Den senaste tiden har en mängd samarbeten, eller så kallade co-brandings, mellan olika företags varumärken vuxit fram. Avsikten är att förstärka sitt eller sina varumärken med hjälp av ett annat varumärke som är förknippat med någonting unikt. Hur bedömer man resultatet av denna co-branding? Har det egna varumärket förstärkts eller har det försvagats? För att klargöra detta resultat måste varumärkets Brand Equity mätas. Med brand equity menas det kapital som varumärket representerar. I denna kvantitativa studie består respondenterna av ett kvoturval om 50 studenter. Vi har skapat ett mätinstrument för denna fallstudie utifrån Aakers modell för brand equity och dess fyra dimensioner; brand awareness, perceived quality, differentiation samt brand loyalty. Genom att undersöka hur Acers brand equity påverkas av co-branding med Ferrari genomför vi ett första preliminärt test av vårt mätinstrument. Resultatet av vår undersökning visar på ett tydligt samband mellan Acers brand equity och cobranding. Vårt resultat visar tydligt att alla fyra dimensioner inom Acers brand equity har påverkats i positiv riktning i och med co-branding med Ferrari. Avslutningsvis ger vi även förslag till intressanta framtida studier inom detta område.

This paper studies the impact of market orientation strategy on brand awareness. Zara, a Spanish leading fashion retailer and an example of a brand using this strategy, is compared to three other multinational brands operating in Stockholm, Sweden, namely Topshop, Mango and United Colours of Benetton. The latter brands are known to use advertising to create brand awareness. Fashion magazine attention was used as a measure of brand awareness. Data on the brand awareness was gathered by browsing three leading Swedish fashion magazines – Elle, Glamour and Damernas Värld – and the fashion section of the biggest Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet. It was found that market orientation can compete with advertising as a marketing strategy to create brand awareness, but only in part of the market segment. This was concluded from the fact that Zara was featured in some of the magazines, but not all of them.

In a world that gets more and more competitive as we speak, it is suggested that the future of marketing will be a battle of brands. Destinations are the travel industry’s biggest brands and the process of branding a place brings challenges different from those of traditional product-branding. This study investigates the challenges that the Swedish mountain destination Åre is facing as the village and the company responsible for destination marketing, Åreföretagarna AB, are working towards their vision – that Åre in 2020 will be Europe’s most attractive year-round destination. A qualitative study from the view of some of the stakeholders’ shows that the defiances are indeed there and that one of Åre’s biggest challenges in creating a strong destination brand will be to tackle both public and private interests in the branding process. / Det påstås att i en allt mer tävlingsinriktad värld så kommer framtidens marknadsföring vara en strid mellan olika varumärken där endast de starkaste överlever. Rese- och turistbranschens största varumärken är destinationerna och processen att skapa ett varumärke av en plats innebär andra utmaningar än traditionellt varumärkesskapande. I egenskap av en person med stark platsanknytning till den svenska fjälldestinationen Åre har jag funnit intresse i vilka problem som följer med försöken att varumärkesföra Åre och alltså i processen att gå från by till brand. Diskussionerna utmynnade i problemformuleringen, Vilka utmaningar står destinationsvarumärket Åre främst inför idag? Destinationsbolaget Åreföretagarna AB har fått ansvaret för destinationsmarknadsföringen och arbetar mot en vision att Åre år 2020 skall vara Europas mest attraktiva åretruntdestination. Kvantitativa intervjuer med utvalda intressenter i destinationsvarumärket har genomförts med syfte att skapa en bild av Åre ur ett varumärkesperspektiv och hur utmaningarna för detta varumärke ser ut. Målsättningen har varit att kunna presentera en aktuell bild av varumärkessituationen och på detta sätt inspirera destinationsbolaget till fortsatt utveckling inom problemområdena. Genom att anta ett hermeneutiskt angreppssätt är det mina egna värderingar och tolkningar som ligger till grund för dels studiens sammanställande och dels de tolkningar som lett till det resultat jag presenterar. Studiens slutsats är att destinationen Åre, i arbetet med det platsspecifika varumärket, idag främst står inför följande tre utmaningar, - Att lösa begynnande intressekonflikter mellan destinationens och lokalbefolkningens intressen. - Att etablera starka, säsongsoberoende attribut och implementera dessa hos både stora och små intressenter. - Att definiera en tydlig målgrupp för åretruntdestinationens varumärke och att satsa på att skapa fördelar för den marknaden snarare än att maximera volymen.

Traditionally, branding is all about differentiate the product from its competi-tors. When the brand is a place another level of complexity is added. A place has several different stakeholders that all have to communicate the same mes-sage in order to create a strong brand. Place marketing is a rather new theoreti-cal field and not many researchers have explored this phenomenon, therefore, there does not exist any common practice within this line of study. Compared to a product the stakeholders of a city often have quite different objectives, and therefore there is a risk that they communicate messages that contradict each other. Which features of a city is needed to create a strong brand? The purpose of this thesis was to expore how the stakeholders within the city of Jönköping can cooperate in order to build a strong city brand. The authors have chosen to focus on a qualitative method and personal inter-views as the primary source of information. The respondents that participated in this study were influential persons in leading positions within the main stakeholder groups in Jönköping, that is the public sector, the private sector and the university. Further the Managing Director of FMJ was interview. In order to determine, which of these stakeholders that were of interest the authours have used the snowball approach. To complement these findings secondary data, including three attitude surveys, have been analysed. The authors have concluded that Jönköping does possess a few quite strong brand associations, however, the problem that the city has is the lack of an suf-ficient product to sell. A couple of years ago Jönköping established FMJ to take care of the external marketing and since than it has been many improve-ments, nevertheless the authors believe that another form of cooperation is needed. The city would have to develop a new organization with the base within the municipality, but it should include all the important stakeholders. The main tasks of this cooperation would be to integrate these stakeholders and build a strong product, which should emphasis the most important fea-tures of the Jönköping.

This thesis discusses how adidas differentiate their communication to reach women and make the adidas brand more appealing to females. The adidas brand has always had their main focus on sportswear for men. This has led to the brand being perceived as masculine and it makes it hard for the female consumer to identify with adidas. We have analysed six adidas adverts from the last five years to see what adidas have communicated to women. The main purpose of this thesis is to understand why adidas have not succeeded in communicating with women in the last five years. The theoretical chapter is divided into three parts; Brands, Communication and Consumer Behaviour. The first part describes what a brand is, how it is built and continues with how a brand can be gendered. A brand is not very likely to keep a strong position if the values connected with the brand are not reinforced through communication. When forming a communication strategy, companies have to understand how consumers behave. When selling a gendered product, companies have to understand the distinction between men and women and how they differ in consumption. Our discussion is based on the qualitative method of collecting data. The qualitative method was carried out through two panel interviews and one personal interview, and we also performed picture analysis on adidas’ advertisements. Ten open-individual interviews with ten different women were conducted; to get their opinions on the six adverts. Adidas have presented five different identities over five years, each with diverse focus and with different brand associations. This has led to a lack of consistency and therein lies a part of the reason why adidas have not been successful in appealing to women. Since 2005 adidas have a collaboration with Stella McCartney. This is an attempt to add design to adidas functional clothes and to make their brand more appealing to women. This collaboration will continue until 2010 and this could provide adidas with the uniformity they need.

Background: Branding is a way for companies to differentiate their products and services from its competitors in the fierce competition in business today. This phenomena has up until recently mostly been used in the B2C context, but the importance of branding in the B2B context has been more and more acknowledged. Trade shows are a good way to find customers, and to display and sell products, but can it also be used to strengthen the brand of the exhibiting company? According to Nordiska Undersökningsgruppen (2001) 79 % of the participating companies in B2B trade shows claims to have strengthened their brand through the trade show. As few companies take part in organized research about their trade show performance, we were curious about how such a vast majority of companies knew that their trade show participation actually strengthens their brands. Purpose: The purpose of our thesis is to explore how trade shows are used by subcontractors to strengthen their brand names, and how these companies measure brand strength. Method: A case study has been conducted, examining four subcontractors participating at the Elmia Subcontractor trade show. In order to collect our primary data, we used questionnaires both prior to and after the trade show as well as face-to-face interaction during the trade show. We also chose to use the TSI model (Jansson, 2003) to examine what could be done in the different stages of the trade show process in order to maximize the com-panies’ results from it. Conclusions: The conclusion of this thesis is that the brand image and thereby the strength of the brand of the trade show participating company is mainly a result of the face-to-face meeting. Since we have established that the view on branding in the investigated companies differ from the theoretical view in large, we believe that the relevance of the investigation mentioned in the background can be questioned. The companies lack procedures for measuring their brand strength.

Konkurrensen om talangfull och skicklig personal har hårdnat i framförallt kunskapsintensiva branscher där de anställda ses som företagens viktigaste tillgång. Den ökade konkurrensen om arbetskraft har lett till att företagen måste fokusera betydligt hårdare på att inte bara rekrytera talangfull och skicklig personal, utan även få dem att vilja stanna kvar och arbeta inom organisationen. En strategi som växt fram det senaste decenniet är employer branding, vilket är ett verktyg företag kan och bör arbeta med för att uppfattas som en attraktiv arbetsgivare bland nuvarande och potentiell personal. Företag kan uppnå målet med att bli en attraktiv arbetsgivare genom att vara framgångsrika i arbetet med att skapa ett starkt arbetsgivarvarumärke. I den här studien undersöker vi hur revisionsföretaget Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers arbetar med sitt arbetsgivarvarumärke. Det huvudsakliga syftet med studien är att skapa en ökad förståelse för processen employer branding. Detta gör vi genom att identifiera hur Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers arbetsgivarvarumärke uppfattas av anställda på olika nivåer inom företaget, genom att se hur de vill uppfattas som arbetsgivare och hur de förmedlar den bilden till arbetsmarknaden. Eftersom vårt syfte är att öka vår förståelse antar vi ett hermeneutiskt synsätt och ett deduktivt angreppssätt. Utifrån det använder vi oss av en kvalitativ ansats där intervjuer genomförs i syfte att få del av uppfattningar från medarbetare på olika positioner i Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers om hur arbetet går till och hur arbetsgivarvarumärket uppfattas internt. Vår studie baseras på forskning kring hur ett företag kan förstå, positionera, kommunicera samt sköta om och utveckla sitt arbetsgivarvarumärke. De teorier vi presenterar kommer från traditionell forskning om varumärken och kunskapsbildningar om hur företag kan stärka sina arbetsgivarvarumärken. Den empiriska datainsamlingen sker till största del genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem anställda på olika nivåer inom Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers organisation varav fyra på företagets kontor i Umeå. Därefter kopplas det insamlade datamaterialet ihop med teorin i en analys för att få en djupare förståelse för arbetet med att stärka ett arbetsgivarvarumärke. Vi drar slutsatserna att Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers försöker arbeta aktivt för att förstå hur deras arbetsgivarvarumärke uppfattas av de anställda genom interna personalundersökningar. De vill förmedla en bild till arbetsmarknaden som stämmer överens med den bild som finns internt bland de anställda, vilket är att Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers är ett tryggt företag fyllt med utmaningar. Vi konstaterar att informationen kring personalundersökningarnas betydelse och företagets visioner är bristfällig från företagets sida till de anställda på Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers kontor i Umeå. Slutligen konstaterar vi även att ”hemligheten” bakom Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers starka arbetsgivarvarumärke härleds till de utvecklingsmöjligheter som finns i företaget, att de är ett stort och framgångsrikt företag samt att de har talangfull och skicklig personal som sprider ett gott rykte om företaget.

In these days of globalization, with a higher level of openness and interaction over geographical, cultural and economical borders, the importance of the company’s intangible asset, its brand, is gaining importance as a differentiating factor. Building a strong brand and the emphasis on strategic brand management is something that before was given less attention in firms but today we can see a general increase in awareness and relative emphasis in the strategic work of companies. Countries as brands: Is it possible to consider a nation or a country as a brand the same way you consider a product? Well, looking in to the subject it seems to be a rather complex matter and there are many questions to be asked and answer. Nations around the globe are indeed marketing and positioning themselves for several purposes. It can be for example to attract tourists, investments and venture capital, qualified labour and business in general. So nations as brands do exist and it is of importance for the individual country to handle this valuable asset consciously. There are many factors contributing to the image of a nation and how others consider a nation image to be. It is also different according to whom and where you ask. The contributors to the image may be different channels of the mass media, famous persons and events, tourists visiting the country, national promotion agencies and also the main character in this study, the companies. The nature of nation branding is inert and complex so there is of importance that the contributors mentioned above have a mutual and homogeneous vision for the nations image and are working together. Companies tend to both contribute to and take advantage of the set of values that are more easily connected to a nation than others. Some companies do this more than others. The company should have: The awareness of the individual company of what they want its brand to be and stand for. The awareness of what the nation brand of Sweden stands for. The ability to choose between weather to consciously connect their brand to Swedish values or not. Accordingly, the main factor here is the awareness of the company in its strategic brand management. A nations image consists of a complex set of values and it is hard or maybe impossible to avoid some connection with this image but to a large extend the company can choose its positioned brand values. And the final question to be asked here is weather there can be found factors that indicates that some business or products can have a greater use or advantage of its connections with its nations brand image than others. The study My first intention was to carry out this study by including large and well-known Swedish companies like IKEA and Volvo, investigating their strategical brand management concerning my core-questions. This was not possible so the empirical part of this study was carried out by conducting interviews at two midsized companies in Arvika, Sweden. The first participating company is Klässbols Linneväveri, (Klässbols´ Linen mill), a recognized, successful textile company and the second one is Thermia AB a manufacturer of high quality, energy efficient heat pumps. I consider this inclusion of smaller companies to be even more interesting and rewarding when there is less to explore considering the big Swedish profile-companies. The main criteria’s was that the respondent companies should belong to different fields of business and that they should have presence abroad through export. For this particular study the most appropriate method and the one giving the richest and most valid image of the core question is the semi-structured interview. The actual interview took place at the locality of the two respondent companies. The persons chosen for the interviews at each company were picked by their position within the companies and were the ones most suitable and able to make the best possible contribution to this study. The main results found in this study are: It is natural that companies connect their brand to the image of country, being the nation of origin or a nation of choice. Having a country name included in a brand name helps customers to evaluate the product and make purchase decisions. The product or business of the company matters in the decision whether or not you should associate to the nations values or not. Sweden is associated with a set of values that you more easily can connect with certain businesses and products than others. It is of importance that the product is designed in Sweden and that this origin is emphasized in the market communication. In comparison, the country were the product is produced is on a relatively lower level of importance, although this level depends on which business it considers. Knowledge is power! To be able to make a conscious choice whether to connect to Swedish values or not, the individual company has to be aware of its own values and how they want to be seen as a brand. As long as the choice to include Swedish values is strategical, and conscious and the company can live up to these values, it is right. But it is also evenly right to choose not to include the same values.

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This thesis critically analyzes the phenomenon of nation branding as a technique of neocolonial governmentality. The study focuses on Brand India - postcolonial India’s attempt to imagine the nation and its people through the discourse of branding. I argue that India’s nation branding exercise hollows out the postcolonial imagination so that the nation can now only be imagined through a language and within a framework ‘always-already’ constituted for the postcolony. This thesis builds on Michel Foucault’s analysis of governmentality and utilizes a postcolonial framework, to show that when the practice of nation branding is applied to a postcolonial nation, it works to reinscribe the colonial legacy and reaffirm colonial power relations