Previous research has proven that perceived Brand Authenticity functions as a differentiator, which brands can use to stand out in today’s marketplace. However, few studies have investigated whether it is possible for brands to become more profitable by utilizing their authenticity. This thesis therefore investigates the relationship between the two branding concepts Brand Authenticity and Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE). An explanatory survey study is made on the Swedish retail clothing industry, which measures the effect of the Brand Authenticity associations Continuity, Originality, Trustworthiness, Genuineness, Heritage, and Symbolism on the CBBE outcomes (1) consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium, (2) recommend a brand, and (3) buy a brand before other brands. The results show that while some Brand Authenticity associations increase the CBBE outcomes, others seem to give no effect and some even to undermine them. If brand managers of authentic brands wish to increase their value sales through price premiums and increase volume sales through increased purchases, they should focus on communicating Symbolism, Originality and Genuineness. If decreased marketing costs through word of mouth is the goal, brand recommendations can be achieved through communicating Trustworthiness as well. However, Continuity and Heritage should be avoided in all brand communication if increased profits is the primarily goal.

This report examines the role of Latino consumers, specifically looking at Mexican-Americans and their first generation experiences. It looks at how these experiences influence their consumption patterns. While observing the idea that first generation Latinos are much like ‘adolescent consumers’, a concept stemming from the idea that much like teenagers Latino immigrants are in a sense coming of age in this country. They are under a whole different set of social norms, cultural expectations and values different from their country of origin. This report proposes a reconsideration of the heuristics that marketers hold for Latino consumer spending habits. It maintains the idea that Latino consumer behaviors should be attributed and conceptualized as a process of maturation, not just based on culture and class. Lastly it re-examines the Customer Based Brand Equity model and places it in the context of the Latino consumer while keeping in mind the above framework about Latinos as adolescent consumers. / text

Over the past few decades, branding has become a priority for companies. A brand helps companies to differentiate themselves from their competitors, which creates competitive advantages. Most of the research on brands has primarily focused on consumer marketing. However, it has been found that the brand is just as important in business to business (B2B) companies, and that it also plays a big role when it comes to the survival av newly established company like for example startups. Startups differ from established companies through their innovative ideas and problem solving. However, they faces challenges because of lack of capital, time and resources. As the competition in the market grows, startups need to create competitive advantages by working hard with their brand strategies to achieve strong brand equity. This study aims to highlight how B2B startups work with brand equity in order to achieve competitive advantages. The study has used a qualitative research strategy where the primary data has been collected through semi-structured interviews with four different startups based in Stockholm. The study shows that startups need to first position themselves in the market and then work on brand building. The result also shows that B2B startups are aware of the brand's importance and that they in fact work with brand equity to achieve competitive advantages. However, the strategies with the steps in the CBBE model differs depending on the industry and type of corporate activity.

Tourism destinations all over the world increasingly embrace marketing and branding practices traditionally utilized by businesses. However, the literature on customer-based brand equity modelling and measurement for tourism destinations lacks the conceptual understanding of the complex relationships between tourists and the destination brand. Therefore, the thesis at hand addresses the existing gap in tourism literature and aims at contributing to the development of the customer-based brand equity concept in a tourism destination setting (CBDBE) by taking into account the value-co-creation approach. The components of the proposed model consist of the customers’ evaluation of the destination promise in terms of transforming functional, intangible and social destination resources into tourists’ value-in-use. Furthermore, the positive relationship between visitors’ perception of the destination and value-for-money discloses the input of tourists’ own resources into the process of value-co-creation. Moreover, destination brand awareness affects the evaluation of the destination promise, which, in turn, determines tourists’ behavioural intentions towards the destination. By implementing web-based customer surveys and using a linear structural equation modelling approach, the proposed model is empirically validated for the leading Swedish mountain destination Åre. First, the model is repeatedly tested with data regarding the winter seasons 2009/10 and 2012/13.  Second, the proposed CBDBE model has been operationalized and tested also for the summer season. Findings from face-to-face interviews conducted in Åre during summer 2012 uncovered the relationships between destination resources offered in Åre, tourists’ own resources and destination value-in-use and, thus, served as the empirical fundament for the development of a destination-specific scale to measure value-in-use. Subsequently, the proposed CBDBE model has been successfully tested with web-based survey data collected after the summer season 2012, both for the total sample and separately for the main a priori tourist segments, including hiking, mountain biking and village tourists. Results show the significant contribution of destination value-in-use defined as perceived benefits from a destination stay, which, in turn, strongly affect customers’ destination loyalty. In contrast, the relationship between value-for-money and destination loyalty is less strong and even non-significant for the two customer segments hiking and mountain biking tourists. Importantly, as part of the CBDBE model operationalization, the thesis highlights the need to better understand destination-specific consumption patterns across various tourism segments by destination managers. Therefore, results demonstrate that by monitoring unique destination and tourist-specific experience dimensions, destination management can influence and better manage both the value-in-use for customers and customer loyalty. Thus, the proposed CBDBE model provides destination managers with a tool, which enables evaluation and upgrade of destination marketing strategy and, finally, assist in discovering promising innovation potentials for highly experiential tourism products. / Customer-based innovations in tourism / Engineering th Knowledge Destination through Customer-based Competence Development

Studiens syfte har varit att experimentellt undersöka om det finns en varumärkesbyggande påverkan vid varumärkesanpassad distributionsförpackning. Teoretiskt har studien utgått från teorier inom kundbaserat varumärkeskapital med utgångspunkt från teorin om Brand EquityDimensions och Brand Value Chain-modellen. Hypotes: Varumärkesanpassad distributionsförpackning har en positiv påverkan på kundbaserat varumärkeskapital, kontra en generiskdistributionsförpackning vid e-handel. Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ metod där förhållandet mellan varumärkesanpassad och generisk distributionsförpackning jämfördes i förhållande till kundbaserat varumärkeskapital. Insamling av data skedde genom experimentell design, för att kunna acceptera eller förkasta hypotesen, vilken sedan ligger till grund för resultat och analys för studien. Studien visar på att en varumärkesanpassad distributionsförpackning har större positiv påverkan på kundbaserat varumärkeskapital i alla komponenter som används i studien förutom Prispremium. Slutsatsen är således att konsumenters attityder till en varumärkesanpassad distributionsförpackning bidrar till att stärka kundbaserat varumärkeskapital, med undantag för prispremium.

Background: The global video game industry is today bigger than both the film- and music industry and is subject to a lot of competition. Companies are always looking for alternative ways to reach consumers and buzz is identified as a crucial success factor by many scholars. From real life examples, buzz is shown to have both positive and negative effects. There is however little knowledge about the phenomenon and what role buzz can play in the customer-based brand equity (CBBE) of video game companies. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding about buzz and examine what role it plays in customer-based brand equity for companies within the video game industry. Method: A deductive approach was adopted and in order to fulfil the purpose of the study, a qualitative study (i.e. a case study) was deemed suitable. Interviews were held with five companies within the video game industry. Also, observations were made of how the companies work with their promotion and creation of buzz during the pre-release period. Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework consists of theories regarding the buzz phenomenon and CBBE. These were combined in order to examine the potential role buzz plays in the context of CBBE. Findings: Buzz is shown to play a big role in the video game industry but is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. It is also found that buzz can have a “life of its own” and become unmanageable through speculations. Speculations can lead to higher expectations and pseudo-promises[1], making buzz even more difficult to manage. Regarding CBBE, buzz plays a role in all aspects. However, it is shown to play a different role in the CBBE of video game companies depending on how high the brand loyalty is within that company. The study also results in a conceptual model, illustrating buzz and what role it plays in the CBBE of video game companies both pre-release and post-release.

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.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to gain further understanding of how social mediamarketing activities can affect a firm's brand loyalty and brand image. The study was conductedwithin the sportswear industry. Design/Methodology/approach: This study was of explanatory nature and had a quantitativeapproach where it gathered its data through questionnaires that was posted in communitygroups on Facebook for the brands Oner Active, Gymshark and Better Bodies. These chosenbrands are an active part of the chosen industry to investigate, the sportswear industry. Findings: The findings of this study showed that social media marketing activities have apositive effect on brand image as well as brand loyalty. The social media marketing activitiesthat had the overall highest impact were entertainment and word of mouth. Furthermore, thefindings of this study concluded that increased brand image has a positive effect on brandloyalty. Implications: The findings of this study contributes to the growing knowledge of social mediamarketing activities and how they effect brand image and brand loyalty of sportswear brands.The findings of this study contributes to practitioners as well, it showcases the importance of social media marketing activities but also provides insight of what activities might be of mostimportance to develop in regards to brand image and brand loyalty (based on the circumstancesand limitations to this study).

The purpose of the thesis was to investigate how generation Z values ​​the customer-based brand equity of a consumer product. Generation Z is an interesting generation to study since they have shown to differ in a variety of aspects from previous generations. To answer the purpose, a model has been constructed, which is based on previous research. The model consists of the components; brand awareness, brand associations/image, perceived quality and brand loyalty. Together the components form the cornerstones of the customer-based brand equity. Eight hypotheses were tested with the purpose of measuring the interrelationship between the components, and the relationship between the various components and the customer-based brand equity. Six of these eight hypotheses could be accepted. The result showed that the components brand association/image and brand loyalty have a positive impact on the customer-based brand equity, while brand awareness and perceived quality showed a non-significant result. The non-significant results were then further examined through t-test, with the purpose of trying to find possible reasons for the outcome. Moreover, the results showed that brand awareness has a positive correlation with both brand associations/image and perceived quality. Finally, the result showed that brand loyalty was positively correlated to both brand associations/image and perceived quality. For further research, it is proposed that a more comprehensive study consisting of more respondents from generation Z should be conducted. In addition, further research could be based on other consumer products and also examine whether there could be more or other components that should be considered when measuring customer-based brand equity. / Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur generation Z värderar det kundbaserade varumärkeskapitalet hos en konsumentprodukt. Det är intressant att undersöka generation Z då de på många sätt visat skilja sig från tidigare generationer. För att besvara syftet har en modell utformats som är baserad på tidigare forskning. Modellen består av komponenterna; varumärkeskännedom, varumärkesassociationer/image uppfattad kvalitet, och varumärkeslojalitet. Komponenterna utgör tillsammans grundstenarna för det kundbaserade varumärkeskapitalet. Åtta hypoteser utformades för samband inbördes mellan komponenterna samt även de olika komponenternas påverkan på det kundbaserade varumärkeskapitalet. Av dessa åtta hypoteser kunde sex av dem accepteras. Resultatet visade att komponenterna varumärkesassociation/image och varumärkeslojalitet har positiv påverkan på det kundbaserade varumärkeskapitalet, medan komponenterna varumärkeskännedom och uppfattad kvalitet visade ett icke signifikant resultat. De icke signifikanta resultaten som erhölls undersöktes vidare genom t-tester i ett försök att hitta en förklaring till resultaten. Inbördes bland komponenterna visade resultatet att varumärkeskännedom har ett positivt samband till både varumärkesassociationer/image och uppfattad kvalitet. Slutligen visade studien på att varumärkeslojalitet har ett positivt samband till både varumärkesassociationer/image och uppfattad kvalitet. För fortsatt forskning föreslås bland annat att en mer omfattande studie bestående av fler respondenter från generation Z genomförs. Utöver det hade det för fortsatt forskning varit intressant att basera studier på andra konsumentprodukter, och även undersöka om det finns fler eller andra komponenter som bör tas hänsyn till vid mätningen av det kundbaserade varumärkeskapitalet.

The diploma thesis deals with the analysis of the influence of Mary Kay brand on purchase behavior of customers B2C markets thanks to the model customer-based brand equity and the model ColourMind using colour-word association method CWAT. Its aim is to evaluate perception of the brand and factors influencing behavior of customers. Theoretical part is focused on B2C markets, brand politics, customers and their attitude to shopping. Practical part deals with identification of Mary Kay company, analysis of determinants and evaluation of their influence on purchase behavior of customers.