonance, we highly recommend bofrost* and other direct sellers to surprise the customer with a present, namely with a T-shirt, discreetly embroidered with the company logo. Furthermore, this research highlights the specific potential of direct sellers - especially in the grocery industry - to reinforce relational switching costs by implementing this suggested customer retention strategy. Thereby, companies can strengthen customer loyalty in the long-term and are able to prevent customers from churning. Moreover, company-specific recommendations of action are provided to bofrost*.
This research creates value to direct sellers, specifically of the grocery industry, by offering a foundation for decisionmaking regarding the design of a sustainably effective customer retention strategy. This takes companies a step closer to the increase of customer loyalty, which is essential in the light of a highly competitive market in which own customers are likely to get attracted from competitors.
After the Second World War and especially in the early 70s a new phenomenon arose – today widely known as globalization. It eliminated barriers and thus increased international competition. Companies such as Siemens, General Electrics and Procter & Gamble were forced to act globally in order to stay competitive and therefore they had to redefine their businesses in a strategic and internationally oriented manner. As one of a company’s most essential departments, human resources was tremendously forced to adapt to the changed business environment. Language skills, cultural awareness and global mobility were only a few new requirements in human resources.
Early in the beginning of globalization, large companies recognized the opportunity to outsource specific departments with the goal of cost-saving and resource bundling. Manufacturing was and still is a predestined department to make use of outsourcing, whereas the situation for other departments including IT, procurement and human resources is more complex. The main fear is losing control to the outsourcing partner. Main departments with a strategic importance for the overall success are therefore only conditionally suitable for outsourcing. Companies need to ask themselves, how much control over their human capital they are willing to sacrifice for saving costs and staying competitive. With the purpose to evade this conflict of objectives, companies seek for a hybrid model, which allowed them maintaining control and cutting costs at the same time.
In the early 70s, first companies found the solution in the Shared Service Center model, which then rapidly spread throughout a number of countries and industries. Human Resources Shared Service Centers can be defined as a hybrid model, combining advantages and avoiding disadvantages of outsourcing and decentralization of Human Resources. The Shared Service Center model is expected to lower costs, improve efficiency and service quality, and enable organizations to better focus on core functions. Although the strategy seems only having advantages, there are many aspects to consider in the pre-implementation phase. Moving to the Shared Service Center model represents an immense strategic project, including high risk, costs and impact on the overall success. For this reason, the project needs to be well planned, designed, implemented, monitored
and evaluated from the right people, at the right time and at the right place. Any small mistakes made during the project might have an unpredictable and irreversible impact and prevent the company from benefiting of the Shared Service Center model or might even force the organization to stop the project completely. Before deciding to implement Shared Service Centers, companies need to accept that there is neither guarantee for success nor a universally valid success strategy. Best and worst practices will be discovered during the transition at the earliest and a success evaluation can only happen in the post-transition phase. Although the Shared Service Center model is not a recent trend as it found first-time application many decades ago, the topic remains relevant as many companies still hesitate implementing this risky strategy. Some organizations succeeded, others failed and returned to their old approach while some are currently in the transition phase.
Before deciding to move to the Shared Service Center model, one of the top pharma company’s was facing the same issues as other companies on such a scale. The management increasingly felt the pressure to offer the same or an even better service quality at a lower price. Changing the strategy and implementing Shared Service Centers across the globe was seen as the most promising solution. The large pharma company with employees of many nationalities worldwide offers a huge variety of cultures, which can be seen as a chance, but also as an obstacle on the way to a successful Shared Service Center implementation. Primarily, the company has to consider that the project might not work in the same pace, quality and method for all countries. Finding best practices for all countries is a desirable goal, yet not easy to achieve.
With information on corporate ethical behavior now more accessible than ever, consumers have become increasingly socially and environmentally aware, which has translated into a growing demand for ethically made products. For ethically minded consumers, certification labels such as fair trade or organic are simple indicators of whether a product meets their ethical standards. For companies that wish to become certified, which is a lengthy and sometimes expensive process, there are several pertinent questions to consider, such as how much customers really value particular labels and whether multiple labels yield significant added competitive benefits. One should also consider how best to collect this information, because simply asking customers via surveys isn’t guaranteed to return results that actually reflect or predict real-life behavior (Carrington et al. 2010). For this paper, we collected information on consumers’ willingness to pay for products with the organic and fair trade labels (both individually and in combination) using two different methods: a traditional questionnaire and a reaction-time based electronic research method designed to reveal subconscious value perceptions. The factors involved were product type and number of labels. We found little evidence to suggest that additional ethical labels significantly increase willingness to pay.
This research is exploring how companies can create the right brand image through marketing activities and brand management. We will determine all the components needed in luxury goods industry for a successful brand image establishment and how important this is in the luxury industry. We will start by discussing about the important aspects of brands, luxury and the luxury industry leading to a more practical chapter of the brand image creation methods in luxury goods industry with real life examples and finally concluding the brand image being a main ingredient in consumer-based brand equity creation. The conclusion is formulated with Aaker´s (1991) model of brand equity and Keller´s (2013) dimensions of brand knowledge and finally supported by Na et al. (1999) model of brand power.
The main focus of this thesis will be to shed light on the existence of cognitive biases. As many researchers, such as Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, have proven in the last five decades, people are not always as rational as they would like to believe. It is important to understand the origin of this irrational behaviour as well as its implications on judgements and decisions. Furthermore, cognitive biases also have a significant influence on consumers’ buying behaviour and decision-making. Through extensive research in secondary as well as primary data it will be shown how much of an influence the cognitive biases anchoring, hyperbolic discounting, loss aversion, endowment effect and decoy effect have on consumer buying behaviour. Additionally, recommendations of how these influences can be used in marketing will be given.
The relationship between health care practitioners and the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly drawing public attention due to misguided behaviour. Practices like gift giving, holding luxurious conferences or allowences for research are under scrutiny. With all these influences, how can practicioners stay neutral and have the interest of patients in mind? And what is the level of emotions and data used by the pharma industry when marketing drugs to a physician? In order to find out, we targeted pharmaceutical industry managers and directors to participate in an eleven question online questionnaire. For example, participants were asked to rate the best approach between data and emotions to persuade physicians. The results show tendencies in the data, but fail to show significant evidence for our hypotheses. Further research is needed in order to clarify which factors influence the decision for an emotional or data driven approach.
Diese Bachelorthesis diskutiert die Bedeutung eines nachhaltigen Produktmanagements, um langfristig die Kaufbereitschaft von Waschmittel bei Schweizer Konsumenten zu steigern. Aufgrund der derzeitigen Umweltthematik ist es notwendig, dass sowohl Unternehmen als auch Konsumenten nachhaltiges Verhalten annehmen können. Diese Arbeit erschließt Handlungsempfehlungen für den Waschmittelmarkt in der Schweiz. Bezogen auf die Unilever Schweiz GmbH, soll verstanden werden, welche Erfolgsfaktoren Konsumenten zu einem nachhaltigen Kauf animieren. Basierend auf einer Literaturrecherche, die sich auf gegenwärtige Theorien bezieht, werden Preisstrategien, Produktauslobungen, PoS Kommunikationen, das Markenmanagement sowie die Einschränkung von Entscheidungsfaktoren berücksichtigt. Durch eine Wettbewerbsanalyse sowie durch einen Konsumententest werden Erfolgsfaktoren verifiziert. Diese quantitative und qualitative Erhebung ermöglicht eine ganzheitliche Betrachtung des Waschmittelmarktes, wobei Strategien gezielt für die Unilever Schweiz GmbH implementiert werden können.