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This investigation probes the perceptions of consumers as well as marketers with regard to the branding of fast moving consumer goods in South African retail chain stores. While much research has been conducted on branding, this investigation will focus on the extent to which marketers’ perceptions and consumers’ perceptions converge with a view to maximizing the mutual benefits to be derived from marketing strategies within a contemporary South African environment. The extent to which South African marketers’ perceptions and consumers’ perceptions converge to promote brand equity is postulated in the brand equity optimization model. The research commenced with an exhaustive literature survey followed by an empirical survey. The fieldwork for this survey was conducted nationally among the three major retail groups in South Africa and among consumers living in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The findings from the literature survey indicate that both local and international companies have realized the potential of investing resources in brand building activities. These findings have provided evidence to suggest that building brand equity for fast moving consumer goods impacts positively on the sales and the popularity of these products. The findings of the empirical research illustrates that the typical South African consumer has become brand conscious and brand building activities encourage them to purchase these products. The findings from the consumer survey were supported by the investigation conducted among retail chain stores who agreed that building brand equity results in increased sales and the popularity of the products concerned. Consumers have a preference for manufacturer branded products but house brands are selected primarily because they are cheaper. Manufacturer brands are viewed by consumers as having the most innovative packaging, excellent promotional support and consistently good quality while retail chain stores believe that manufacturer brands lead the way in terms of brand building activities, packaging innovation, promotional support and quality. The results of both surveys illustrate that retail chain stores and consumers share similar viewpoints with regards to the branding, packaging, pricing, promotions and quality attributes of fast moving consumer goods in terms of optimizing brand equity. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2007.

In April 2006 the new brand positioning for Standard Bank was revealed to staff and the general public. The new brand positioning focused mainly on employees and customers and to a lesser extent operational efficiency. The study attempts to find what meanings the employees of Standard Bank made of this new brand positioning through a qualitative case study methodology. As part of the study, theoretical models and concepts covering the brand, brand positioning, living the brand, employee segmentation and the 3-phased approach to implement the programme were reviewed. A qualitative research study was conducted whereby one-on-one interviews were held with managerial and non-managerial employees at Standard Bank. The research is therefore a phenomenological investigation of the business problem statement, that is, the re-positioning of the brand from simpler to better, faster as well as inspired and motivated. The research findings were that the brand repositioning did not have a negative impact on employee perceptions. However, it was found that employees did not understand what the brand stands for and were having problems delivering on the new brand promise. To improve the level of understanding by the employees so that the new brand positioning can influence employee behaviour, the researcher recommended applying the 3- phased approach in implementing an effective "living the brand" programme. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

This research investigates the role of brands in the advertising of beauty products. This study was conducted at tertiary institutions in the Durban Metropolitan Area. Since, students are believed to constitute a large market for consumer goods, especially beauty products, the study also seeks to determine consumption patterns and preferences of brands of beauty products by students at tertiary institutions. Using a survey-based study, the results of the survey highlights the importance of the branding of beauty products in promoting sales, loyalty and preference for various brands. The findings suggest that marketers' should continue to provide information to consumers about their beauty products, so that their benefits and functions are constantly emphasized, without exaggerating the claims of the brands. It has also emerged that detailed instructions on the use of beauty products and the frequency of their use be clearly indicated on their labels. This study has also revealed that brands of beauty products entrench the image of the company through its truthful advertising. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

This research utilized Q Method to learn whether attitudes regarding integrated marketing communication (IMC) among both educators and practitioners are consistent with placing IMC in an inductive or pre-theory stage of development within the theory building-research cycle. The analysis indicates an acceptance of IMC as a valid method of communication management among study participants. However the data is consistent with a negative, or at best ambiguous, conclusion when it comes to placing attitudes regarding IMC in an inductive or pre-theory stage of development within the theory building-research cycle. This then permits the conclusion that IMC at present is a communications management approach, not a nascent communication theory. / Department of Journalism

The objectives of this study are to contribute to the understanding of consumer behaviour, and to investigate the existence of brand loyalty in the less developed countries. The study attempts to fill the gap in literature on consumer behaviour and consumer characteristics in the less developed countries. The significance of the study is that while the existing studies focus on Latin American markets, it investigates consumer behaviour in Africa: Zambia. A further contribution lies in its attempts to understand consumer behaviour in markets where there is a common notion that marketing is not important because the existence of shortages creates demand. This study regards such attitudes as myopic because marketing should be understood as more than a demand creating tool. It should be viewed as a discpline that can enable a manager to match organizational capabilities and resources to the needs of a society. Moreover, at the micro level, companies are in competition for the occupation of the largest segment in the consumers mind. The need for marketing during shortages is in conformity with Kotlers argument that: 'Marketing is as critical a strategic concept and an operating philosophy during shortages as it is during surpluses. The seller (Marketer) who abandons the marketing mode of thinking during shortages is playing Russian roulette with his market franchise. He is risking long-term marriage to a set of customers for the temporary charms of a seductress.' (Quoted in Nekvasil, 1975, p.57). Hence, studying brand loyalty and the factors related to it has particular relevance in the less developed countries. The results of a consumer survey conducted among 1289 respondents in Zambia reveals that women, who were mostly involved in the purchase of the products, were very aware of brands on the market, used informal (personal sources) of information, identified brands by name and as expected, the frequency of purchases were low and quantities bought quite large, reflecting the product shortage situation. The cross-tabulations and log-linear analysis further indicated that brand loyal consumers tended to be mostly men, educated, from middle and high income classes, store loyal, heavy users, not price sensitive, influenced by family and friends, who lived in urban areas where distribution is extensive and many brands available. However, some interbrand differences were evident. These results suggest a profile of brand loyal consumers, and this can be used to segment the market for frequently purchased products. More significantly, the possibility of market segmentation would indicate appropriate marketing and advertising strategies for companies selling these products in the less developed countries.

This dissertation addresses the issues pertaining to composite products (CPs). CPs are defined as products formed by combining knowledge from two distinct domains, for example, digital cameras, which combine knowledge from digital products and cameras. The three research questions addressed in the dissertation are: (1) how is knowledge combined from two distinct domains of a CP, (2) how are CPs categorized vis-a-vis their two components, and (3) what brands, among those associated with one of the two domains, are preferred in CPs? The thesis here is that CPs can be construed as conceptual combinations---that is, a combination of two concepts, wherein one concept (the "modifier") modifies the knowledge associated with the other (the "header"). Employing the literature in psycholinguistics, two combinatorial processes---namely, property mapping and relation linking---were identified for combining knowledge in CPs. These processes lead to modifications in knowledge associated with the header of a CP (e.g., knowledge about cameras is modified in digital cameras). The extent of these modifications is measured by the proposed construct of modification centrality. As per this construct, modifications in features critical to the function of a header (i.e., central modifications) are perceived as more significant than those in non-critical features (i.e., non-central modifications). / Three experimental studies investigated the above research questions. These studies used 16 novel CPs that were created by combining two dissimilar concepts. Study 1 showed that subjects readily combined knowledge from two dissimilar domains, using property mapping or relation linking. In addition, the representation of these CPs varied along their modification centrality, even though the dissimilarity between the two combining domains was held constant. Study 2 showed that the categorization of CPs was contingent upon their similarity to the modifier and header categories. Study 3 showed that both modification centrality and the combinatorial process influenced the categorization and brand preferences in CPs. While CPs with non-central modifications (e.g., disposable cameras) were categorized as headers (i.e., cameras), and header-associated brands were preferred, those with central modifications (e.g., digital cameras) were categorized as both (i.e., digital product and camera), and the modifier brands (i.e., digital brands) gained equity.

�Every poet who takes language seriously is working against a culture of clear marketable meanings and commodified production� states New Zealand novelist, essayist and poet Gregory O�Brien. This statement is the motivation for research that is explored in a collaborative ethnographic study of brand culture perceptions in New Zealand. It takes its inspiration from The Poetics of Space (Bachelard, 1978) and provides intimate lyrical insights into the experience of brands and brandscapes. Gregory O�Brien describes the artists that inspire him as: �Those who resolutely stand on their own creative terms, working towards their own objectives, as oblivious as they can be to any market forces.� O�Brien�s observations are relevant to the research project in two essential ways: first to cast light on a shared cultural commodity construct such as a brand from its proposed opposite cultural site of individual imagination and secondly, to accept the poetic in the form of the undiluted voice of vocational poets as valuable media in their own right to achieve insightful interpretations. Critical marketing projects have the duty to generate an alternative �marketing gaze� sufficient to the task of �revelation� (Brownile & Hewer, 2007). With regards to individual artists and poets specifically, critical marketing concepts implicitly pose the main research question as to the scenarios that are conceivably available to consumers: how does �working against marketable meanings� imaginatively work? The project proposes the new construct of co-imagination as the co-active mental and spiritual engagement of consumers with the cultural artefacts of brandscapes that invite individual meaning making. It substantiates this individuality in a poetic evocation of brandscapes by thirteen artists. It analyses the holistic imaginative process on the basis of mental models, strategic scenarios and evocative aesthetics, in order to assess how talented consumers work against marketable meaning. It subsequently offers the relationship of co-imagination with existing co-optive concepts in marketing, literature and consumer behaviour, such as co-creation (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004), co-performance (Deighton, 1992) and co-duction (Booth, 1988). It results in a collaborative artistic inquiry that assembles individual evocations of enchantment and disenchantment with the beauty and ugliness of brandscapes, through newly created poetry. The research introduces the new concepts of aesthetic scarcity and aesthetic community and in its collaborative method of inquiry offers an alternative to a poetic tradition in consumer behaviour of the poet / researcher conflation (Sherry & Schouten, 2002). As a result, the project complements the understanding of the individual meaning-making process in brand culture and is relevant to both practitioners and researchers in consumer behaviour and brand strategy. The design of the project included a four month research journey that covered the North and the South Island of New Zealand with the objective of meeting a variety of poets in their local inspirational environments and brandscapes and catalyse an unusual creative cooperation of highly individual radical artists. In the thick description and analyses of the extensive field research, the project implicitly adds to existing work on brand culture (Schroeder, Salzer Morling, & Askegaard, 2006), brand aesthetics (Saizer-Mörling & Strannegård, 2004) and the relationship between artists and brands (Schroeder, 2005). The research includes design elements based on romantic pragmatism (Rorty, 2007a) and cognitive aesthetics (R. H. Brown, 1977), both post-romantic concepts that explore aesthetic perception as perspectival knowledge and aesthetic distance as a means to transcend the dichotomy of objectivity and subjectivity.

The aim of this thesis is to develop a greater understanding of consumers' brand repertoires. This research is part of the brand choice literature, which involves the analysis of all parts of the brand choice process. While there is clearly a need for research on the size of consumers' repertoites, little research has been conducted on this topic to date. This thesis provides much needed descriptive knowledge in relation to repertoire size, as well as providing information about the potential influence of a selection of consumer characteristics on this measure. / Repertoire size is defined as the number of brands a consumer purchases over a specified period of time. It is not only seen as a measure of loyalty (the smaller the repertoire, the higher the loyalty), but also a measure of competitiveness in a market (the bigger the repertoire, the greater the competition). Although these areas are of considerable interest to marketing managers and researchers alike, this measure has rarely been emphasised in previous research (Colombo and Jiang 2002). / Thesis (BA(Hons)IndustrialandAppliedMaths)--University of South Australia, 2008.

This thesis is about how insights from double jeopardy can validly be applied to market dynamics. It has been stated that when a brand increases its market share it will tend to move up some conceptual double jeopardy (DJ) line, with its penetration increasing comparatively more than its purchase frequency for a given market share change. There remains a gap in this approach to dynamics that is academically and managerially relevant. The growth of a particular brand immediately implies a change in the market of some sort and that means the double jeopardy line is likely to move. Rather than riding up a static double jeopardy curve a growing brand could be thought of as taking up a position on a new curve. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2007.