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..

A debate in finance is whether a random investment gives the same return as carefully choose and valuing an amount of shares to invest in. Stock valuating Stock valuation is often done by fundamental valuation models, based on the company's underlying character, which tries to put a correct price on the stock. Today there are several different valuation models that can be used for this purpose. Since valuation models are only mathematical, equity research is underpinned by more subjective assessments about the company and its future.The purpose with this thesis is to describe which valuation models that are used by professional stock analysts, but also to see if the reliability on the equity research is affected by the used model to valuing the company. Furthermore, we want to see if the job that?s been done to understand the company, measured by the equity research quality, impact the reliability on the equity research.In this thesis, we have, to achieve our purpose, conducted a quantitative content analysis of 164 equity research done by professional analysts at firms listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. With basis in previous research, we have developed a method for determining the valuation model that is used in the equity research, the reliability on the equity research and a framework for assessing the quality of the equity research.In the theoretical framework the valuation models involved in our study are described, previous research on the reliability on the equity research and their practical use.

Den senaste tiden har en mängd samarbeten, eller så kallade co-brandings, mellan olika företags varumärken vuxit fram. Avsikten är att förstärka sitt eller sina varumärken med hjälp av ett annat varumärke som är förknippat med någonting unikt. Hur bedömer man resultatet av denna co-branding? Har det egna varumärket förstärkts eller har det försvagats? För att klargöra detta resultat måste varumärkets Brand Equity mätas. Med brand equity menas det kapital som varumärket representerar.

I denna studie studeras brand equity och dess påverkan på köpbeslutsprocessen. Hur påverkar brand equity köpare? Vilka steg i köpbeslutsprocessen påverkas? Genom att studera detta kan säljande företag få en ökad förståelse för hur köpare resonerar vid inköp, vilket kan användas när de ska utforma effektivare säljstrategier. Dessutom kommer beslutspåverkande roller att studeras för att resultatet ska bli mer praktiskt applicerbart då det ofta är flera individer som är inblandande när företag ska genomföra inköp.Studien har en kvalitativ ansats med semistrukturerade intervjuer som grund för att studera vilken betydelse varumärken har under köpbeslutsprocessen i byggbranschen.Intervjuerna har genomförts med sju individer som är ansvarig eller haft en stor roll vid inköp av maskindrivna handverktyg på sina företag.Det resultat som studien kommer fram till påvisar att brand equity har betydelse. Ju starkare ett varumärkes brand equity är desto mer påverkan har det på köpbeslutsprocessen.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how social procurement can be a further development of public-private partnership. This is done with interviews and a case study of the social procurement Mitt Gröna Kvarter and its labor effort Boendebyggarna. The theoretical framework used in the thesis consists of public-private partnership and corporate social responsibility. It tries to answer the following questions:What does this social procurement mean by the concept of public-private partnership?What does this social procurement mean for the participants involved?How can social procurement be seen as a further development of public-private partnership?The thesis uses the theory development around the concepts of public-private partnership and corporate social responsibility and shows that social procurement does indeed have similarities to public-private partnership and could very well be a further development of it..

This study examines the equity cost of capital between two periods distinguished by substantial differences in IPO activity. In light of the stemmed IPO flow to the Swedish stock exchange in 2012, this study regards the conjecture that the IPO count is related to the prevailing cost of equity capital for certain periods. By application of the Residual Income Valuation model the cost of equity capital is abstracted from sampled stock prices and compared at two points in time for which extreme highs and lows of IPO activity were observed. Using randomized samples from 1999 and 2012, significant differences between the estimated costs of capital are established. The findings indicate that the equity cost of capital, much as it may help influence, nevertheless plays a subordinated role in the going-public decision..

This study examines the equity cost of capital between two periods distinguished by substantial differences in IPO activity. In light of the stemmed IPO flow to the Swedish stock exchange in 2012, this study regards the conjecture that the IPO count is related to the prevailing cost of equity capital for certain periods. By application of the Residual Income Valuation model the cost of equity capital is abstracted from sampled stock prices and compared at two points in time for which extreme highs and lows of IPO activity were observed. Using randomized samples from 1999 and 2012, significant differences between the estimated costs of capital are established. The findings indicate that the equity cost of capital, much as it may help influence, nevertheless plays a subordinated role in the going-public decision..

Private label introductions have been increasing in recent years. The main reason for this is that private labels increase the retailer's profits in the category. The purpose of this study is to examine how a private label introduction affects the category's performance. This study was conducted by studying the category's performance before and after the introduction, two categories are examined. Data have been collected at a Swedish retailer and consists of 38 stores, all located in Sweden and within the same store profile..

Syfte - Studien syftar till att undersöka hur ett modeföretags icke-finansiella(konsumentbaserade) brand equity påverkas av co-branding. Studien undersöker hur ettsamarbete mellan två modeföretag, så kallat intrabranschsamarbete, påverkar huvudvarumärketsicke-finansiella brand equity.Metod - Studien utgår från Aakers modell för att mäta brand equity. Metoden för studien harvarit att använda fokusgrupper för att undersöka konsumentattityder till co-branding. I studienanvändes ett verklighetsbaserat modesamarbete som diskussionsunderlag för fokusgrupperna,där ett fallföretag och dess samarbete med en annan modeaktör valdes ut. Totalt 12 styckenstudenter från Textilhögskolan i Borås deltog i studien, fördelat över två fokusgrupper.Fynd - Studien visar att ett modevarumärkes brand equity kan stärkas och påverkas positivt medhjälp av co-branding.Begränsningar - Uppsatsen är begränsad till ett samarbete genomfört av två textilföretag vilketgör resultaten främst applicerbara på samarbeten inom modebranschen.

Private labels have been increasing a lot during the last 30 years. The reason is great margins and it also works as an aid to build a store's brand. The problem is that private labels take market shares from national brands. Retailers need to have a good mix between these products and adopting category management without being influenced by opportunism, which can lower the profitability of a category. The purpose of this study is to examine and describe how private labels are prioritized in the category edible fat.

Sweden's school voucher reform has made the Swedish school system into one of the world's most liberalized. The debate concerning the ownership of Swedish schools is intense and the Swedish Minister of Education is open to restricting Private Equity owned companies from running schools. Interestingly, fewer calls are heard for restricting smaller profit-driven companies from owning schools. This essay aims to examine whether or not the quality of education provided by an individual school changes if it is acquired by a large Private Equity owned school group. This is done by conducting a comparative study on four independent schools recently acquired by AcadeMedia, Sweden's biggest Private Equity owned school group.

Funding is essential for companies to function. All companies must relate to the funding issue, whether they are working with it in an active manner or not. Funding can be done in two ways, either through equity or debt and the ratio between these are called capital structure. Already in 1958 Modigliani and Miller concluded that a company?s capital structure does not change the value of the company, thus the company?s debt in relation to equity is irrelevant.

This study was performed to examine the performance of an equity based crowdfunding campaign, as well as seeking to describe the risks, complications and the opportunities that this kind of funding brings. The study was conducted by an empirical case study of a company that was about to initiate an equity based crowdfunding campaign.The conclusion is that the planning of an equity based crowdfunding campaign is time consuming and requires knowledge in many different areas. Therefore it is important to identify in which areas skills and resources already are available within the company, and where it must be obtained through a learning process.The report also highlights that equity based crowdfunding, because of legal restrictions surrounding the issue of unlisted shares, can not be marketed as other types of crowdfunding. This leads to the conclusion that those who invest in equity based crowdfunding do not necessarily belong to the crowd that crowdfunding is generally associated with. Arguments can be made that this crowdfunding model rather resemble traditional angel networks.A technical study was also made about the company's products.

This study was performed to examine the performance of an equity based crowdfunding campaign, as well as seeking to describe the risks, complications and the opportunities that this kind of funding brings. The study was conducted by an empirical case study of a company that was about to initiate an equity based crowdfunding campaign.The conclusion is that the planning of an equity based crowdfunding campaign is time consuming and requires knowledge in many different areas. Therefore it is important to identify in which areas skills and resources already are available within the company, and where it must be obtained through a learning process.The report also highlights that equity based crowdfunding, because of legal restrictions surrounding the issue of unlisted shares, can not be marketed as other types of crowdfunding. This leads to the conclusion that those who invest in equity based crowdfunding do not necessarily belong to the crowd that crowdfunding is generally associated with. Arguments can be made that this crowdfunding model rather resemble traditional angel networks.A technical study was also made about the company's products.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to test for the existence of Capital Structure Arbitrage oppertunities in the equity-credit markets. Methodology: The mispricing of Credit Default Swap contracts are calculated and used as input in an Equity-Credit market trading strategy. The returns are then evaluated with a modified Value-at-Risk simulation. Theoretical perspectives: A Merton-based structural model, CreditGrades, is used for credit pricing and a mispricing-convergence trading-strategy between the credit and equity markets is implemented. Empirical foundation: Daily quotes for the Credit Default Swap spread of 37 European firms were collected for a period of two years, as well as equity-prices for the same period and the previous two years, used for model calibration.