The Swedish retail business has been characterized by a small number of ruling distributors. These distributors have been affected negatively by the internationalization which has made it possible for international distributors to establish their stores in the Swedish market. These international distributors are focused on low price stores. Their establishment on the Swedish market has led to a decrease in market shares for the Swedish distributors, which has damaged their profitability. Another change that has affected the Swedish distributors is that the behavior and needs of the customers has changed.

Many companies choose to market their products and Brands with help from celebrities. This is not a new phenomenon, though, this strategy is something that we consumers start to get used to and the risk that the consumer unconsciously unselects the message grows. A recently much-disputed theory is the use of incongruent marketing. This means that companies uses a marketing message with the objective to not match the consumer?s expectations.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a valuation of a company preceding an acquisition can be affected by the fact that a strong brand is attached to the target company. Techniques to value a company and theories of Brands are well developed, but the link between them is partially missing even though the needs to value Brands have increased. A case study of five Swedish acquisitions is conducted to identify possible complicating and simplifying factors and how these are handled in the context of a valuation of an acquired company with a strong brand. Important findings are that a decreased volatility of future earnings can lead to more accurate prognoses and valuations due to the existence of a strong brand. A strong brand can, on the other hand, also make the valuation of the target company more difficult due to the fact that it is a subjective asset which increases the overall risk of the company.

The authors study the effects of brand salience on how consumers form brand attitudes and how consumers value the importance of various brand attributes. The study was conducted through two separate tests, the one focusing on the link between brand salience and brand attitudes and the other focusing on the link between brand salience and evaluations of attribute importance. Both tests measured brand salience as the ease with which Brands are recalled by respondents who have been cued with a specific product category. The results show that brand salience has direct effects on both brand attitudes and the evaluation of attribute importance. As Brands are recalled, high brand salience for a brand creates a more positive attitude towards that brand in the mind of the consumer.

The purpose of this study is to analyze and specify the characteristics of servicescapes in the hotel industry and its role when building a brand. Further, the aim is to put forward how Management in this sector strategically utilizes the location to manage the staff in order to help build a strong lasting brand. To fulfill our purpose we have targeted one overall question - What purpose does servicescape have when building a solid brand name in the hotel sector?In today?s society Brands play an integral part in influencing our buying behavior and are now considered to be a new business tool to communicate a business trough. Also services have become a widespread phenomenon, which is seen as a competitive tool not only for companies in the service sector.

Background: Today many companies are competing to get space in our minds. Companies spend a tremendous amount of money on building strong Brands. It is not just about making us aware of their logo, today it?s more about giving the brand a ?soul? and to load it with different values. Due to today?s globalization there is also interesting to look at it from a cultural perspective.

Within the last year many companies have proactively started to communicate their flaws and weaknesses, believing that this will lead to they being perceived as more personal and human. Dominos Pizza is one of many examples of a company using this practice as a strategic tool for communication. However, the problem concerning the above arises as we found that there was a very limited amount of research defining the effects of communicating flaws, where the company's both dispatcher and initiator. Our study aims to fill the gap between this growing trend and the limited research explaining the communication effects. The study was carried out as an experiment where a total of 420 respondents participated.

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..

This study views literary authors as Brands and their books as products. The essay examines if different marketing activities will influence attitudes and intentions towards these Brands, depending on how famous the author is and how much knowledge the consumer possess about the product category. The theory, which the hypotheses are based upon, mainly consists of research about culture, Brands, attitudes and intentions. The study is quantitative and has an experimental design consisting of different written scenarios. These scenarios are based on background information about a fictive fiction author and type of marketing campaign.

Studies conducted on event marketing have mainly focused on larger events. Managerial implications, marketing techniques, and theories in the field have hence dominantly addressed events of larger nature. Event marketing however is a growing phenomenon in the marketing mix. Brands are using event marketing to a greater extent. Brands are increasingly using small events as a marketing tool in order to create brand awareness and brand image; this goes for both small Brands and large Brands.

The purpose of this study has been to analyze the relationship between commercial Brands and a subculture, with a focus on a number of elements of success. These elements could be in the nature of sale stats as well as that of influence within the subculture. All of this within the context of the snowboard culture. In accossiation to this we have formulated a question of study:What marks Brands which gains influence within a subculture in addittion to becoming an important factor in the self-expression process of the cultural members?In this study, we have practised a qualitative method based on six (6) independant interviews with participants, active within the snowboard culture as well as one outside marketing executive and one ethnological reseracher.

In a time of fierce global competition, where an immense amount of commercial messages reaches consumers around the clock and in every conceivable context, companies constantly seek to find new ways to reach out with their product. One way to do so, that has increased in popularity in recent years, is the use of gift bags. A gift bag may contain samples, miniature products and even products in full size, as a rule from several different Brands, which the recipient receives free of charge. The gift bag is typically distributed at some form of event, such as store openings, fashion shows, theme parties and the like, and the receiver of the gift bag can then evaluate the content without any obligation to purchase. The ambition of the companies that choose to participate with their products in a gift bag is, of course, that the recipient will find their products satisfactory, and ideally, that he or she will continue to consume the brand in the future.There are numerous scientific research contributions related to the use of free samples, but very few that concern the gift bag, where a collection of samples from different sources and Brands appear.

Background: Today, the trademark is the heart of the company and the management of brandimage and identity require certain attention and care. In an increasingly tough business climatewhere the brand today has a central and important role, it is understandable that the companieswant to take maximum advantage of it. In the company the brand is a great resource with analready known identity and established values that can help new products to enter the market. Toextend the brand is a popular growth strategy but it is important to do it properly in order not tofail. J Lindeberg and Peak Performance are two Swedish fashion companies which both havemade brand extensions.

This paper aims to investigate if the underlying effects of the marketing phenomena clutter can be explained by negative priming. Although a lot of research has been made in the field of marketing, many people still claim "all marketing is good marketing", which we intended to challenge. In order to do this a tailored experiment analyzing the effects of clutter was created. The experiment consisted of two activities with the objective to manipulate the participants by making them avoid distracters. To maintain high ecological validity throughout the experiment actual Brands were used as distracters.

This study aims to investigate how consumers perceive variety in grocery stores and further how private Brands have affected consumers? perceptions of variety in grocery stores.The study focuses on the perceptions and attitudes towards variety and the impact of private Brands on perceived variety. Hence, a qualitative rather than quantitative study has been used. Photo elicitation has been used in both focus groups and in-depth interviews, which have been the empirical data collection of the study. Scientific articles and books have also been used in the process.