| Summary: | The thesis was conducted for Arctic Design Society that promotes and sells Koli lightings that are manufactured in Finland and represent clear Scandinavian design. Due to the small domestic market for design lightings, it is clear that the company aims to the foreign markets. Research was conducted to gather useful information of small, but international Scandinavian design furniture companies and map different opportunities that there are to create awareness and internationalize the business. It was also significant to find out what are the roles of networking, trade fairs and other events in the process and on the other hand what can be done online to increase the awareness and begin internationalization. As the role of marketing communications is significant in the introduction of a new brand and in the process of increasing awareness, different marketing communication tools and techniques were studied. In addition to marketing communication, the theoretical framework considers different internationalization strategies and branding. The research was done using case study strategy and the selected case companies were Secto Design Oy and One Nordic Europe Oy Ab. The qualitative research data was collected by using desk research and interview methods. In the interpreting and analyzing process the aim was to find common or conflicting themes in the data and develop good comparisons between different case companies. Based on the findings of the case study there are many opportunities for Finnish design companies to increase awareness and raise interest internationally. Even though the technological development enables internationalization and entering new markets online, a blend of online and offline marketing seems like a good combination for newcomers. Events like trade fairs seem to have a significant role for the case companies in the process of increasing awareness and internationalization. In addition there are many useful inexpensive online tools to utilize and it seems that event-based and online marketing together with PR and brand management form a good tool kit for design furniture companies to increase awareness and raise interest internationally. As the case study focused on just two case companies the results of the research are rather limited and therefore cannot be generalized. However, combining desk research and interview methods in data collection allowed studying the case companies in detail and in depth and moreover helped in critical analysis.
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