Companies spend huge amounts on communicating their brand through marketing. Many of these contact areas where the consumer comes in contact with the brand is con-trolled by the company. The brand image is also affected from outside the company. It can be from users, media, blogs etc.Burberry is an example of a company that got in trouble with their brand image after hooligans where associated with their products. If a company with a brand with a strong image is associated whith consumers that are not compatible with the target group the company wants, there is a risk of a negative affect on the brand image.Our purpose is to investigate and describe the phenomenom when a company brandimage is affected by being associated whith consumers not compatable whith, by the company, intended target group.We have chosen a qualitative research where we use a multiple case study.

Many? luxury? companies? within? the? fashion? industry? today? choose? to? extend? their? brands downwards? in? order? to? reach? new? customer? segments? and? hence? increase? their? profitability.? A? brand? extension? strategy? that? leverages? the? core? values? of? the? luxury? brand? is? a ?new ?possibility ?for ?luxury ?brands ?to ?position ?themselves ?towards ?a ?broader ?customer ?base.?? Meanwhile? there? is? a? risk? that? the? extension? dilutes? the? image? of? the? luxury? brand? and? has? a? negative? effect? on? the? company? in? the? long? term.? Thus? a? tradeoff? exists? between? becoming? more? accessible? and? maintaining? the? exclusivity? of? the? luxury? brand.? The? objective? of? this? thesis ?is ?to ?investigate ?how ?luxury ?brands ?that ?perform? downward ?brand ?extensions ?to? reach? new? markets? can? succeed? with? this? strategy? without? diluting? the? brand? image.? This? is? achieved? by? studying? the? perceptions? of? the? new? target? segment? towards? the? extension? of? luxury? brands.? The? results? of? the? study? show? that? the? risk? of? brand? dilution? is? minimized when? the? core? values? of? the? luxury? brand? are? transferred? to? the? brand? extension? while? the extension ?at ?the ?same ?time ?is ?successfully ?targeted ?towards ?the ?specific ?customer? segment..

Title: Brand loyalty and switching behavior ? A case study of the Swedish ketchup market Authors: Marcus Andersson Mattias Hedblad Tutors: Björn Bergenståhl, (Professor) Department of Food Technology, Engineering and nutrition, Division of Food Technology, Lund University Frans Melin (MBA PhD) Department of Business and administration, Lund University Ragnar Sjögren Johansen, (Marketing Manager Sauces) Procordia Food AB Problem: The market for daily groceries is mature and the competition has become tough. For the manufacturers to be able to grow they have to compete for the existing consumers. The problem is for the manufacturer to protect its consumers and still be able to gain consumers from its competitors. Purpose: Our ambition is to study consumers brand loyalty for daily groceries, with the purpose to understand how loyalty starts, how it can be strengthened, and how it can be broken.

The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how Swedish clothing companies create and communicate a personality for their brand. Case studies were conducted with three companies: Nudie Jeans, Koppartrans and J.Lindeberg. These firms can be considered as established clothing brands nationally as well as internationally. The study found that individualism, logotype and moral standpoints play an important role in the creation and the communication of a brand?s personality.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to do a brand survey of Metro in Karlstad. The study will originate from the terms ?brand identity? and ?brand associations?, where the brand identity is the organization?s desired view of the brand, and the brand associations define the associations held by the consumers.Issues: What is Metro?s brand identity? What are the brand associsations of Metro in Karlstad? How well do the brand identity and the brand associations correspond?Theoretical framework: The study is done from the perspective of media and communication studies, where the theoretical terms are defined from literature regarding brands.Method: The study is carried out using a qualitative document analysis, interviews, and a quantitative survey. The document analysis was made on Metro?s own documents regarding values and target audience.

The thesis provides with the broad overview about the consumer awareness of the gender dimension within brand personalities. The research contributes to branding theory and gender studies and demonstrates that consumer gender influences does not influence the perceived brand personality gender. However, it also shows that consumers prefer brands with a clear gender, but not necessarily the same gendered brands..

With this essay we want to enlighten the problems to match the brand image an enterprise has with their determination of prices. The purpose with this study is to examine how customers apprehend when cloth enterprises extend their brand in the same category. Further we want do identify how this kind of brand extension can affect the position on the market the enterprise has. Thereby we want from incumbent relevant theories develop factors which enterprises ought to take into consideration at the time of a brand extension in the same category..

This study examines how the local rescue services relate to the brand of the rescue service and the concept of brand management. To understand the attitudes against the brand and brand management, empirical data, theoretical modelling of brand and current laws have been discussed together in a try to get an overview how the rescue services practically works with the brand. The study results are based on a questionnaire survey and qualitative semi-structured interviews. The survey was sent to employees working with the communication of the rescue service. The interviews were held with two employees working with the communication of the rescue service and two fire chiefs.

Background: Brand strategy tends to become an important management issue. It is therefore interesting to reach a greater understanding about how companies work to make their existing brands stronger. The purpose of a brand is to influence the customers? view of the brand image. The literature is insufficient concerning how leaders handle the process of repositioning a brand, in order to change the brand image.

Crossfit is a recently developed form of training which is based on a number of functional resistance exercises performed at high intensity, often to the point of muscular failure. Crossfit has since its introduction 30 years ago, reached vast popularity all around the world, including Sweden. Its practitioners considers Crossfit to be an effective training method for achieving a functional and total trained physique thru improvements in VO2max, muscle strength, endurance, balance and speed. Few scientific studies has been published in the subject which is why this study sets out to examine the effect of Crossfit on VO2max (measured with Åstrands submaximal cyclingtest), maximal strength capacity in lower- and upper body muscles (measured with 1 RM tests in bench press and leg press), rapid strength capacity and strength endurance capacity in upper body muscles (measured with push-up test in 30 seconds) and explosive strength capacity in lower body muscles (measured with sergeant jump test). Five women with an average of 33(±5) years of age all new to Crossfit, performed these tests at two separate occasions with a training period of four weeks consisting of 12(±3,67) Crossfit sessions in between.The result showed a significant improvement in the maximal strength capacity of the leg extension muscles (p=0,025).

Bergslagens Sparbank as well as other independent(fristående) sparbanker have discoveredthat some of their customers can not separate them from Swedbank. Some customers maythus believe that they are the same bank. This study seeks factors that may contribute to thisproblem, and measures that can counteract. We refer to this problem as brand confusion andmainly have our focus on factors derived from brand alliance, but also from the companyitself and the banking industry. We use a qualitative method where we collect empirical datafrom interviews with four sparbanker.

A challenge faced by marketers is to make their products stand out in today's cluttered marketplace. Recently, a new approach to attract attention has been observed - brands communicating their products by making fun of other brands. This way of parodying a competitor, or even an unrelated brand, is a risky but potentially effective way to increase attention. Brand parodies walk a fine line between being humorous and clever, or coming off as offensive. Furthermore, parodying another trademark poses legal considerations.

Background: Literature regarding brand identity within the service industry is relatively under developed. As a result one theory is used for both the service and product brands, even though there is a significant difference between a product and a service. As a result of this, the brand identity within the service industry has consequences. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the brand identity within the service industry. This is done by focusing on how and why this work is done.

Today, branding is not a phenomenon but rather a prerequisite for a brand to be able to both survive and grow stronger. During the last couple of years, personal branding has come to be an established term, just like corporate branding. With the growth of the social media and the thousands of ways to interact with each other personal brands face great competition. It is more difficult than ever to maintain a strong brand, partly because of this. There are several growth options for brands.

The purpose of the study is to examine how retailing trough brand owned outlet stores effectsthe fashion brand. The problem that the essay is aimed to solve is how the fashion brand isinfluenced by selling through outlets and what opportunities and risks it has on the brand. Thestudy has been carried out by qualitative methods using interviews to answer the questionformulation. Three empirical perspectives have been chosen; an expert-, business- andconsumer perspective which have been linked up with three applicable theories. The fashionbrand Acne and its two stores; the flagship store and the outlet store have been chosen as acase study.