The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Swedish defense company Saab use the national country image of Sweden in their documents to market their product JAS Gripen. The interest for this case lies in the paradoxical identities of the national identity of Sweden, and the ongoing long and robust relationship between Saab and the Swedish government. The paradoxical identities concern the dual identity of Sweden as both a "humanitarian superpower" and the focus on the national defense industry.

The study was conducted by using textual qualitative content analysis on official documents collected from Saab's official webpages. Focus is at analyzing the documents by two categories: technological arguments and emotional arguments. Technological arguments focus on products physical capabilities,whereas emotional arguments focus on values and beliefs related to the Swedish origin of the product. These categories serve to divide the material to conclude to the extent Saab uses the Swedish country image: extensively/marginal/none- or little usage.

The results we reach based on the analysis is that the company does use the country image of Sweden in their documents and does so as a shorthand for values that the reader plausibly connects with Sweden. We further conclude that, between the categories, the country image of Sweden is used differently, whereas the focus is at different aspects of the Swedish identity. Lastly, we conclude that this has been a minute contribution to the field of political science and branding, and more research needs to be conducted on this issue to obtain a greater understanding of the phenomenon.