O conto Yad Vashem, do escritor israelense Aharon Megued, publicado em 1955, narra a história do avô Ziskind, originário da Ucrânia, que residia em Israel. Quando Ziskind soube que sua neta Raia estava grávida, pediu que ela desse para o filho que ia nascer o nome de Mêndele, caso fosse homem. A partir daí começa a discussão sobre a escolha de um nome típico da tradição europeia, defendido pelo avô, que se apresenta como um estranho para a família, ou um nome israelense, próprio de uma ideologia sionista, exigido pela neta. Esse conflito geracional revela uma crise de identidade profunda entre o imigrante e seus descendentes que se resume no choque entre o antigo e o novo, retratando as diferentes ideologias de um povo. / The tale Yad Vashem, of the Israeli writer Aharon Megued, published in 1955, tells the story of the grandfather Ziskind, from Ukraine, who resided in Israel. When Ziskind knew that his granddaughter Raia was pregnant, asked that she gave the name for her son who would be born Mendele, if he were a boy. From this, starts a discussion about the choice of a typical name of the European tradition, defended by the grandfather, who presents himself as a strange to the family, or an Israeli name, pertaining to a Zionist ideology, demanded by the granddaughter. This conflict reveals a deep identity crisis between the immigrant and his descendants which is summed up in the shock between the old and the new, showing the different ideologies of a people.

Brand imitation is viewed as an infringement of the imitated original brand. (Zaichkowsky, 1995). Although brand managers and researchers have looked into ways to fight against imitations, these are still prevalent in today's market. Researchers have found that one of the major reasons for the growing volume of imitations has been consumer demand. Thus, rather than studying ways to reduce imitations, it is first important for brand managers and researchers to understand why consumers would knowingly buy imitations. The major issue is to understand how consumers evaluate brand imitations. Several studies have explored factors that might have an influence on consumer evaluations of brand imitations. However these findings are limited. For example, similarity of the imitation to the original brand is an important factor in consumer evaluations. However, very little research has studied this aspect. Thus, this research is motivated to further investigate the influential factors of consumer evaluations of brand imitations. This study replicates d'Astous and Gargouri (2001), a study that examines a comprehensive set of factors that might influence consumer evaluations of brand imitations. The purpose of this study is to re-examine their hypotheses in various product categories, with a focus on luxury brands. Moreover, this study has extended the d'Astous and Gargouri (2001) study by investigating product similarity which had not been previously explored. However, hypothesis testing did not completely support the hypothesized effects. The results indicate that consumers who purchase luxury brand imitations are heavily influenced by the price and store image. The results show also that the factor of product similarity is unimportant to a customer purchasing imitator brands.

This research study is focused on the buying behaviour of modern consumers. The literature indicates that modern consumers are sophisticated, discerning and are less loyal to a particular brand than they used to be. Consumers today are more concerned with buying a product that not only meets their needs but also provides them with pleasurable experiences. There are many ways to explain buyer behaviour; however for this thesis storytelling, dream theory, and "Lovemarks" have been used to examine the usefulness of the selected theories to the visual communication design industry. The research has focussed on an homogeneous product (bottled water) as a vehicle to establish whether all the plans and strategies in recently published literature can be trusted and be used for design strategies for planning a marketing campaign. The reason for doing this is to establish some new knowledge that could contribute to the design industry in terms of criteria for branding, marketing and design strategy in visual communication design. An extensive secondary research of the literature has been made to inform this study. Primary information has also been gathered by using carefully designed and comprehensive materials involving professional interviews, and a major case study of bottled water has been conducted, which includes a field study, focus groups and surveys. Information and raw data generated by the research have been analysed either quantitatively or qualitatively. The result generated by this study is not conclusive, however, pointing to the fact that the buying behaviour of consumers is complex and variable. There was also little agreement among the professional interviewees in terms of the role of human behaviour and its application in the design campaign.

Consumer perceived value is an important concept in marketing and plays a significant role in purchase decision-making. Consumer perceived value can be markedly influenced by product cues. The current research investigates the impact of extrinsic cues (country-of-origin, brand name, store name and price) on consumer perception of product quality, sacrifice and value developed by Teas and Agarwal (2000). Since little research has examined the generalisability of Teas and Agarwal's (2000) work in less economically developed countries, this research is conducted in a Chinese population.The relationships among four manipulated extrinsic cues, perceived sacrifice, quality and value are tested. Since Teas and Agarwal (2000) did not investigate the mediation affects of perceived sacrifice in the relationship between perceived quality and perceived value, this will be also explored as an additional study for this paper. Thus, the current research expands on previous work on perceived customer value by examining the mediation affects.After the conceptual model of Teas and Agarwal (2000) has been examined, the findings support hypothesized linkages between each of the four extrinsic cues and perceived quality, price and perceived quality, perceived quality and perceived value, perceived sacrifice and perceived value. The results show that perceived sacrifice mediates the relationship between perceived quality and value. The results also indicate that the linkages between the extrinsic cues and perceived value are mediated by perceived quality but are not mediated by perceived sacrifice. Although the results show that one hypothesized mediation affect is not supported, the overall structure of the model is supported across countries.The findings are similar to the study of Teas and Agarwal (2000) which suggests that Chinese and Western consumer behaviours are alike in most situations. For example, brand building is a critical cue to the desired success because it can promote perceptions from both quality and value perspectives. However, this research found that Chinese consumers use product evaluation cues in a different way from Western consumers. The major difference is that, if the price is lower than the reasonable average price-level, Chinese consumers may consider the product to be a big bargain with perceived high quality. This may suggest that marketing managers can use discount and price promotions in China. Therefore, discussions and managerial implications of this research provide advice for managers to formulate appropriate strategies.

The battle of the brands is being waged in an ever increasingly competitive and global business environment, a battle which generates the largest body of academic and professional literature in the field of marketing communication. Although much of the ground has been repeatedly ploughed, the literature conveys an impression that the &quotBrand" is perceived to lack clarity and agreement on its definition, strategic deployment and evaluation measures and that the overall concept of the brand is fraught with complexity and confusion. This thesis attempts to categorize and frame these impressions using content analysis to systematically unpack and analyze the layers of meaning embedded in the literature. The output from this study will inform the development of a simplified brand schema representing both sides of the brand equation, consumer and manager, recognition of which holds significant implications for the custodial guidance of this most vital business asset.

Workshop Mensch-Computer-Vernetzung Vergabe der IP-Adressen

Fachhochsch., Diplomarbeit.-07--Zugl.: Bielefeld, 2006. / Literaturverz. S. XIII - XVI.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Simon Fraser University, 2006. / Theses (Dept. of Psychology) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Zugl.: Düsseldorf, Univ., Diss., 2009

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-163). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.