There is a tough competition in food-stores these days. Storeowners have been forced to try something new to attract customers. One way to accomplish that is to add private labels to the assortment. There are several benefits with these labels; its higher margins for this type of brand and the brand can also strengthen the stores image in the customers mind. When private labels first entered the market, the customer had a relatively low attitude towards the brands.

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how an individual's identity is constructed and reinforced through clothing brands. This we intend to achieve by studying and analyzing the significance of clothing brands on consumers. In close proximity to this purpose, we have chosen to work with three research questions:? How do consumers see clothing as a means to express themselves? ? What perception does consumers have on clothing brands as identity creators? ? How do consumers value wearing clothes from a particular clothing brand?.

AbstractBackground: Countries can be seen as brands (nation brands) with brand values that transmitto the country?s products. Country-of-origin (COO), the brands nationality, links the productto an associative network of cultural shared national stereotypes. Through associating thebrand with a country or a region, the credibility of the brand can increase and strengthen thebrand. Therefore COO is used in marketing to position a brand.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how luxury fashion brands communicatetheir national identity through analyzing their advertising.

Advertisers of today are facing a great challenge in a landscape where it becomes even more difficult to break through the clutter and convince consumers to buy their products. In order to succeed, they need to come up with new ways of communicating with their customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if micro-blogging could be considered an effective media choice in order to enhance the perception of brand associations and traditional communication effects. The subject is of interest as brands are putting increasingly more resources into this communication channel. However, at the current date the marketing effects of micro-blogging is unexplored in academic research.

It is a common view that companies should focus on building brands to increase profitability and stabilize cash flows. However, building and keeping brands alive is costly. Many firms spend large sums on branding only because they are supposed to, without knowing if they will actually gain from it. Up to date, there is limited convincing evidence that branding actually contributes to shareholder value creation. This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between brand strength and profitability and shareholder value.

The implementation of this research increases the awareness of the value for luxury fashion brands in utilizing social media as a communication channel to reach young consumers globally. It provides a general understanding of young consumers? perception of luxury fashion brands on social media in regards to geographic cultural background, attitude towards new luxury, and preferred way of contacts..

Research on the power of customer involvement, and in particular recommendation is very resourceful. Many studies have mapped the reasons for why customers are willing to recommend, however they often ignore potential differences among brands and how that may affect these reasons. This study is built on a quantitative survey investigating how consumers interact with brands, depending on category affiliation. The categories used were Bhat and Reddy's symbolic and functional, consisting of three brands respectively where each brand represented a different product type.The evolvement of social media has also transformed the platform of recommendation from physical to virtual and changed the way people connect. Thus, taking the investigation further, potential differences between symbolic and functional brands was tested in different social media platforms.

Utifrån varumärkesteorier undersöka vilka konsekvenser H&M´s beslut att lansera sitt nya varumärke COS som ett fristående varumärke utan någon synlig koppling till H&M har haft på konsumenternas uppfattning om varumärkena. Vi dragit slutsatsen att konsumenterna påverkas positivt av H&M´s val att övergå till ett House of Brands och lansera COS som ett fristående varumärke. Den osynliga, men samtidigt tydliga kopplingen är en viktig framgångsfaktor..

Multi-brand portfolios are characterized by comprising many brands in the same product category. Companies that have chosen to organize their products according to this strategy are facing both possibilities, such as expanding the accessible market size, and challenges such as how to organize the brands, their individual roles and their relation and position to the other brands in the category to maximize revenues. To address these aspects of multi-brand portfolios, I have investigated four product categories where multiple brands are represented at Mölnlycke Health Care, Unilever, Fagerhult and L?Oréal; how the multi-brand portfolios are organized, how the segmentation, positioning and product differentiation are done and what advantages and disadvantages that are associated with this strategy. My conclusions are that multi-brand portfolios can be organized in many different ways and to become successful, they have to be set in relation to the company?s whole brand architecture.

The purpose of this study is to investigate and increase the understanding of how the two commercial companies IKEA and SAS and the two aid organizations/nonprofit organizations UNICEF and Save the Children use perceptions of Christmas to produce messages in their Christmas advertising/commercial film. The study also discusses if there may be communicative and pictorial similarities and differences in how these brands constructs messages in commercials, and why it may be that the brands choose to use these messages in commercials based on the recipient possible interpretations. The theories used in this study are promotional culture, framing theory, preferred meaning, semiotics (denotation and connotation), myth and rhetoric (ethos, pathos and logos). The method used to answer the purpose and issues are the qualitative method that uses the theories semiotic and rhetoric to analyze the material. The study's results derived from the qualitative content analyzes of the material (the brands IKEA, SAS, UNICEF and Save the Children Christmas advertising films) show that IKEA message might want to show that they want to help the customer and that they pay attention to the customer needs.

In this thesis the subject innovation and the change of meaning is in focus. The purpose of the study is to present a new dimension of innovation as a change of meaning together with the cases we?ve studied. It is discussed throughout the article if theories of perception and association can affect the organization and its ability to create meaning-changing innovations. The industrial robotics is a market in need of, perhaps, if not other markets but of finding new ground that results in the change of meaning.

As commonly known, Social Media is a rapidly growing area. Since consumers to a great extent are present in Social Media, this new internet environment is increasing in relevance for consumer marketing. For controversial brands that are regulated in conventional marketing channels Social Media is an extra ordinary marketing opportunity, since social media is a legal grey area. More and more controversial brands are taking advantage of this opportunity, but the effects of these marketing activities are fairly unknown. Therefore there is an interest in examining the controversial brands marketing progression in Social Media.

Publicity is argued to have relatively great impact on attitudes and behaviours of consumer. Especially great is the influence of negative information. At the same time it is likely for brands to be subject to negative publicity. Since companies are investing gigantic sums into buidling strong and positive associations around their brands it is of great economic interest to have a better understanding how negative publicity influence brand equity and what factors might moderate this effect. This thesis focuses on brand strength as a moderating factor of negative publicity.

Publicity is argued to have relatively great impact on attitudes and behaviours of consumer. Especially great is the influence of negative information. At the same time it is likely for brands to be subject to negative publicity. Since companies are investing gigantic sums into buidling strong and positive associations around their brands it is of great economic interest to have a better understanding how negative publicity influence brand equity and what factors might moderate this effect. This thesis focuses on brand strength as a moderating factor of negative publicity.

Title: Artists? identity and image ? a brand perspective The purpose of this study has been to create an understanding of how artists in the music business can be seen as brands and to see what stands out when having this approach. During the study we have focused on the two terms identity and image. We find this issue interesting and relevant since branding has been widely discussed in business economy, but not enough when it comes to artists in the music business. To answer our research question we have targeted three aims for this essay, which is to clarify and analyze:? Identity and image when people are viewed as brands? What specifically characterizes the image of the artists when they are seen as brands and what it might mean that artists are considered as brands? How artists identity and image can be highlighted, shaped, influenced and how it can changeIn this study we have used a qualitative approach to get the topic in depth and gain a greater understanding for the subject.