This paper seeks to examine how major college athletics have grown into a billion dollar industry, and the way businesses, advertisers and the schools themselves can effectively grow their brands. By understanding the theoretical framework referenced by the social identity theory, disposition theory and identity through mass media, this paper offers a look into the reasoning for America’s strong affinity towards college athletics. Resulting in a mass market for intercollegiate sports delivered though various media outlets, and the business models that conferences and television networks operate in an effort to capitalize on their demand. In addition, the observation and analysis for organizational dissension between conferences and membership is explored in order to better understand the reasoning for shifts between university teams and conferences. / text

Abstract Problem: Branded products can be seen everywhere around us at all time, and is a way of communication for the buyer of the product But, what if one cannot build a brand based on visibility, an example is underwear, then how is it possible to create a brand and add value to it? Is it actually feasible to create a strong brand when not leveraging upon visibility? The organization Stargate Brand Group and its brand Frank Dandy Superwear have been used in order to obtain a deeper understanding around the topic. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to research how to create brand value for an invisible brand within the fashion industry. Method: To help fulfill the purpose a qualitative approach has been used. Personal interview with the CEO of Stargate Brand Group, telephone interviews with 20 fashion retailers combined with focus groups consisting of potential underwear buyers. The authors believe this approach helped to understand customer behaviour, branding techniques and how to create a brand value from an invisible branded product. Result: The most important elements in order to create brand value for an invisible brand are quality and perceived quality. To become a successful underwear brand, since that is the invisible brand that the authors choose to focus upon, quality must be highly emphasized, and offering a high quality product is one way of creating brand value to customers. The overall understanding of invisible products and brands is that they are bought primarily to fulfill the customer’s need of feeling comfortable and leverage upon people’s desire of well-being. An invisible brand cannot leverage upon its user to the same extent as other products, since it is not shown to the public.

The SAWS is interested in demonstrating the economic and social benefits of the products or services it provides to the public, industries and other organisations. It is also important for the organisation to carry out ongoing performance assessment of public and commercial weather services to ensure that these services are efficient and effectively meeting the public's and customer's needs and contribute to longer term commercial and societal objectives. Some other National Weather Services has developed "Service Charters" which detail their pledge of performance to the user communities, specifically, customers and the general public. These service charters provide a brief overview of the services provided, a commitment of performance against specific targets and a commitments to consult and identify a means by which the customers and the public may register their concern. As a result the service charters has become an important component of the Weather Services branding measurement strategy. The acceptance of the SAWS products or services by the public and other weather users depends on a number of factors. Scientific accuracy is just one of those factors. Also the health of the SAWS depends on the perceptions from full spectrum of weather users ranging from individual citizens, media, aviation, ... Ill marine, industry, government departments, construction companies, and insurance. These perceptions include those about requirements, accessibility, availability, accuracy, timelines, utility, comprehension, sufficient and packaging. The objective is to ultimately measure performance from the user perspective and identify user's needs. It is also to measure the acceptance of the services provided from such dimensions as expectations, understanding, importance, satisfaction, and utility. This study has been framed within the hypothesis that the SAWS brand associations are not strong, not favourable and not unique to create a positive brand. It has come critical to assess the level of customer awareness and familiarity with the SAWS brand so as to improve the dissemination mechanisms of the weather forecast information. Based on a literature review, two types of brand association are identified. One is product association including functional attribute association and non-functional attribute association. The other is organisational association including corporate ability association and corporate social responsibility association. It has been found that, the greater the number of the core brand association, the higher the brand equity. The feedback received on the questionnaire and interviews directed at awareness and familiarity with the SAWS brand indicated that, a need exists to educate the public and potential customers about the products and services of the SAWS. Of paramount important is the improvement of the SAWS dissemination mechanisms and partnerships with other scientific research organisations. This will enable the SAWS to reach a wide range of the public and weather users and to safeguard property and life of all South Africans. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

Branding and the management of brands has become a highly prioritized aspect for com-panies to maintain lasting competitive advantage and to provide meaning to consumption. Therefore companies have adopted an inside-out approach in order to manage their brand. The challenge with an inside-out approach is to align the internal brand identity,what brands communicate, with the external brand image, what consumers perceive. Therefore two questions are crucial to answer; how does the brand want to be perceived and how is the brand actually perceived? There is a risk that gaps occur in the communication of the brand, and these gaps are crucial to monitor and prevent for effective brand management. This paper proposes a method on how to measure and align brand identity and brand im-age, based on existing theories and models regarding brand management. The method is evaluated through a case study, where the difference between Happy Plugs’ brand identity and brand image is analyzed. The method was designed using Kapferer’s Brand Pyramid and Brand Identity Prism. Both qualitative and quantitative data is used to examine how wide the gap between Happy Plugs’ brand identity and brand image is. The Happy Plugs brand is solely used as a tool to apply the designed method and evaluate the validity of it. The findings show that a gap in brand identity and brand image does occur, at higher levels of the brand pyramid, or brand identity. The results from the case study indicate that the designed model is an effective tool in identifying and measuring possible gaps, and is a use-ful approach for companies who wish to align their brand identity with brand image.

This study examines Corporate Social Responsibility in Sustainable Development and the notion of the Triple Bottom Line as an imperative in today’s socially responsible corporation. Standardization is used as a tool for integrating social and environmental costs and benefits into the financial bottom line of an organization. This research aims to discover what standards or methods are used to measure social and environmental progress in three organizations in Houston, Texas and the implied potential for CSR as a driver for profitability. The primary data included in this research was captured through semi-structured qualitative interviews with upper level management of the three companies included in the final study. The results consistently supported positive correlations between CSR and improvements in company image and stakeholder relations. One participant was also able to report evidence of increased profitability through cost containment as a result of their integration of CSR initiatives throughout their organization.

Buckman Laboratories (Pty) Ltd. (hereafter referred to as Buckman Laboratories) is an international, privately owned, specialty chemical manufacturer. The company's marketing strategy is based on customer intimacy and knowledge sharing and currently segments its markets (pulp and paper, water, leather and mining) by means of customer categorization based on industry potential sales. The Buckman brand is synonymous with the heavy industries (Sasol, ArcelorMittal, Mondi, Sappi, Eskom). For the company to grow and increase its profitability, Buckman Laboratories has to identify and select innovative brand drivers to stay competitive in the heavy industry market segment as well as identify other market segments to compete profitably in. In this study the Logical brand management model was specifically applied in terms of the customer perspective. Brand and cost drivers were identified from the company's and customers' perspective to identify opportunities in the current market segments (pulp and paper, water and leather). Metrics utilized were traditional gap analysis as well as the Opportunity Algorithm from Ulwick. Of importance was the consistent alignment of the model with Buckman Laboratories' strategy. The model includes continuous improvement, on-time delivery, product innovation, knowledge sharing, and providing a holistic product/service offering as brand drivers that will ensure innovative growth of the Buckman Laboratories brand. The conclusion is that the Logical brand management model as developed by Marc Logman may be successfully utilized to identify brand drivers to grow the Buckman Laboratories brand innovatively in future. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Buckman Laboratories (Pty) Ltd. (hereafter referred to as Buckman Laboratories) is an international, privately owned, specialty chemical manufacturer. The company's marketing strategy is based on customer intimacy and knowledge sharing and currently segments its markets (pulp and paper, water, leather and mining) by means of customer categorization based on industry potential sales. The Buckman brand is synonymous with the heavy industries (Sasol, ArcelorMittal, Mondi, Sappi, Eskom). For the company to grow and increase its profitability, Buckman Laboratories has to identify and select innovative brand drivers to stay competitive in the heavy industry market segment as well as identify other market segments to compete profitably in. In this study the Logical brand management model was specifically applied in terms of the customer perspective. Brand and cost drivers were identified from the company's and customers' perspective to identify opportunities in the current market segments (pulp and paper, water and leather). Metrics utilized were traditional gap analysis as well as the Opportunity Algorithm from Ulwick. Of importance was the consistent alignment of the model with Buckman Laboratories' strategy. The model includes continuous improvement, on-time delivery, product innovation, knowledge sharing, and providing a holistic product/service offering as brand drivers that will ensure innovative growth of the Buckman Laboratories brand. The conclusion is that the Logical brand management model as developed by Marc Logman may be successfully utilized to identify brand drivers to grow the Buckman Laboratories brand innovatively in future. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether environmental eco-labeling CSR-initiatives have an impact on brand equity. Specifically, if Swan eco-labeling on Ariel’s detergents have an impact on Ariel´s brand equity from a consumer’s perspective. A quantitative study was conducted on Kristianstad University students in Sweden where a sample survey of consumers’ attitudes were collected then analyzed using Spearmans’ correlation coefficient along with independent-samples t-tests. A modified model of Keller´s (2009) customer-based brand equity model (CBBE) was employed along with five proposition regarding CSR´s impact on brand equity. The findings of this study showed that environmental CSR has positive effect on all of the components of brand equity such as; brand awareness, brand image, brand meaning, brand response and brand resonance. In conclusion the findings of this study show that the Swan eco-label on Ariel’s detergents has an impact on how the respondents view Ariel as a brand.

This study is about how a swedish brand within the food industry that experiences a crisis following a product failure. It focuses on three areas following the crisis and these are crisis management, recovery strategies and brand management. This study seeks to explain how these areas interact in relation to massive exposure to mass media and how they interact restore the brand's potential loss of reputation. This study was conducted as a case study with a deductive and qualitative approach. The data gathered to this study was mainly based on newspaper articles and complemented with semi-structured interviews with twelve local retailers of the brand. / BakgrundDagens moderna samhället präglas av snabba informationsutbyten vilket medför ett ständigt behov av att vara informerad. Detta ökar nivån för stress och risken för att felaktigheter uppstår blir större. Att flera större företag under senare år drabbats av felaktigheter som lett till en större uppmärksamhet genom olika informationskanaler anses vara en följd av det ökade informationsutbytet. När information om ett företags felaktigheter sprids kan detta skada företagets varumärke, något som kan bli förödande för företagets fortsatta existens. Som en följd av detta uppstår ett behov av att vårda varumärket genom att inleda en återhämtningsprocess samt att hantera den uppkomna situationen med stark exponering mot informationskanaler.SyfteStudien syftar till att beskriva återhämtningsprocessen hos en svensk livsmedelsproducent som drabbats av ett produktfel som kan skada dess varumärke.MetodDenna studie har genomförts som en fallstudie med en deduktiv och kvalitativ ansats. Data är insamlat främst från kanaler för informationsspridning, i detta fall större nyhetstidningar, samt genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer med tolv lokala återförsäljare av fallföretagets produkter.SlutsatsFörfattaren anser att den större mediala exponering som fallföretaget gick igenom till följd av ett produktfel snabbt visade på att fallföretaget inte själva kunde beskyllas för det inträffade felet. Fallföretaget har konsekvent genom perioden av den mediala exponeringen tillämpat en öppenhet och transparens gentemot medierna, detta är något som studien anser bör verka gynnsamt för fallföretaget då det genom den ökade transparensen givits en psykologisk kompensation till konsumenter då dessa kan hålla sig informerade om vad som hände samt följa hur företaget arbetar för att åtgärda problemet. Studien kan inte kunnat påvisa att detta fall av förhöjd exponering mot medierna har påverkat konsumenters köpvanor nämnvärt.

Taiwan’s recent population is growing in a declining rate, where an aging population era has arrived and struck us. The reality that only a fixed number of potential users will continue consuming motorcycle product goods has shrunk the market to an even smaller size since each household may not require as many transportation tools as they might have used to do because most of the family size structure is becoming small. On top of that, governmental policy on pushing for construction project of Metropolitan Railway Transportation (MRT) that basically benefits the general public with inexpensive convenient rides from east to west and north to south. Such construction projects have made the public eventually rely less on scooters as a necessary and convenient transportation tool. Instead, the public perceives MRT is rather time and money saving than scooters. Nonetheless, along with the growth of GDP per capita and the increasing reliance on public transportation means, the public has begun to change their perceptions on what and how they use motorcycles. The purpose of this research is to understand and investigate the relationship of the three key motorcycle players, namely, Yamaha Motors (YMT), San Yang Motors (SYM) and Kymco Motors’ (KYMCO) brand management system and their product lines decision. Since the more diversified one’s products lines is, the more complicated the process could be to manage both parent and family brand. In addition, the decision of extending one’s products lines and the synergy effects of such extensions bringing to the product equity and the entire business are worthy of studying. Since these are likely to affect how each company invests resources in R&D and market expansion.