I takt med den digitala revolutionen som musikindustrin genomgått, har frågor angående hur musikfans online blir lojala mot artister framgått och skapat ämne för diskussion. Syftet med denna uppsats är att utveckla en djupare förståelse för hur musikfans online skapar varumärkeslojalitet genom gemensamt engagemang. Studien har genomförts utifrån en kvalitativ metod med en abduktiv forskningsansats. Nio kvalitativa intervjuer samt en fokusgrupp innehållande sju deltagare har genomförts för att ge svar på forskningsfrågorna. Utifrån studiens empiri och analys kunde det fastställas huruvida musikfans är en betydande faktor i marknadsföringen av en artist. Analysen kommer även fram till huruvida musikfans existerar samt beter sig i en online miljö. Studien visar att musikfans genom gemensamma engagemang kan skapa och stärka varumärkeslojalitet. Vilka faktorer som påverkar musikfans interaktioner som leder till engagemang diskuteras i mer detalj i den avslutande slutsatsen. / The rise of social media has given birth to new marketing means and in the music industry different ways to make fans engage with artist content. Thus, marketers are in need to understand the new way fans engage with artists and other fans. The purpose of this study is to examine how music fans online engage with other fans and how this correlates to the creation of brand loyalty towards artists. The study aims to provide new insight from brands and marketers in how they can improve their strategies towards the creation of brand loyalty. The study's empirical data is based on single interviews and a focus group which have been based on qualitative methods. The study indicates that music fans play an important role in how an artist's music is distributed and engaged with. Furthermore, the findings show a correlation between music fans engagement with other music fans and the creation of loyalty towards an artist. Finally the study shows ways a fan is created and what method could be used for future researchers on the subject. We propose that further research needs to be conducted where more specific fan groups are examined as well as how interactions and engagement differs between generations.

Brand loyalty has been studied extensively in consumer-brand relationship literature. However, the negative side of these relationships has not been studied to the same degree. This paper starts with Court et al.’s (2009) loyalty loop as part of the consumer decision journey and proposes that consumers may stop being loyal to a brand due to various circumstances.The authors propose a negative view of the loyalty loop, the disloyalty loop, exist, in which consumers become disloyal. Furthermore, the authors conducted this study in order to find out if this relationship exists, the disloyalty loop, within the framework of social media platforms, i.e. applications who allow communication among users over the Internet. These platforms should not solely be seen as online communication tools, but as brands themselves.Semi-structured interviews with social media users were conducted showing that consumers can navigate between the loyalty and disloyalty loops, and even exit the brand relationship completely. These findings indicate that consumers’ brand loyalty should not be taken for granted, and service failures may cause them to reduce their patronage, abandon the brand, and even influence other consumers negatively through word-of-mouth.

It seems that online retail is erasing the presence of physical stores, referred to as the retail apocalypse. Consumers’ desire to experience brands is increasing whilst sensory experiences in the online retail environment are limited. It is increasingly important for brands to be attainable through physical interaction for consumers to stay loyal, a fundament for the experience economy. Therefore, the pop up phenomenon could be considered an approach to blur the line between physical and online stores. The aim of this research is to create an understanding of how the pop up phenomenon is experienced by phygital companies in Sweden, exploring their use of multisensory marketing through pop ups and the effect it has on the brand. A qualitative and exploratory approach with semi-structured and asynchronous interviews including nine managers from the pop up industry was conducted. The data collected was analysed through a thematic approach and compared to existing literature. From the findings, two pop up purposes were identified: (1) pop ups with a long-term marketing purpose to enhance the brand, and (2) pop ups with a short-term selling purpose. Further, the empirical findings of this study suggest that the usage of multisensory experiences was recurrently found to be done unintentionally by the firms, indicating a lack of knowledge of its impact on customer behaviour in the long-term. From combining literature and findings a model was created explaining how firms can use the pop up phenomenon to successfully enhance the company’s brand. This research provides insights of managers’ personal experiences of the phenomenon and explores how pop ups can be a useful tool for a company's brand.

While the concept of brand loyalty is well-researched, qualitative studies pertaining specifically to generational transfer of brand loyalty in a South African fast-moving consumer goods context are few and far between. This study used the dishwashing liquid product category in the Western Cape Province of South Africa to analyse generational transfer of brand loyalty. Following a qualitative research methodology, using in-person interviews across two generations - children and parents/guardians - raw data was obtained. Participants were asked to provide information relating to their preferred brand of dishwashing liquid, as well as their reasons for using the brand, their loyalty towards the brand, as well as their likelihood of brand switching. The data underwent a thorough thematic data analysis. Codes, categories, and themes were identified, with the researcher continually seeking to identify patterns in responses. A number of findings were laid out, offering insights into the concept of generational transfer of brand loyalty, as well as a foundation for future research into the topic. The study established that, in the dishwashing liquid product category in the Western Cape, there is a strong degree of generational transfer of brand loyalty, and at times, the transfer has taken place across three generations. Aspects such as consumers’ use of a brand out of habit and brand associations also appear to transfer generationally at times. There is also a strong occurrence of brand loyalty in the product category - mostly towards Unilever’s Sunlight brand. Brand switching across generations is uncommon in this sector, prevented by factors including enthusiastic brand loyalty and budgetary limitations. When switching does occur, it is driven mainly by a desire to discover whether a better brand exists, and changes in price and availability. Price and effectiveness frequently combine to form assessments of value during consumers’ purchase decision process in this product category. This study provides insight into the phenomenon of generational transfer of brand loyalty, within the context of the FMCG industry in the Western Cape. The findings within may prove useful both to brand marketers as well as researchers seeking a foundation upon which to conduct further studies in this area. The implications of this study, and recommendations for future, related studies, have been discussed in this report.

Background: Brand loyalty is an essential asset for brands as it helps brands to build a strong brand. Therefore, brands invest a significant amount of money in their marketing efforts and strategies to create and maintain brand loyalty in an ever-competitive market. One of these strategies is social media marketing, or more precisely, influencer marketing. Before influencer marketing arose, as it is known today, brands used celebrity endorsements to market the brand. However, as influencer marketing increased in popularity for brand endorsements, celebrity endorsement became less sought after and can be considered equal in their characteristics due to their fame and well-known personality. Prior research has not investigated how influencer endorsement impacts brand loyalty, therefore, this thesis applied the concept of celebrity endorsement in the context of influencer marketing and thereby treated influencers as celebrities due to their similar characteristics. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explain the impact of influencers endorsement on brand loyalty. Methodology: This study used a deductive and quantitative approach and had an explanatory purpose and a cross-sectional research design. This study also presented a new model including three hypotheses that assumed a positive impact of the characteristics of an influencer’s endorsement on brand loyalty. The data collection was done through a self-completion questionnaire distributed online, which resulted in 104 valid responses. Findings: The findings of this study is that all the hypotheses (H1, H2, H3) are found insignificant in the all model (Model 5). This is because the hypotheses were rejected since the significance level of the ANOVA-test showed that the model was not significant as the significance level was above the accepted level (p<0.05). Hence,  no significant evidence can come from this study.  Conclusion: The conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that no significant relationship was found between the concepts of authenticity, credibility, and trustworthiness on brand loyalty, and based on these variables, influencer endorsements do not have an impact on brand loyalty.

This paper examines how social- and environmental sustainability is advertised on Instagram and how it in turn affects consumer-based brand equity. Firstly, a latent content analysis was conducted on Adidas Instagram account, @adidas, to gain insights on how they use sustainability in their advertising through their Instagram posts. The findings revealed how Adidas explicitly advertise sustainability, both social- and environmental sustainability on their Instagram account. However, the analysis displayed a higher focus on social issues compared to initiatives to facilitate environmental sustainability. Secondly, Adidas Instagram was analyzed with the use of insights from interviews, to capture how its sustainability efforts affect consumers and thereby brand equity. The findings demonstrate the importance of taking the consumer perspective into account to positively affect the dimensions included within brand equity through social media, and to not miss out on the favorable outcomes of sustainability advertising. Accordingly, the research offers concrete knowledge on how sustainability can be advertised on social media by fashion brands, and its effect on brand equity. An area that has highly been neglected among previous researchers. The study contributes to valuable knowledge on how brands, in a generally unsustainable industry, could demonstrate their sustainability efforts in advertising to foster sustainable consumption among consumers into a more sustainable future.

Background: Nowadays, companies globally utilise various branding strategies to win and build strong brand loyalty. One of the marketing strategies tools that companies utilise since the 21st century is celebrity endorsement. The idea of a celebrity endorser can be defined as a well-known individual who is glorious in the field of a brand's target audience. Celebrity endorser characteristics, including trustworthiness, attractiveness and expertise, are all sub-components of celebrity endorsement credibility that play an essential role in consumers’ minds and are considered as relevant dimensions in this study. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how the celebrity endorsers’ characteristics impact on brand loyalty in the context of consumers in Sweden.  Methodology: This study used the deductive approach, quantitative research to conduct the study. Cross-sectional was used to test the developed conceptual model with the three hypotheses. While, non-probability and convenience sampling methods were used on the way to choose the sampling. The data collection was done through the self-completed questionnaires that ran on google survey to various online social media platforms and the total participants was 203 which is a valid number of respondents for the study.  Findings: The expertise of celebrity endorsers positively impacts brand loyalty and it is the most significant one, hypothesis three (H3) is accepted. The trustworthiness of celebrity endorsers positively impacts brand loyalty and it is the second significant one, hypothesis one (H1) is accepted. However, the attractiveness of celebrity endorsers results in no impact on brand loyalty. It showed an insignificant result. Hypothesis two (H2) is rejected.  Conclusion: This study revealed that only the trustworthiness and expertise of celebrity endorsers have a positive impact on brand loyalty in the context of consumers in Sweden. Finally, the findings of this research paper were applied to the research implication. Keywords: Celebrity endorsers’ characteristics;  the trustworthiness of celebrity endorsers; the attractiveness of celebrity endorsers; the expertise of celebrity endorsers; brand loyalty.

Background: Social media marketing has been used to facilitate communications and interactions between customers and brands and is considered as the effective driver to influence the customers’ buying behaviours and loyalty. Since its emergence in Vietnam market, Samsung smartphone brand has secured a considerable market share in this country and has activated some social media platforms to stay connected with its customers. Though the social media marketing activities and their impacts on brand loyalty have been studied by a number of researchers, the specific case of the smartphone industry has not been eyed enough.  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how social media marketing activities influence brand loyalty with the specific case of Samsung smartphones in Vietnam.  Method: The chosen approach to address the purpose of this study is deductive. Descriptive design and quantitative technique are purposefully selected to form a structure of methodology of this study. Specifically, the data collected via the tool of survey questionnaires which were delivered to respondents through social media platforms to yield out 197 usable answers.  Conclusion: The results show that the six elements of social media marketing activities, namely: Entertainment, Interaction, Trendiness, Customization, Word of Mouth and Promotion have positive correlations with Brand loyalty. With some differences in terms of responses from different age groups and genders in each category towards the dimensions being utilized on social media sites, the brand is suggested to give a better focus on the importance of Entertainment and Promotion. Also, the platforms of Instagram and Youtube should be better managed to attract and satisfy a larger number of followers.

Brands’ engagement in activism is increasing as consumers expect more of brands, especially the younger generations. However, brands have different intentions behind their engagement in activism. The purpose of this thesis is to explore female Gen Z consumers’ perception of global brands’ engagement in activism, and how this perception influences their brand loyalty. Female Gen Z consumers’ mind is explored since previous research indicates that there are gender differences within perception and loyalty. A qualitative method in the form of four online focus groups were conducted to collect empirical data. Three findings were discovered, which contributed to understanding of the existing gap in research. Firstly, female Gen Z consumers positively perceived global brands’ engagement in activism. Secondly, they perceived and responded to brand activism based on the campaigns’ message, its connection to the brand and its offerings. Thirdly, female Gen Z consumers’ perception influenced their brand loyalty. The study contributes with an additional understanding of young female consumers’ perspective which can be useful for marketers when creating activist campaigns. Future research could study the perspective of male Gen Z consumers or Gen Z consumers to get additional understanding.

Background: The study explores the impact of brand equity on brand loyalty intention within the accounting services sector in Finland. The study uses four dimensions of brand equity, which include perceived brand quality, perceived brand value, perceived brand uniqueness and perceived corporate credibility. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore the applicability and the impact of customer-based brand equity and its dimensions in the field of accounting. Method: The current research applies known conceptual frameworks and theories on the dimensions of customer-based brand equity in business-to-business context and investigates causal relationships between the CBBE dimensions and brand loyalty intention. A self-administered survey was conducted and a total of 93 responses was collected from businesses that use external accounting services. Conclusion: All hypotheses have been supported and the findings conclude that brand quality, brand value, brand uniqueness and corporate credibility have positive correlation with brand loyalty intention. Findings of the study are relevant for marketers and researchers, as well as for managerial implications in the building of brand equity. The paper provides valuable insights into the dimensions of customer-based brand equity in the business-to-business context and offers a solid foundation for future research on brand loyalty and brand equity and offers practical help for businesses to enhance their customers’ loyalty.