Browsing by Subject "marketing"

This study aims to find out if differentiation of the features of the 4P of the product milk can create value to customers in a particular customer segment. Creating value is in the core in every company´s actions. Customers buy products and services that create value to them and are willing to pay from the value they get. The more the product creates value, the more the customers are willing to pay. This study focused on the customer segment of young women with academic background who live in the capital region. Milk is a bulk product consumed widely in Finland. The product also has significant role in the nutritional history of the country and has a big role in Finnish nutritional recommendations. However the consumption of milk has decreased over the years. The theoretical background of this study is based on the following theories: marketing strategy and the 4P, customer value and differentiation. These theories formed the theoretical framework which gave the focus to the empirical experiment. The approach of the study was qualitative because qualitative research aims to understand the phenomenon it studies and the approach is more suitable for analysing verbal data. Qualitative research wants to get a deeper understanding and it gives room for individual´s thoughts and experience. The study was executed and a group interview using theme interview methods. For the study chosen features of the 4P of the product milk were differentiated and group interview focused on them. The differentiated features were the following. For product organic milk and milk with added protein, for price milk with a lower price, for place online shopping and for promotion advertising milk on social media. The findings of this study were that in some cases differentiation of the features if the 4P of the product milk can create value for customers but in most cases it does not. The focus group felt that the most valuable differentiated feature of the 4P was organically produced milk and other factors that supported the well-being of the production animals and the environment. If a company selling or producing milk tries to create value to its customers through differentiation of the features of the 4P, it needs to consider carefully which features to focus on.

Ready meal market is a mature business sector in Finland where competitive advantage is hard to achieve. When trying to get a foothold of the ready meal category, is it worthwhile to make a packaging redesign? Consumers buying behavior is considered to be rational and utility driven, but the interpretation has been challenged. The thesis uses eye tracking methodologies in studying consumer behavior. With eye tracking, it is possible to quantify consumer’s implicit visual search behavior into measurable and analyzable form, without the interference of conscious interpretation of perceived stimulus. Thus eye tracking data can assist companies in understanding their customer’s behavior and in creating effective and relevant packaging and marketing decisions. This thesis will provide insight on consumer behavior, eye tracking, and packaging and seizes the conducted research data; is it adequate to proceed with brand owners old design or should they consider moving to a new and unconventional, market-disrupting package design?

The government of Lao PDR has promoted teak planting for over 40 years, resulting in a significant increase in the area of plantation teak. Most of the plantations are managed by individual farmers and play an important role as a kind of financial insurance system, and a ready source of quick income generation. By cultivating a teak plot it may be determined whether a farmer has land tenure to the plot and through cultivation whether they can afford to send children to school. In Northern Lao PDR the primary sales channel for teak in a complex environment are middlemen. The common association with middlemen is rather negative and they are perceived as rent-seeking actors in the value chain. However in the current teak market system in Lao PDR middlemen take responsibility for many time-consuming steps of performing teak sales in compliance with laws and regulations. In addition, unofficial fees in connection with felling and transporting strongly influence teak wood flows by increasing costs and making the process vulnerable to adversity. In general, middlemen save farmers the trouble of having to deal with unofficial costs and marketing, and therefore they represent a convenient sales channel for farmers. These extra costs are difficult for the society to tackle down as long as Lao PDR possess low effectiveness in the national formal and social control systems. This study focuses on the existing practices of teak middlemen and their implications for teak smallholders. Farmers’ perceptions of the various actors and issues with sales to be addressed are presented and discussed. In this study 120 semi-structured interviews with smallholder teak farmers and 11 with Lao authorities and non-governmental organizations throughout the forestry sector were conducted in four small villages and in Vientiane (the capital) in Northern Lao PDR. A middleman case study was included in the study to demonstrate current actions taken by middlemen. According to the results of this study farmers are lacking the time and motivation to participate in the highly regulated formalities of marketing teak, and prefer middlemen as their selling channel for their wood. Farmers do understand and, based on previous support, report of the importance of external development projects providing training and information related to teak markets, yet consider them challenging without more guidance and structural change in official governing practices.

Current food production and consumption practices have major impacts on the climate and the environment. Studies are calling for a transition towards plant-based diets as climate change poses an imminent threat of global natural catastrophes. Plant-based milk (PBM) products can be seen as radical innovations and as alternatives to liquid dairy milk that have started to break away from their former ethical and medical market niches. This study aims to gain understanding in how PBM products are positioned as alternatives to dairy milk and how the mainstreaming of these products could challenge the dairy sector. Specifically, the study is interested in how Finnish PBM products are marketed and how these PBM producers could be potential drivers of a sustainability transition in the food industry. This study focused on the digital marketing material that Finnish PBM producers used during the initial launch of their PBM products. The materials were collected online from existing and locatable sources (e.g. websites and social networking spaces) as well as from solicited material acquired from company representatives. The data was analyzed by conducting qualitative content analysis on the materials. The results showed that Finnish PBMs are marketed as alternative yet convenient products that are simultaneously health, tasty, and functional, as well as sustainable and plant-based. Even though Finnish producers were found to be hesitant to explicitly challenge the dairy sector, some brands positioned their products as part of a new food system that is transitioning away from the use of animal-products. These results suggest that the mainstreaming of Finnish PBMs and specifically oat milk is a positive shift towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption. Furthermore, the involvement of well-established food and dairy industry actors in the Finnish PBM market could have a role in reforming the institutional structures that empower people to eat animal-derived products. The seemingly neutral, non-provocative marketing style of Finnish PBM products is aiming to normalize the use of PBMs and thus claim its spot in Finnish food culture as an everyday consumer good.

This thesis investigates the development of the visibility of slavery in the brochures of four Virginia plantations over a time period of 90 years. The four plantations are Monticello, Mount Vernon, Belle Grove, and Long Branch, all of different sizes but with similar pasts as sites of enslavement prior to the abolishment of slavery in 1865. The goal is to discover how and why the narrative of slavery has changed over the years, and if any larger societal changes may have contributed to this development. As tour brochures have the ability to affect a visitor’s interpretation of a site, it is important to understand what type of discourses and images are directing the visitor’s gaze in the brochures. It is equally vital to attempt to understand the reasoning behind those choices of language and imagery. In this thesis, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used to discover what is being said, what is left unsaid, and why those decisions were made. The primary sources for this thesis are the print brochures collected at each plantation and the plantation websites. The material is primarily analyzed using textual analysis although some image analysis is also included to give a more comprehensive understanding of the content of the brochures. In addition, secondary sources are used to support the historical and conceptual framework of the thesis. The main result of this thesis is that the visibility of slavery in plantation brochures has developed from non-existent or minimal to attempted integration. Until the late 1970s the institution of slavery and the experiences of the enslaved, if mentioned, are trivialized, marginalized, and/or segregated. Slow but steady progress in increasing the presence of slavery in the brochures can be witnessed throughout the years as the general opinion in the United States became more accepting, even demanding, of racial equality. No individual event or phenomenon has had a direct impact on the content of the brochures but a clear development into including slavery can be seen. Based on the results, it is the conclusion of this thesis that the main themes of the brochures have not changed very much since the 1920s. Owner families, prestigious guests, architecture, gardens, and the achievements of the wealthy owners have remained the main focus of attention although some new themes can be found in the more recent brochures. It is also evident that these themes persist at the expense of others, such as slavery, bringing about an interesting discussion of remembering and forgetting. In addition, these conclusions raise an important question about the roles of plantation museums as educators, entertainers, and research facilities.