Title: Brand Brazil ? A study on brand equity in an emerging market Authors: Anders Andersson & Jonathan Karlsson Subject: Bachelor thesis in marketing, 15 credits Keywords: Brand equity, Emerging markets, Brand awareness, Brand associations, Perceived quality, Brand loyalty Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to gain deeper understanding of how a company operating on an emerging market can work with brand equity, and what benefits it provides to the brand owner. Theoretical framework: The chapter begins with a description of brand equity to be further decomposed to its four dimensions; brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality, brand loyalty Methodology: A qualitative research method with a deductive approach is conducted, where interviews with Brand/Marketing coordinators for the Brazilian subsidiaries of Volkswagen, Toyota and General Motors, are performed. Empirical framework: The chapter presents performed interviews that are supposed to describe our case studies? work and benefits from brand equity. Conclusion: This study shows that companies operating on an emerging market are working actively with brand equity, often in accordance with theory. The companies also experience positive effects from increased brand equity..

 This thesis aims to through certain parts of the brand equity investigate the trust of consumers for a brand that recently experienced a product-harm crisis. It also wants to investigate why this trust exist, if it does. Structured interviews were carried out at 60 respondents in Uppsala. The results show that the respondents have positive associations with ICA, they think that ICA maintains a high quality on their products and services and that 50% more often choose to do their grocery shopping at ICA. The conclusion of the study is that ICA has a strong brand equity resulting in brand trust from consumers, which is founded in the brand reliability and brand intentions of the company. .

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.

Syfte: Vi vill ta reda på vad som gör ett varumärke i modebranschenstarkt, samt hur ett företag bör agera för att åstadkomma det.Metod: Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ ansats och har genom sjupersonliga intervjuer samlat in vårt empiriska material. Genom enabduktiv metod har vi undersökt om empiri och teoriöverensstämmer. Vi har sedan utgått från vår frågeställning ochfört en diskussion.Slutsatser: För att skapa ett starkt varumärke inom modebranschen är detviktigt att vara konsekvent i sitt uttryck. Produkten ochvarumärkesidentiteten måste samspela, även då produkten förnyas,och identiteten måste vara tydlig för konsumenten att minnas.Företagen kan påverka konsumenten genom kommunikation, ochPR har en betydande roll för hur varumärket presenteras i media.Den grafiska identiteten blir varumärkets kostym utåt och ensymbol för densamma. För att skapa ett starkt modevarumärke börvarumärket och produkten vara i linje med varandra och konstantförändras tillsammans.Purpose: We want to find out what makes a fashionbrand strong and how abusiness should act to achive that.Method: We have used a qualitative approach and have collected ourempiric data through seven personal interviews.

Background: The design industry is relatively immature in Sweden but large on the international market, where companies have used services from industrial design firms for a long time. Companies incresignly realise that design is an efficient mean to gain competitive advantages on the market. Several design companies fancy growth and to receive a wider market share to expand on the international market. One of them is Design Communicaton who has made a couple of acquisitions, to receive wider comptences and to cover different segments. That has lead to an increased brand portfolio with different subbrands, which can be complicated to handle efficiently in the internal and external communication.

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..

This study aims to describe how a company behind a well-established brand in the fashion industry has strategically chosen to communicate with their target market. Interviews with four individuals in different positions within the company have generated qualitative data, which is presented and analyzed in relation to the theoretical frame of reference in this study. The results show that the company does not use conventional marketing, but relies rather on marketing based word-of-mouth generated by its customer base due to its unique store concepts. Previous research has shown that this type of marketing strategy is effective and beneficial to the brand equity, a conclusion that is demonstrated to also apply to the survey object of this study. Furthermore, it is also shown that this is largely due to the distinct and coordinated image that the company maintains through strict standardization..

The purpose of this paper is to examine the correlation between hotels, their brands and the frontline staff within the industry. A competitive, international environment characterizes today´s hotel industry where brands are one of the strongest sources for a successful position amongst competitors. In the brand delivery, the front line staff is of utmost importance since they in many ways incorporate the brand values and the projected identity of the hotel. Hotels can use a variety of ways to communicate the brands identity to the front line staff in order to create the desired brand behavior, some more effective than others. At the same time the Swedish hotel industry, as many other, is characterized by a high percentage of staff turnovers.

Through this study we want to enlighten how different companies work with their internal branding and how well they succeed in this process. We also want to examine if there are any differences in this work depending on the companies market position. Following question is used to investigate this process;- In what way and how well are companies working, depending on market position to implement and maintain their work with the internal brand?For the study a theoretical model was created based on our existing theory. The model contains three main variables; create, communicate and uphold; i.e.

To be seen is essential. Presently, the marketing of different well-known brands within the same product category is done with little variation. To marketing professionals, this creates an opportunity to market products in an unexpected way. The use of incongruent market communication and by creating a discrepancy between a well-known brand?s advertisement and brand scheme, which is already established in customers? minds, is one way to be different.

Kevin Roberts has extended the comprehension of strong consumer brands to a higher level where loyalty beyond reason is established. He calls this new status Lovemarks. As the concept of Lovemark has only been applied in B2C markets, this thesis is directed to find out the applicability of Lovemarks in B2B context. In order to fulfill the research purpose, three main questions are answered based on a cross-sectional research approach: What role do intangible factors play in B2B branding? Is the idea of B2C Lovemarks transferable to B2B context? How should a B2B Lovemark be characterized? The results of the qualitative interviews indicate insights of high investment and involvement, integrated Brand communication, balance between function versus emotion, brand?s trustworthy personality, customer partnership, and finally, the potential establishment of B2B Lovemarks.

This thesis treats the topic of user-generated comments connected with news stories on news sites, meaning electronic word-of-mouth combined with PR. The writers have examined how different types of comments affect consumers' perception of the article and also what communication effects these comments generate in terms of attitudes, purchase intent and word-of-mouth intent. The results interesting to the news site owners, is that lots of comments and negative comments generate a negative effect by making the actual article less credible, attractive and worth reading (relative to the subsequent comments). On the positive side, serious comments imply that the news story is perceived as more interesting, than a news story followed by non-serious comments. From a brand equity perspective, the interesting results show that few comments compared to lots of comments, generate a better attitude to the brand, even though there is no difference in how positive or negative the comments are.

The users of social media channels are today increasing rapidly. Because of this it has become more important for individuals to be seen and stand out of the crowd. The concept of personal branding has become more widespread and is today an important factor for individuals who want to communicate their personality on the Internet.The purpose of this study is to examine the role of personal branding in today?s society and to find similarities in how established bloggers use communication tools to increase their visibility. This has been done through qualitative interviews with individuals who write and shape their blogs depending on how they want to be seen on the Internet.By analysing our findings we came to the conclusion that personal branding is becoming more important in a world that is becoming more and more digitalized.

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..

Organizations today face big challenges as a result of increased exposure. A distinct and recognizable identity is required to differentiate. Consistent and coherent communication about what the organization stands for and where it is going is crucial if you want to succeed. This is a case study of how organizational members from two real estate companies that have merged into one, perceive their merged organization. The method is depth interviews with management representatives and focus group interviews with members from different levels of the company.