AUTHOR
Blomster, Tomas; Nyberg, Hanna

DEPARTMENT
Business Administration and Social Sciences / Industrial marketing and e-commerce

SUMMARY
One of the biggest challenges for organizations concerns future planning, often because the environment is rapidly changing which forces organizations to deal with changes on a day-to-day basis. These organizations therefore need to have the ability to manage their current business as well as be able to handle unexpected changes brought on by change. The processes of planning, implementing and coping with change is likely to remain one of the biggest challenges facing organizations in the future, especially within the retail industry where marketing communication is seen as a vital part if organizations desire to establish and maintain profitable stakeholder relationships. Marketing communication allows marketers to inform, persuade, incite, and remind the consumers about the products and/or how the products are used; it represent the voice of a brand. On daily basis consumers come in contact with hundreds of messages that have the aim of being as effective as possible through various promotional tools. The purpose of this study was to provide a better understanding of how organizations within the Swedish retail industry should communicate with customers during times of corporate change. In order to be able to reach this purpose two research questions that focused on how Apoteket AB’s messages should be characterized and how non-personal promotional tools should be utilized when communicating to their customers. Following a conceptual framework, two case studies were conducted via focus group interviews in order to collect emprical data. The findings showed that the message should employ certain formats, appeals and colors in order to be effective. It was also found that some promotional tools were favored over others. From a practical perspective, this study provides Apoteket AB and other organizations a roadmap´when communicating to customers during times of corporate change.

ISSN 1404-5508 / ISRN LTU-SHU-EX--05/008--SE / NR 2005:008