This paper presents a study conducted on the role of brands in Black middle class society in South Africa. The study was inspired by the phenomenal growth of Black household consumption observed in recent years in South Africa. Popular media have publicised views that Black middle class consumption of brands is fuelled by a desire to acquire and affirm status, often sparking debate amongst politicians, businessmen and the general public. This research investigated the factors fuelling consumption of branded goods in this social group and the factors considered in choosing a brand. The study was exploratory in nature and interviewed ten South African Black individuals broadly classified as middle class. The finding of the study largely confirmed reviewed theory, suggesting that the consumption patterns of South African Black middle class society is neither unique nor strange, but an age-old phenomenon supported by the theories of consumer behaviour, sociology and economics. Due to the qualitative nature of the study, no generalisable conclusions could be reached. It is recommended that further research into South African consumption behaviour be conducted, in particular the price elasticity of demand for brands. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Building customer-based brand equity is of crucial importance to marketers, especially with regards to efficiencies in marketing spend in an increasingly competitive global environment. Marketers require engaging marketing communication tools that are able to influence customers’ attitudes and behaviours, thereby increasing future sales and brand loyalty. This research evaluated the relationship between customer-based brand equity dimensions and custom publishing as a communication tool, wherein the primary aim was to measure if custom publishing is associated with an increase in customer-based brand equity. Quantitative research was conducted, using a descriptive method wherein 117 University of the Witwatersrand graduates responded to a web-based questionnaire. The questionnaire was formulated based on the various brand dimensions highlighted in the literature review. The test group consisted of 79 respondents that had received the WitsReview custom publication and the control group consisted of 38 respondents that had not received WitsReview. This research has shown that there is an association between custom publishing, in the form of a magazine brand, and an increase in customer-based brand equity in the product brand and therefore custom publishing is a communication tool that marketers should explore to increase customer-based brand equity. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Global consumer spending trends indicate a growth in the popularity of premium products. Organisations with traditional consumer commodity products are faced with the challenge of how to profit from this trend through successfully delivering premium products to the consumer.The objective of the research was to develop a method to enable organisations to conceptualise and employ product differentiation to augment the brand building process for an existing consumer commodity product. The research was conducted at South African Breweries Ltd with beer as the consumer commodity product under review. A two phase qualitative research paradigm was used to address the research. Data collection comprised a combination of 5 technical focus groups, a technical expert discussion forum and 9 marketing and technical semi-structured interviews. Content analysis was then used to identify the key patterns or themes which emerged.The research established that the continued commoditisation of the local beer industry is as a result of several contributing factors not only related to product differentiation limitations. To ensure successful brand building of a consumer commodity product, an overall method is proposed which considers both product differentiation and the key organisation, industry and product category drivers. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Cílem diplomové práce na téma ?Porovnání marketingové strategie firmy Nespresso na francouzském a na českém trhu? je zejména analýza marketingové strategie a její použití na francouzském a českém trhu.. Analyzovány jsou specifika konceptu Nespresso, rozhodnutí brand managementu o značce a detailně je popsán historický vývoj značky. Práce rozebírá klíčové faktory úspěchu značky Nespresso na francouzském trhu a navrhuje určitá doporučení pro vývoj značky na českém trhu.

My diploma paper is focus on the brand, package and design. Abstract part contains explanation of definitions and meanings.In the part of Nike company is described its history, activity in Czech Republic and selected components - catchword, logo and package. Practical part contains three methods of research - list of questions, focus group and mystery shopping. I used these methods to find out opinions on the brand Nike and knowledge. In conclusion are suggested some recommendations for Nike company.

The main aim of this thesis is to analyze the positioning of Flora brand on the czech market. For my analysis I will use the chosen marketing tools such as the competitor analysis, SWOT analysis so as the analysis of marketing mix. The key source of information will be the qualitative research. On the basis of that I will compare the ideal positioning with the real one and come with the appropriate suggestions which could help to improve the positioning strategy of Flora brand in the Czech republic.

The main focus of this diploma thesis is brand image and brand identity. The objective of the thesis is to compare how consumers perceive the brand (brand image) with how the brand wants to be perceived itself (brand identity). First part is focused on the process of building and managing strong brands, as well as defining brand image and brand identity theoretically. The practical part presents the brand on which the research was conducted, Proenzi brand, its history on the Czech market, competition and its identity. In the final chapter there are presented results of the research which was conducted among the consumers of Proenzi brand and the comparison of brand image and brand identity. To conclude, there are presented suggestions for improvement and recommendations for future research extensions.

The issue of requiring marketers to disclose objective product performance information to their customers has presented a problem to both policymakers and researchers. A major concern is that the potential usefulness of such information will be negated if consumers, trying to evaluate alternative products at the points of sale, are hindered by large amounts of such comparative data. Decision-making experiments in cognitive psychology indicate that, because of the capacity limitations of short-term memory, people provided with high input rates of information can experience "information overload," which reduces the quality of their decisions. However, consumer research performed, to date, in the laboratory has failed to resolve whether consumers in a naturalistic brand-choice making situation would also experience "information overload," if confronted with large amounts of product data on which to base their choices. A field experiment was performed to extend the findings of this laboratory research stream and to help resolve the controversy regarding consumer "information overload." A second objective of this experiment was to contribute to policy-oriented research on information-provision formats. The study examined the behavioural effects of displaying objective product performance cues at the point of purchase, easily accessible to consumers and organized in a format allowing direct comparisons of alternative brands. An input-output experimental design used point-of-sale signs to provide different amounts (loads) of nutritional information on the brands of several food products in two co-operating supermarkets. The outputs, or information effects, were measured by collecting brand-sales data via electronic checkout facilities to determine whether the information treatments were having the hypothesized effects on the shape of the brand-sales distribution. The findings do not appear to support the "information overload" hypothesis. In fact, information load did not emerge as an explanatory variable. With certain products, there is evidence that providing nutritional information, in an organized format at the point of sale, will lead to brand choices being made on the basis of such data. Also, the overall response to this data was significantly weaker in the second of two weeks during which they were made available to shoppers. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

La publicidad cada vez tiene nuevos retos de cómo llamar la atención del consumidor sin que este sienta que interrumpe su privacidad. Gracias a la era digital, el cliente está cada vez más informado y deja de ser un simple receptor para volverse un prosumidor, esto es algo que las marcas han detectado y optaron por un cambio de actitud haciendo que la comunicación no se trate más de un formato unidireccional. La estrategia publicitaria ahora debe generar una relación duradera entre consumidor y marca, haciendo que este obtenga más que solo un simple mensaje. Bajo ese contexto, se hace referencia al Branded Content, una herramienta para transmitir la identidad de marca y lograr una imagen de marca positiva, que consiste en una narrativa que expone la identidad de la marca, lo que esta quiere que su público crea de ella, mediante una historia entretenida, donde el producto es un personaje necesario para el desarrollo de la trama, pero no el principal. Por consecuente, el objetivo de este trabajo de investigación es analizar de qué forma el branded content de la campaña “Don’t Change your dream, change the world” de Nike en Instagram inciden en el cambio de imagen de marca en los no consumidores de Nike, hombres y mujeres de 18 a 25 años. El enfoque del estudio es cualitativo y se aplicarán entrevistas presenciales individuales a personas no consumidoras de Nike para posteriormente analizar e interpretar la imagen de marca. / Advertising increasingly has new challenges of how to get consumer attention without this one that disrupts your privacy. Thanks to the digital age, the customer is increasingly informed and ceases to be a simple receiver to become a prosumer, this is something that brands have detected and opted for a change in attitude by making communication is no longer a format unidirectional. The advertising strategy must now generate a lasting relationship between the consumer and the brand, making them get more than just a simple message. In this context, reference is made to Brand Content, a tool to transmit brand identity and achieve a positive brand image, which consists of a narrative that exposes the identity of the brand, what it wants its audience to create from her, through an entertaining story, where the product is a necessary character for the development of the plot, but not the main one. Consequently, the objective of this research work is to analyze how the brand content of Nike's campaign “Don't change your dream, change the world” on Instagram includes the change of brand image in non-consumers of Nike, men and women from 18 to 25 years old. The focus of the study is qualitative and individual face-to-face interviews will be applied to non-consumers of Nike for further analysis and interpretation of the brand image. / Trabajo de investigación

"Product Placement" or "Brand Placement" is the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio and/or visual means, within entertainment media. This dissertation is a collection of three essays that investigate factors affecting the effectiveness of product placements. The first essay focuses on two measures of product placement effectiveness - audience recall and attitudes toward the placement. Extant empirical studies that address the antecedents of these constructs were integrated through a meta-analysis. Some key findings are as follows. The prominence of placements is a controllable executional factor that was found to have a significant positive relationship with recall. Recall was also affected by modality - audio-visual placements had better recall than audio-only placements which in turn performed better than visual-only placements. Audience attitudes toward placements had a strong relationship with the nature of the product - products that had negative ethical connotations were found to be less acceptable to audiences. However, viewers who were avid consumers of entertainment media tended to have more positive attitudes. Essay 2 focuses on the effect of repetition of placements of the same brand within a single television program. The results from an experiment show that unlike advertising, there was no negative-U relationship between the frequency of placements and audience attitudes toward the brand placed. In the case of visual placements, attitudes actually improved with frequency as a result of the mere exposure effect. However, this effect was not observed in the case of audio placements. Essay 3 addresses "Need for Cognition", an individual level variable that was found to affect audience response toward the brand placed. Data were collected through an online survey and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The mood of the viewer and their parasocial attachment with the character in the program that was associated with the placement had significant positive relationships with their attitude toward the specific placement, which in turn had a strong positive relationship with the attitude toward the brand. However, the latter relationship was moderated by NFC, with the effect being significantly stronger for those viewers who did not engage in, or enjoy analytical activity. Limitations of the studies, the relevance of the findings to marketing practice, and the contribution to scholarly research are discussed.