På grund av att dagens samhälle kantas av ett informationsöverflöd måste organisationer hitta andra vägar för att träffa rätt med sin kommunikation. Tidigare kommunicerades varumärkens budskap ut via traditionella medier men nya trender har medfört nya kommunikationsmetoder som sponsring via idrottsarenor med olika kommunikativa målsättningar. Då mycket av den tidigare forskningen på kommunikation via idrottsarenor har ett internationellt perspektiv med kommersiella aktörer tar denna studie istället avstamp i Sverige med hopp om att bidra med ett nytt perspektiv. Syftet med studien är att skapa ökad förståelse för kommersiella, kommunala och ideella aktörers kommunikativa arbete med arenasponsring. För att besvara studiens syfte och frågeställningar har en kvalitativ metod använts i form av samtalsintervjuer. Samtalsintervjuerna har genomförts med sju strategiskt utvalda respondenter som verkar inom kommersiella, kommunala och ideella organisationer och som fick avge sin syn på fenomenet arenasponsring. Resultatet visar att organisationernas arbete med att kommunicera via en idrottsarena handlar dels om att namnsätta en arena, dels att kommunicera på plats i arenan eller i egna kanaler samt genom att ha egna relationsskapande aktiviteter i anknytning till arenan. Genom arenasponsringen så kan de skapa kännedom om sitt varumärke, öka försäljningen och skapa relationer med sina intressenter. Trots att arbetet med kommunikationen via arenasponsringen är likvärdig för den övervägande delen av respondenterna skiljer sig dock deras incitament åt. Gemensamt för den övervägande delen av respondenterna är att de belyser det faktum att genom arenasponsringen så gagnar de stor publicitet i media.

<p>During the past two decades research has shown that brands are among a company’s most valuable assets. However, in today’s competitive landscape, it is not enough to just create strong brands. The focus lies rather in managing a range of brand lever-age strategies within complex brand portfolios. Moreover, the majority of today’s established brand concepts do not represent the reality of contemporary brand man-agement. Instead, they tend to be based on dichotomies and simplifications. In addi-tion, there is a lack of criticism towards many of the established brand concepts resulting in the reduction of brand management to a number of static categories and stagnated definitions – thereby missing out on the analysis of important intersec-tional issues between the various categories. This book explores the somewhat for-gotten area of intersection, investigating the territory in-between brands.</p><p>The methods used consist of a literature review covering some of the most influ-ential brand models within the area of brand portfolio and brand leverage as well as an empirical case study including the following seven brands: Adidas, Bang & Oluf-sen, Electrolux, H&M, Microsoft, Peak Performance and W. L. Gore & Associates.</p><p>The findings show that conventional brand management models and terminology do not fully explain common marketplace strategies and practice. As a result, this research introduces a more realistic viewpoint and dynamic framework that is based on convergence and that allows migration and iteration rather than today’s static approach. The framework, named the brand leverage palette, introduces various nuances between different leverage strategies, both adding clarity and offering guid-ance by explaining different migration movements among today’s brand portfolios.</p>

<p>Title: Creating high awareness – A study in how a company can create awareness with cost efficient marketing methods. (Skapande av hög medvetenhet – En studie i hur ett företag kan skapa medvetenhet med kostnadseffektiva marknadsförings metoder).</p><p>Authors: Alexander Edlund and Fredrik Hansson</p><p>Aim: Our aim is to reveal the pros and cons of cost efficient marketing and decide which cost efficient method works best in creating awareness. We also want to determine if the methods can be integrated in a successful way to achieve greater awareness.</p><p>Method/Material: We have made a qualitative approach by conducting three in depth interviews with the company Bluetooth SIG’s marketing director Anders Edlund. Our theoretical foundation is mainly built on theory from the databases and library supported by Uppsala University.</p><p>Main results: We discovered that co-branding and PR are the two most cost efficient methods in creating awareness for the company Bluetooth SIG. We also found the possibility of integrating the methods in a way that effectively strengthens and reinforces the awareness. We recommend future research in both areas to further examine our results.</p><p>Number of pages: 32 pages including abstract and references</p><p>Course: FEK C, Bachelors thesis</p><p>University: Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University</p><p>Period: 2007, Spring semester</p><p>Tutor: Olivia Kang</p><p>Keywords: Awareness, cost efficient marketing, integrating, Bluetooth, co-branding, PR, online-marketing, word-of-mouth/buzz marketing</p>

During the past two decades research has shown that brands are among a company’s most valuable assets. However, in today’s competitive landscape, it is not enough to just create strong brands. The focus lies rather in managing a range of brand lever-age strategies within complex brand portfolios. Moreover, the majority of today’s established brand concepts do not represent the reality of contemporary brand man-agement. Instead, they tend to be based on dichotomies and simplifications. In addi-tion, there is a lack of criticism towards many of the established brand concepts resulting in the reduction of brand management to a number of static categories and stagnated definitions – thereby missing out on the analysis of important intersec-tional issues between the various categories. This book explores the somewhat for-gotten area of intersection, investigating the territory in-between brands. The methods used consist of a literature review covering some of the most influ-ential brand models within the area of brand portfolio and brand leverage as well as an empirical case study including the following seven brands: Adidas, Bang &amp; Oluf-sen, Electrolux, H&amp;M, Microsoft, Peak Performance and W. L. Gore &amp; Associates. The findings show that conventional brand management models and terminology do not fully explain common marketplace strategies and practice. As a result, this research introduces a more realistic viewpoint and dynamic framework that is based on convergence and that allows migration and iteration rather than today’s static approach. The framework, named the brand leverage palette, introduces various nuances between different leverage strategies, both adding clarity and offering guid-ance by explaining different migration movements among today’s brand portfolios.

Title: Creating high awareness – A study in how a company can create awareness with cost efficient marketing methods. (Skapande av hög medvetenhet – En studie i hur ett företag kan skapa medvetenhet med kostnadseffektiva marknadsförings metoder). Authors: Alexander Edlund and Fredrik Hansson Aim: Our aim is to reveal the pros and cons of cost efficient marketing and decide which cost efficient method works best in creating awareness. We also want to determine if the methods can be integrated in a successful way to achieve greater awareness. Method/Material: We have made a qualitative approach by conducting three in depth interviews with the company Bluetooth SIG’s marketing director Anders Edlund. Our theoretical foundation is mainly built on theory from the databases and library supported by Uppsala University. Main results: We discovered that co-branding and PR are the two most cost efficient methods in creating awareness for the company Bluetooth SIG. We also found the possibility of integrating the methods in a way that effectively strengthens and reinforces the awareness. We recommend future research in both areas to further examine our results. Number of pages: 32 pages including abstract and references Course: FEK C, Bachelors thesis University: Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University Period: 2007, Spring semester Tutor: Olivia Kang Keywords: Awareness, cost efficient marketing, integrating, Bluetooth, co-branding, PR, online-marketing, word-of-mouth/buzz marketing

As organisations try to emerge from the recent economic downturn, they attempt to enter different markets to decrease their dependency on their core market. Due to high costs in R&amp;D and the risk of failure, organisations try to sell the core components of their products to business partners who can incorporate these components into their own offering. Using a qualitative research method, we studied the case of TACHI as a player in the construction equipment industry. The purpose of the research was to find factors for maintaining successful business partnerships within this industry and also the role of co- branding in these business partnerships. After analysing the results of our study and reflecting on the theoretical framework, we concluded that operational compatibility, and commitment and trust were considered as the key factors that were most important in making business partnerships work successfully. Interestingly, players in the construction equipment industry do not consider co-branding as a strategy for entering new markets. However, we discovered a new phenomenon, which is informal branding, and we recommend this as a topic for future research.

Tourism as one of the biggest industries in the world has been changing continuously and rapidly. The publishing of the Brundtland Report in 1987 has accelerated the discussion about combining economic, social and environmental factors – the so-called triple-bottom line – in order to secure long-term sustainable living conditions on a finite planet for both business and society. This has lead to occurring pressure from different stakeholder groups as for example policy makers or non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) urging for more sustainable business practise within the industry whereas one important pressure group appears to be missing out in this context: the customers of mass tourism products and therefore the demand side within the economic equation. Tourists have been observed to be overall reluctant to pay price premiums for more sustainable travel alternatives and seem to “take vacation” from their everyday green behaviour. Hence at the current point of time eco-tourism appears to be a market niche in which mainly small-scale providers and NGO’s like Nature’s Best in Sweden operate. However integrating mass tourism into the consideration can be seen as a promising opportunity and from an environmental standpoint an urgent necessity as it can be argued that within an industry of this scale, even small improvements towards more sustainable behaviour bear the potential for a substantial impact. The purpose of this study therefore lies in researching the two marketing tools of brands and eco-labels and the influence they can have individually and in combination on the tourist’s decision making delimitated to the context of charter tourism in Sweden. Through the research of this study it was found that currently no directly applicable theory about the combination of brands and eco-labels seems to exist for marketing neither in general, nor for the tourism industry in particular. This strongly indicates the novelty of the topic of combining brands and eco-labels and points out research opportunities. In order to achieve this purpose, a mixed-method research design was used combining qualitative expert interviews from direct business representatives and a quantitative data collection utilizing the scholarly acknowledged marketing research method of conjoint analysis in one of its most up-to-date forms of an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis. Theory from different fields of study as consumer behaviour and decision making, branding and eco-labelling as well as sustainability marketing was combined and translated into the new and emerging service category of sustainable tourism. From this a conceptual framework was developed combining the data collection results from the mixed-method approach. This leads to the identification of ways for improving current charter tourism companies’ marketing based on the customers’ current view on utilities within certain aspects of the tourism package. Overall this study therefore contributes to the discussion on how demand for sustainable products evolves and can likely be increased. This is seen as a valuable theoretical, practical and societal contribution as it helps improving tourism companies’ understanding of their customer base and supports offering products/services with an improved perceived individual and societal value for charter tourism companies that aim for a higher degree of sustainability in their objectives.

The increased competitive intensity in several global markets has encouraged firms which traditionally compete, to also collaborate with each other, that is coopetitive branding alliances. Coopetitive branding has, to the best of our knowledge, not been researched from a consumer perspective.Does this mean that consumers remain unaffected when two competitors all of a sudden also collaborate?The purpose of this thesis is to explore how consumers’ brand images can be affected by firms’coopetitive branding strategies. With support from existing alliance literature and an empirical studycomprised of four focus groups, an abductive research approach is adopted.The findings indicate four distinct parameters, which can influence an alliance’s outcome, from theperspective of a consumer’s positive or negative brand image - which is a vital component in consumer-based brand equity. The contradictory nature of simultaneous competition and collaborationmakes coopetitive branding more or less desirable, from a consumer perspective, under differentcircumstances, which need to be acknowledged and managed by the partnering firms. A suggestionfor future research is to examine a wider consumer segment and not only students, to validate thetransferability of our findings.The results contribute to the strategic alliances theory, since existing research has not examinedthe consumer perspective and brand image in relation to coopetitive branding alliances. The resultscan also provide managerial guidelines for firms that wish to understand what elements of a coopetitive branding alliance creates value with consumers.

Purpose - The purpose of this research is to explore if there is a viable way for a newly brand to speed up the process of creating and acquiring the brand equity. Since branding is a very broad area, we narrow the research down to brand alliance for startups. With this research, we aim to deep into the subject to understand how this has been done and could be done.   Research Question - How can a start-up make brand associations with other well-known brands, in order to leverage their equity and acquire its own?   Methodology - Qualitative research method is applied through an interview to the case study company. This research is conducted in inductive reasoning which conforms to the qualitative paradigm. In addition, the research approach is an interpretive that has a view of subjectivism ontology. By looking into our case company, the description of each of the co-branding partnerships performed with its partners is examined. The information is gathered via an interview to the case company as well as secondary sources.   Findings - This research indicates that the case company has greatly benefited from the large number of co-branding partnerships with other well-known brands. It has benefited both in terms of gaining brand awareness and brand image, as well as accessing the customer base of its partners. It is an indication that a new start-up can speed up the process of branding and customers acquisition by engaging in co-branding partnerships.

The aim of this study is to understand how co-branding can be strategically implemented and its relevance in small business customer relationships. The study serves as a guide for small businesses striving to strengthen their brand and improve their customer relationships through strategic utilization of co-branding. By enhancing knowledge about co-branding as a strategy, businesses can identify opportunities and challenges of successfully implementing the strategy in their operations. The theoretical foundations of the study include areas of brand equity, co-branding and relationship marketing. Using a qualitative method and across-sectional study design, we conducted semi-structured interviews with five companies and seven consumers to obtain multiple valuable perspectives and viewpoints on the research topic. Based on the empirical research, the findings indicate that consumers value quality, company values, long-term relationships, personalized offers, and trust in brands. Consumers also view brand collaborations positively but emphasize the importance of clear objectives and beneficial partnerships. The companies reported that collaborations can provide broader reach, expand the target audience, increase market share and sales, and facilitate insights sharing and trust building. The prospects for successful collaborations highlights long-term commitment and strong relationships as key components for successful partnerships. Based on the previous mentioned information and the study’s results, the conclusion is that the establishment and management of brand equity play a central role in creating a stable customer base, requiring strategic implementation of the brand process early on to effectively communicate the brand and its identity. Small businesses have several advantages that gives them opportunities to implement co-branding as a strategy, where they can contribute with significant resources to other larger businesses with an interest in exchange through exposure. In relation to their customers, the importance of quality, long-term commitment, trust and strong values is emphasized as factors that need to remain stable in the implementation of a co-branding strategy.