The new phenomena of brand activism can be used as a communication strategy to reach consumers. The demand for brand activism has increased with the generation of millennials. This research uses a qualitative method to get a greater understanding of how companies use brand activism as a communication strategy to reach millennials. The authors have chosen to study corporate brands since they have a structure within the business where everything that is communicated from the brand will be a lifelong message.  This study is based on a content analysis to get a greater understanding for how brand activism is used and how companies with the help from activism content reach millennials. The companies that have been studied are Nike, Ben & Jerry’s and The Body Shop, which all use brand activism and have millennials as a part of their target audience.  Millennials are an important target audience since they stand for 30% of the population. Therefore it is important to grow and understand their new demands for more ethical and moral brands. This generation wants to contribute to the world and make a change.  The results of this study shows that brand activism engages millennials and has a positive effect on their purchase intentions. Which is important for companies to take into consideration in their corporate branding. The results also show whether or not the companies are bold or not when they chose a subject to take a stand in.

Corporate brands in today’s business landscape are complex and multifaceted, with employees playing a critical role in the building of those brands. As employee brand commitment forms an important part of building a corporate brand, it would be beneficial to understand the drivers of employee brand commitment in order to better understand the corporate brand. One of the main aspects of employee brand commitment is the personality of the corporate employer brand. This research aims to determine the relationship between corporate brand personality and employee brand commitment. By utilising the Corporate Brand Personality Scale and employee brand commitment measures, a quantitative survey was administered to 250 members of an online research panel. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the most common elements of the Corporate Brand Personality Scale. Thereafter, regression analysis was performed to determine the role of brand personality in predicting an employee’s commitment to their corporate brand. The results of this study show that factors of corporate brand personality have a significant influence on employee brand commitment. Further discussion into factor analysis shows that progressive and steadfast personality traits have a significantly positive effect on employee brand commitment, whilst supercilious personality traits have a negative effect on employee brand commitment. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

El objetivo de la presente investigación es determinar el rol de las dimensiones del brand equity en la decisión de elegir un banco, en personas de 20 a 25 años de lima. La finalidad del estudio es identificar qué variables presentan una mayor correlación con la elección de escoger un banco. Las variables analizadas fueron: Brand Awareness, Brand Association, Brand Loyalty y Brand Activity En el presente estudio, se realizaron 2 técnicas de investigación, Entrevistas a profundidad y encuestas. La primera consistió en la elaboración de dos entrevistas a profundidad para cada grupo objetivo, en el cual se desarrolló una guía de preguntas distribuida en bloques con diferentes objetivos cada uno. La segunda técnica también tenía bloques de preguntas, las cuales sirvieron de apoyo para realizar la presente investigación. Por último, se buscó validar las hipótesis específicas mediante elaboración de un análisis de correlación con los resultados obtenidos en el estudio cuantitativo. Los principales hallazgos fueron que, si bien todas las dimensiones del brand equity relacionan al consumidor en la decisión de escoger algún producto y/o servicio, dentro de ellas existen dimensiones son más relevantes e influyen de manera más profunda en la elección de escoger un banco. / The objective of this research is to determine the role of the dimensions of brand equity in the decision to choose a bank, in people from 20 to 25 years old in Lima. The purpose of the study is to identify which variables present a greater correlation with the choice of a bank. The variables analysed were: Brand Awareness, Brand Association, Brand Loyalty and Brand Activity In this study, two research techniques were used, in-depth interviews and surveys. The first consisted in the elaboration of two in-depth interviews for each target group, in which a guide of questions distributed in blocks with different objectives each one was developed. The second technique also had blocks of questions, which served as support for this research. Finally, we sought to validate the specific hypotheses by developing a correlation analysis with the results obtained in the quantitative study. The main findings were that, although all the dimensions of brand equity affect the consumer in the decision to choose a product and/or service, within them there are dimensions that are more relevant and influence in a more profound way the choice of a bank. / Trabajo de investigación

Brands implement some strategies in choosing the right marketing activities and engaging in CSR activities in order to build up a positive brand image in the consumer's mind and to influence their perceptions. “CSR-brand fit” is the level of matching between a company's objective and  the implemented CSR activities. The purpose of this study is to explore how CSR implemented activities by a brand could positively influence brand image when those activities are in line with the business objectives of a brand. The study is done by the qualitative strategy with the abductive approach reasoning. Nine unstructured interviews were conducted in order to collect the data needed. Three cases were used presenting a “CSR-brand high fit” so the authors could explore how the “CSR-brand high fit” influences the brand image. The authors found that customers consider the high fit as something reasonable and makes common and logical sense.

Background:Brand gender is the set of human personality traits associated with masculinity and femininity applicable and relevant to brands. Brand gender perceptions can be affected through a range of different marketing techniques, to attract specific customers, and positively influence their consumer-brand relationships and their brand equity. Similar to past marketing techniques used by tobacco companies who targeted women with cigarettes using slogans such as “Torches of Freedom” and the message that smoking makes you slim, marketers are now trying to change consumer perceptions of snus, a tobacco product originating from Sweden, where a drastic increase in usage among women can be seen.  Problem: Previous literature on the topic of brand gender has mainly focused on products and product categories that are highly connected to consumers’ self-presentation. Current literature also expresses the need for future research to be done using specific brands and product categories. Researchers have also expressed the need for examination of brand gender in contexts of highly feminine cultures.  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine if LYFT’s marketing portrays a clear brand gender positioning and to see how consumers perceive gendered branding. The aim is to expand existing knowledge on brand love, brand gender congruence and brand-gender positioning, using a product category that is less connected to consumers’ self-presentation. To fulfil the purpose of this research, a content analysis of LYFT’s Instagram was conducted, followed by an analysis of regular users of snus to identify their perceptions and relationships with LYFT. Method: This study has followed a mixed-method approach, where a quantitative content analysis of LYFT’s Instagram has been executed, followed by eight qualitative semi-structured interviews of regular users of snus in the age range of 22-28 years in Sweden who are highly familiar with LYFT. The interviews were analysed following interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).  Results: The interview participants perceived LYFT’s typical customer, their communication, as well as their product attributes and benefits to be feminine, which was consistent with the results of the content analysis. Congruent with previous research, this study found that the typical user of the brand had the most significant effect on brand gender perceptions and that a strong brand gender positioning can enhance brand love. However, the study also found that female individuals were less likely to consume masculine products or product categories than what previous studies have claimed. This study is useful for marketing practitioners wanting to enhance their customer-brand relationships through clear brand gendering and shows the importance of utilizing marketing techniques such as social media to affect consumer perceptions of brand gender.

A lo largo de los años, la publicidad se ha encargado de explotar estereotipos relacionados a la figura femenina mediante la difusión de ideales que plantean desde los comportamientos que debe tener hasta cómo debe lucir una mujer. De esta manera, la representación de la mujer en la publicidad se ha visto afectada por un modelo poco realista. Sin embargo, desde el año 2014, esta tendencia publicitaria ha intentado ser combatida con la aparición de una nueva estrategia llamada “femvertising”. El uso de esta pretende transmitir a los consumidores una representación más valiosa y empoderada de las mujeres, para que el mensaje publicitario se mantenga alejado de la imagen estereotipada que ha venido mostrada en las últimas décadas. En este marco, el objetivo general de este artículo es analizar la percepción de las mujeres limeñas de 18 a 25 años frente al uso de femvertising para la construcción de la imagen de marca de las empresas de indumentaria. Utilizaremos un enfoque cualitativo centrado en entrevistas personales y grupales a partir de guías de indagación semiestructuradas. / Over the years, advertising has been responsible for exploiting stereotypes related to the female figure through the dissemination of ideals that are told, like some kind of the behaviors they should have or how they might look like. Therefore, the representation of women in advertising has been affected by an unrealistic model. However, since 2014, this advertising trend has tried to be fought back with the emergence of a new strategy called “femvertising”. The use of this is intended to convey to consumers a more valuable and empowered representation of women, so that it’s message is kept away from the stereotyped image shown in recent decades. Within this framework, the general objective of this article is to analyze the perception of the Lima women between 18 and 25 years old, of the use of femvertising for the construction of the brand image of clothing companies. We will use a qualitative approach focused on personal and group interviews, based on semi-structured inquiry guides. / Trabajo de investigación

Branding is an influential aspect a company can have to gain the attention of their customers. It is often said that, “Your brand is your promise to your customer”, because the brand is a confirmation that the product or service you are selling matches the expectations of the customer and their wants or needs (Grosdidier, 2012). From a consumer perspective, branding helps direct customers in choosing what they want to buy (Tarnovskaya and Bertilsson, 2017). This way, they spend less time focusing on the type of product and its qualities, because they can instead look at the products they are already familiar with instantly and purchase with little processing time (ibid). Not all companies are successful with branding and even successful companies run into issues. Customers usually determine if they like or dislike a brand, which means a brands main purpose should be to make their customers happy. It is important for businesses to give their customers a promising message and stay consistent to their brand.  Facebook and Instagram are both influential brand names to the face of consumers in the area of social networking. Both companies have over a billion site visits per day and their consumer usage has rapidly grown since Facebook’s first opening in 2004 and the grand opening of Instagram in 2010. In 2012, Kevin Systrom sold Instagram to Facebook for $1 billion dollars. Since the sales, both companies now average around the same market share and took place for the largest social media sites with the highest number of users, now above competitors Snapchat and Twitter (Barr, 2018). The purpose of this research is to identify and describe key factors that has made Facebook and Instagram successful in the perspective of university students. In addition, the findings will aim to discover key factors of success in branding that continually influence them to use social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram daily.  Conclusions of the study were that Facebook and Instagram both have success factors that are the same and some factors that are different. Facebook and Instagram’s success factors based on the research include an easy to use platform and the ability to connect with friends and family. Instagram had a few other strong success factors including its visual display of pictures instead of word content and their smoothly designed mobile app. Facebook lacked in both of these areas that Instagram excelled in. This made Facebook the weaker social media site when compared with Instagram.

La evolución de los medios online ha ocasionado gran impacto en la comunicación de marca y la participación de las marcas durante los últimos años. De la misma manera, este impacto afecta principalmente a las marcas que ingresan al mercado a través del canal digital utilizando herramientas del marketing en las redes sociales o creando una página web para el crecimiento del negocio. Existe todo un proceso para lograr la recompra de productos y generando así la lealtad de marca de los consumidores siendo este el objetivo principal de las marcas. El presente trabajo de investigación considero que, para lograr este objetivo, se debe conectar con los clientes; es decir, el engagement de la marca que se enfoca en la relación de los clientes con la marca. De esta manera, se crea un vínculo emocional y social, lo cual conlleva a que el consumidor interactúe con la marca mediante el canal online. Se utilizó una metodología de recolección de datos del campo cualitativo y cuantitativo con la finalidad obtener resultados favorables para la investigación. En primera instancia, se llevó a cabo entrevistas a expertos del sector retail de belleza y cuidado personal; se realizó también un focus group con el público objetivo del estudio. La segunda parte, de carácter cuantitativo, se ejecutó encuestas online a usuarias en base a los objetivos específicos de la investigación. / The evolution of online media has had a great impact on brand communication and brand participation in recent years. In the same way, this impact mainly affects brands that enter the market through the digital channel using marketing tools on social media networks or the companies create a website for business growth. There is a whole process to achieve the repurchase of products and thus generating the brand loyalty of the consumers which is the main objective of the brands. The present research work considers that to achieve this objective, the brands must connect with clients; in other words, that means the engagement of the brand which is focus on the relationship of customers with the brand. In this way, an emotional and social bond is created, which leads the consumer to interact with the brand through the online channel. A qualitative and quantitative field data collection methodology was used in order to obtain favorable results for the research. The first part of the study, interviews were conducted with experts from the retail beauty and personal care sector; a focus group was also held with the study's target audience. The second part, of a quantitative nature, was carried out online user surveys based on the specific objectives of the research. / Trabajo de investigación

En el presente trabajo de investigación, tiene como propósito de medir la relación de las dimensiones del Brand Equity (Brand Awareness, Brand Loyalty, Perceived Quality, Brand Associations) con la decisión de compra en empresas de moda sostenible en Lima Metropolitana. Ello responde a la aparición de una nueva corriente, donde los consumidores están optando por organizaciones de moda que se enfocan en el bienestar del medio ambiente. Con respecto a la metodología de investigación, fue de carácter mixto, donde se hizo uso de herramientas tanto cualitativas como cuantitativas. Por un lado, en el estudio cualitativo, se realizaron cuatro entrevistas a expertos en el sector de moda sostenible, seis entrevistas al público objetivo y, por último, un grupo focal. Por otro lado, con la finalidad de contrastar la información brindada por los expertos, se hizo uso de la investigación cuantitativa para darle profundidad y representatividad a la data recolectada. Para ello, se empleó una muestra de 293 usuarias de prendas de vestir de moda sostenible seleccionadas por un muestreo no probabilístico, a las cuales fueron encuestadas por un cuestionario de 37 preguntas. Con todo lo mencionado, se logró concluir que las dimensiones Brand Loyalty y Brand Associations tienen una mayor significancia con respecto a la decisión de compra. / The purpose of this research is to measure the relationship between the dimensions of Brand Equity (Brand Awareness, Brand Loyalty, Perceived Quality, Brand Associations) with the purchase decision in sustainable fashion companies in Lima. This responds to the emergence of a new trend, where consumers are opting for fashion organizations that focus on the well-being of the environment. Regarding the research methodology, which was a mixed nature, where both qualitative and quantitative tools were used. In one hand, the qualitative study, four interviews were conducted with experts in the sustainable fashion sector, six interviews of the target audience and, finally, one focus group. On the other hand, in order to contrast the information provided by the experts, quantitative research was used to give a deeper and representative view on the collected data. For this, we took a sample of 293 users of sustainable fashion clothing selected by a non-probability sample, and they were surveyed by forum of 37 questions. We concluded that the dimensions of brand loyalty and brand associations are have greater importance with respect of the purchase decision. / Trabajo de investigación

The culture within an organisation affects organisational performance in a myriad of ways, but the existing research was found by this paper to only examine organisational culture’s effect on profitability. This narrow view creates a gap between culture as a starting point for performance, and profitability as an ultimate endpoint. What about everything in between that culture has an effect on? Rather than examining organisational culture in terms of how it influences profitability, this study looks at how organisational culture influences an aspect organisational performance, specifically: its effect on brand image or on word-of-mouth referral. To do so, this paper unpacks a causal chain of influences in four chapters. The research here shows how that employees situated within the culture influences customers to promise to refer the organisation to their social connections. The literature shows that organisational culture is a context that influences most facets of business, and this context is used as a filter by employees to understand how they should behave and what they should value. This paper proposes that employees receive internal brand communications within the context of the culture. Then, they conduct their service actions according to what is expected of them within this context. Customers who interact with these employees are then coming into contact with the organisational by the proxy of customer-facing employees. These interactions between customers and employees are what causes the customer to enjoy the service experience or not. The theory shows that when a service experience is enjoyed, there is likelihood of positive word-of-mouth referral. This paper correlates that and proposes that when there is a strong degree of alignment in organisational culture, employees receive internal brand communications and conduct their service actions in strong alignment of what is expected of them. This leads to customers perceiving the organisation in a way that is favourable and causes a significant number of customers to promise to recommend the organisation.