M.Com. (Business Management) / What really drives business success? Ten, twenty years ago, it would have been somewhat easier to answer this pertinent question. What were seen as central to business success were functional hard core derivatives i.e. operational efficiency, financial discipline and speed to market. Customers, essentially customer experience, were never part of the equation. For those very few organisations that bid to be anything different, the concepts customer experience and customer satisfaction were merely an afterthought. Today the picture is slightly different. Organisations are now applying a contemporary business approach and showing more appreciation for customers. Organisations realise that by creating an environment that is pro—consumer, an environment that achieves and maintains a fair balance between organisational process efficacies and customers’ needs, an environment that harnesses employees productivity and encourages fluid communication passage between the organisation and its customers, they will not only connect with their customers on an emotional level, but they will be able to build a sustainable brand asset and a long-lasting profitable relationships with their customers. It is for this reason that the four customer experience elements namely: process, people, channel approach and branding were selected as premise for this study. This study tries to understand and establish the influence of customer experience elements on customer satisfaction at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). An investigation was conducted on customer experience within a process-centred approach at the IDC. The study was steered in two stages. The first stage focused on exploratory research, and the second stage focused on descriptive research. The sample consisted of 276 customers. In-depth interviews were conducted with customers to assist the researcher in developing the statements in the questionnaire. A self-administered questionnaire was designed based on theoretical literature provided within the study and information gathered through the in-depth interviews. Various statistical analysis procedures were used to achieve the objectives of the study, including factor analysis, rotated factor matrix, Cronbach’s alpha, multiple regression and comparison analysis.

Games as a form of communication have been examined by academics in the fields of game studies, narratology and media studies, among others, but the use of games to communicate advertising messages has not been adequately explored within the South African context. The study sought to investigate the phenomenon of advergaming, purpose-built games designed to communicate an advertising message, in South Africa, and to develop a model for the use of advergaming as a viral marketing tool in this context. Using a hybrid approach, the study examined the way that advertising agencies currently use advergames as well as the effectiveness of advergaming as a means to communicate a message. The study presents the results of a national survey of advertising agencies in South Africa, a content analysis of existing advergames and an analysis of three semi-structured group interview experiments conducted using selected advergames. The findings point to the potential of advergaming as a message communication tool, but also highlight the challenges that may hamper the widespread use of advergaming in South Africa. It proposes the use of the mobile environment as a means to reach a wider South African audience and in that way, overcome some of the obstacles to advergaming adoption. In addition, the results identify aspects of advergames that seem to correlate with the effectiveness of message communication.

Social media is an unexplored and new area, for both businesses and academia. Many institutions are not confident on how to improve their business through the use of social media, neither for internal or external purposes. Social media is nevertheless immense among private persons (Wikström & Wigmo 2010:1) and to ignore this would be a critical mistake by marketing communicators, regardless of the economic sector in which they operate. Therefore, this study intended to expand on the current limited knowledge and information available relating to the use of social media by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to improve their brand image. The primary objective of this research was to evaluate and empirically test the impact of selected Brand identity variables (Brand reputation, Brand relevance, Brand personality, Brand performance and Brand relationship) on the Brand image of a HEI, through the use of social media. The focus was on the impact of social media (Facebook) on the brand image of a Higher Education Institution (HEI), namely the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), which was used as the sample for this study.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Strategic Marketing 19 June 2017 / The purpose of the study was to determine the antecedents of brand tribalism and its influence on purchase intention in the luxury housing market. A research conceptual model was developed to assess the potential relations between luxury brand preference, corporate philanthropy, social identity, brand fetish, brand tribalism and luxury brand purchase intention. The research objectives and proposed hypothesis were also based on the above-mentioned variables. The study adopted the positivist approach whereby it was quantitative in nature. Research data was collected from 267 willing participants from the Gauteng province in various industries. Their selection for the study was based on convenience sampling. In order to analyse the data the structural equation modelling approach was utilised in which SPSS 24 and AMOS 24 were used. Numerous findings were observed from five hypotheses that were developed for the purposes of the study. The proposed hypotheses were found to be supported and significant except for one. The relationships not significant were those of social identity and brand tribalism. This was also the weakest relationship and suggested that to identify socially; one did not need to be part of a brand tribe. Lastly, recommendations for marketing practitioners, housing market government officials and academicians were provided in the study. / MT2017

Diss. Lund : Lunds universitet, 2009.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 30, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MA)--University of Canberra, 2007. / Includes bibliography (p. 97-109).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, May 2010. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 16, 2010). "College of Business." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Griffith University, 2005. / "10th October 2005." Title taken from title screen (viewed October 25, 2007). Includes bibliographical references and appendices.

Leadership branding is a relatively new construct in academic literature. It has been largely written about in popular press articles in order to describe the brand exhibited by the leadership of the organisation. The leadership brand influences the behaviour of the employees as well as the perception of the external stakeholders. The influence on the stakeholders’ are largely through the leadership’s interaction with the stakeholders as well as their involvement in establishing and managing the corporate brand of the organisation. A strong corporate brand has been proven to provided benefits to an organisation; the influence the leadership has on corporate brand creation and management thus directly affects the benefits. Considering there are no studies investigating the leadership brand relative to the corporate brand, a list of attributes by Ulrich and Smallwood (2009) was modified in order to fulfil the purpose of the study; to determine whether a leadership brand exists and whether it has any relationship to the corporate brand. Exploratory quantitative analysis was used in order to achieve the research objectives. The questionnaire was distributed to 140 employees of a large mining organisation in South Africa. It was found that a leadership brand is present within the organisation and that it relates well to that of the organisation’s corporate brand. The analysis of the results revealed that there are a distinct group of brand attributes displayed by the leadership of the organisation that culminate in the development of the organisation’s corporate brand. Further investigations regarding how the demographics of the respondents influenced their perception of the leadership brand yielded no conclusive evidence, thus indicating that that the leadership brand is achieved regardless of the composition of the organisation. The findings from the research have contributed to the current academic knowledge regarding the leadership brand. Furthermore, the research can assist organisations in constructing and managing the corporate brand of the organisation. Identifying the leadership brand and ensuring that the organisation’s communication is aligned with that of the leadership brand assists in creating brand consistent behaviour within the organisation and establishes credibility with external stakeholders. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / ccgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted