It is important for all companies to be seen on a competitive market. It?s all about positioning yourself so that you?re seen and that you?re are attractive for both customers and employees. A crucial factor to achieve this are how the brand are handle directly by the company it self and by the market. Establishing a brand on the market is not easy and it takes time to establish what the company stands for. To be able to succeed with this you need to have a strategy and a strong belief on the brand.

The increased media clutter requires of brand managers to be innovative and creative in their choices of marketing communications in order for brands to be salient in the minds of consumers. Recent studies emphasize incongruent marketing as a means of "standing out" from this competitive clutter and reaching existing and new potential customers. The aim of this thesis is to examine the effects of brand incongruent sponsorships (sponsorships which are incongruent with established brand associations) on consumer response to well-established brands from the perspective of high and low levels of loyalty. A quantitative survey was conducted and the results show that incongruent sponsorships improve brand attitude, brand interest and brand credibility, while not affecting ad attitude, purchase intention and word-of-mouth intention for customers of low loyalty. For highly loyal customers the findings were that brand attitude, brand interest, brand credibility, purchase intention and word-of-mouth intention remained unchanged while ad attitude decreased.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate why Linas Matkasse has greater success in terms of market share than Middagsfrid despite the similarities of their concepts. The study will also examine potential and existing customers' image of the brands and corporate brand awareness.Method: This study is based on a triangulation in which both quantitative and qualitative methods are treated in the form of personal interviews and a questionnaire survey.Theoretical perspectives: Four theories are addressed in this study and they treat the brand from different aspects. The theories process how to create value, personality dimensions, how companies should act and strategies around brand.Empiricism: The empirical material consists of five interviews, one of which was with the brand manager at Middagsfrid. Then two interviews were conducted with consumers of Linas Matkasse and two interviews with consumers of Middagsfrid. A questionnaire survey has also been conducted.

As a consumer often chooses product or service to satisfy the specific needs or desires. However, there is more often than not several brands that manufacture the same product, which means we also have to choose between these brands before we can calm our needs. This choice is usually an active decision. We choose a brand that we are familiar with, or a brand whose identity appeals to us. The brand thus has a major impact on both consumers' decision-making in connection with the purchase, but also for business success.

This study deals with branding at an individual level and aims to explore what a personal brand means, what benefits that?s obtained by actively working with a personal brand, as well as the strategies and methods used in the development of it. It has also meant a restriction in choice of interviewees made to informants who are familiar with and active in the personal branding process in their daily life. The essay is based on a qualitative research approach; six people working in various occupations were interviewed by a desire to generate information from different perspectives. The result shows that a personal brand is all about credibility, authenticity, and the image you present to others.

The theory chapter is based on a model about brand identity, ?Brand Identity Prism? (Kapferer, 2008, s.183). This model contains six elements which we have supplemented with theories about personal branding. This because the focus and theory on a person's brand identity is almost non-existent. The purpose of the study is therefore to examine how editors at fashion magazines are working with their brand identity in the personal brand and thereby create an understanding of the identity function.

High brand equity is a great asset for companies that operate their business in a free and competitive market. Brand equity can arise from both product-related and non-product related attributes and may be viewed from many different perspectives. This study examines which different attributes that contribute to enhance brand equity from customers point of view at the Swedish market for agricultural machinery. The study have been developed using a comprehensive literature search in order to investigate the field regarding brand equity and brand image. The literature review results in one product specific and one non-product specific approach in order to examine factors that contribute to enhanced brand equity. This takes the form as one survey-based approach regarding the non-product related attributes which is examined by interpreting the extra value added by different attributes.

The aim of our thesis is to study and analyze the components and features a brand should have to provide a solid foundation for brand building. Furthermore, we show how brands can make use of trends in a brand establishment.This paper is written from a qualitative approach. Through both structured and semi structured interviews, we obtained valuable information from our respondents. Our frame of reference and empirical foundation are linked together through an abductive approach which has resulted in our analysis and conclusions.A trend brings with a set of emotional characteristics, which companies can?t influence but must adapt to.

AbstractTitle: Cheap Monday ? A qualitative study of the consumers? opinions of the brand (Cheap Monday ? En kvalitativ studie av konsumenternas åsikter om märket)Number of pages: 38 (40 including enclosures)Author: Oskar NorlanderTutor: Göran SvenssonCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn 2007University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to examine from the customers? perspective how the Swedish jeans-brand Cheap Monday in just three years time could become such a prominent brand on the Swedish market. An additional purpose is to examine whether there is some kind of brand community connected to the brand or not.Material/Method: The main method used in this essay has been qualitative interviews with ten consumers of the brand. The answers from these interviews has then been analysed using two different theories, Keller?s Customer Based Brand Equity and Muniz and O?Guinnn?s Brand Community.Main results: The main results of this essay is that Cheap Monday is a brand that has become successful due to people?s perception of who the users of the brand are.

Background: Associated with the change in the regulations in 2009 concerning how goodwill should be handled in the acquisitions, brand valuation is increasingly recognized. Goodwill will now be identified and the brand will therefore be separated to be individually evaluated. The valuation has a problem with a number of factors that will influence the choice of method, to obtain a reliable value Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine the method used for brand valuation associated with the acquisition situations. In addition, it aims to gain a better understanding of brand valuation and its problems.Method: The study has a qualitative basis, where three key people of brand valuation have been interviewed. These work as valuation specialists at various accounting firms, this to get answers that could be compared.

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 thesis is to increase the understanding on how market leading pharmaceutical companies in Sweden limit the market share decrease when these companies patent expires. In order to respond to the purpose, two research questions have been asked: how do pharmaceutical companies deal with market strategies prior to the expiration of a patent: and how the market strategies is used when a patent has expired and as a consequence, generics entered the market. A case study was implemented based on two interviews with a brand manager and a therapy area manager within the company Pfizer AB in Sweden. The results suggest that pharmaceutical companies implement strategies in numerous ways which differs substantially from the theories, this having to do with Swedish legislation. The main aim with the execution of the strategy, before and after patent expiration is not to limit a decrease in market share hence, rather to retain the pharmaceutical companies strong brand image.

The paper investigates the role of packaging within brand management of FMCG food companies and their attitude towards packaging. This study enhances the understanding of how FMCG food companies actually work and strive to work with packaging..

The purpose with this essay is to study how a micro enterprise builds a brand. This because the current situation makes it difficult to stand out from the vast amount of marketing messages available in the market without having an extensive marketing campaign. Small companies do not have the opportunity to put a lot of recourses as money into marketing as the large companies do. Neither do they afford to repair a brand failure.Brand building is a process that constantly is in progress in a company, large or small. To make this process concrete we have chosen to study the four factors; brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and brand loyalty.

Personal branding is a common phenomenon within the Swedish business world, although less applied on the competitive and fast paced music industry. In order to strengthen Swedish artists' personal brands and to ensure congruence between the artists' presented identities and the target audiences' perceived images, we have developed a model, containing of seven essential factors. The seven dimensions authenticity, credibility, certainty, openness, availability, awareness and timeliness help improve strength when communicating brand identity, as well as minimizing potential discrepancy between identity and image. This report examines the brand strategies within the Swedish music industry through a case study of Sweden's largest pop star, Eric Saade, where Team Saade's communicated identity is compared to the targets audience's perceived image of Saade. Overall, Saade's personal brand has a high level of congruence, except from the clarity dimension, where his words are considered differing from his actions.