During the past two decades something fundamental has happened to the relationship between manufacturers and distributor organisations in many European countries. Within a number of product markets, distributors have launched their own products, forcing manufacturing companies to compete with shelf space owners in addition to the "traditional" competition with other manufacturers. Theoretical and empirical findings regarding Distributor Own Brands (DOB’S) offer us a number of explanations of the differences between national markets and product categories in terms of DOB penetration. However, much of this literature is deterministic in its approach: DOB penetration is often seen as a direct consequence of different market conditions, rather than as the result of strategy processes involving a number of decision-makers and their perceptions of market-related and organisational factors.This study investigates how an array of organisational and market related factors are perceived by distributor organisations, and how this is expressed in the organisations’ own brand strategies. To investigate this research problem, a theoretical framework that explicitly takes distributor own brand strategy into consideration when examining proposed determinants of DOB penetration is presented. The empirical study is mainly based on interviews with decision-makers within the central organisations of the two largest distributors within Swedish fmcg distribution: the ICA federation and the consumer co-operation KF. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

Title: The changes on the Spanish consumer behaviour after the financial crisis 2007. Applied towards a switch to store branded products. Authors: Adrián Cánovas Rosales and Iranzu Ibáñez Pérez Supervisor: Venilton Reinert Level: Bachelor in Business Administration, Marketing Key words: Consumers’ behaviour, financial crisis, leader brands, store brands, Spain, Spanish retailers… Purpose: The main research objective is to find out if there has been a change in Spanish consumer buying behaviour as a consequence of the current economic downturn. Method: The selected research method is an explorative research followed by descriptive one. Secondary data has been collected from books at Halmstad University’s Library and academic journals and other articles founded in the University’s Databases. Primary data has been obtained through a survey among middle class Spanish households. The selected research instrument is a questionnaire. Theoretical framework: We firstly define the consumer behaviour. Then, there is an explanation of the economic crisis focusing on the Spanish case. Finally, stores brands are defined. Conclusion: A summary of the findings obtained from our study are posted. Middle class Spanish households have reduced their consumption, becoming more rational and, consequently, switching to store brands. The limitations of the study as well as some suggestions for further researches are added in this section.

Este estudo aborda um tema relevante para empresas brasileiras com interesse no mercado global, que é a decisão de associar-se ou não à \"Marca Brasil\" em processos de internacionalização de suas marcas. A economia brasileira vem ocupando uma posição de mais evidência no cenário econômico mundial, trazendo oportunidades para empresas brasileiras se inserirem no mercado global. Marcas fortes são um dos meios mais efetivos de construção de valor agregado. Estereótipos que compradores possuem a respeito do país de origem de um produto influenciam sua avaliação, além das características intrínsecas deste produto. Este é o chamado efeito país de origem. Ou seja, o país de origem também é uma \"marca\", fazendo-se necessário que as empresas brasileiras compreendam este fenômeno. Embora o número de pesquisas acadêmicas brasileiras sobre o tema venha aumentando, a sua relevância justifica seu aprofundamento. A contribuição desta tese foi compreender como as empresas estudadas tomam a decisão de associar-se ou não à \"Marca Brasil\", aspecto que ainda não tinha sido especificamente estudado em outros trabalhos. Depois de estudada a literatura sobre o tema, verificou-se como empresas brasileiras específicas compreendem os conceitos de \"efeito país de origem\" e \"marca país\". Finalmente, foi investigado como estas empresas tomam a decisão de associar-se ou não à Marca Brasil. O tipo de pesquisa escolhida foi exploratória, com o método do estudo de caso, o que permitiu aprofundar a questão. As empresas selecionadas foram a rede de fast food Giraffas e a Embraer, empresas em diferentes estágios de internacionalização e de setores distintos, permitindo análises sob diferentes perspectivas. A conclusão da pesquisa de campo é de que as empresas estudadas reconhecem a existência dos conceitos \"efeito país de origem\" e \"marca país\". No entanto, como este conhecimento ainda não está devidamente suportado pela teoria disponível, o processo decisório de associação ou não com a marca país carece de melhor embasamento. Ou seja, uma decisão de relevância para as marcas brasileiras em processo de internacionalização é tomada com mais intuição do que o necessário e o recomendável. / This study addresses an important issue for Brazilian companies with interest in the global market, which is the decision to join or not \"Brand Brazil\" in processes of internationalization of their brands. The Brazilian economy has been occupying a position of more evidence in the global economic scenario, bringing opportunities for Brazilian companies to fit into the global market. It is undeniable that strong brands are one of the most effective means of building added value. Buyers\' stereotypes about the country of origin of a product influence their evaluation, beyond the intrinsic characteristics of this product. This is called the country of origin effect. That is, the country of origin is also a \"brand\", which makes it necessary that Brazilian companies understand this phenomenon. Although the number of Brazilian academic research on the subject has been increasing, its relevance justifies its deepening. The contribution of this thesis was to understand how the studied companies make the decision to join or not \"Brand Brazil\", an aspect that had not been specifically studied in previous research. After studying the literature on the subject, we examined how specific Brazilian companies understand the concepts of \"country of origin effect\" and \"country brand\". Finally, it was investigated how these companies decide to join or not Brand Brazil. The type of research chosen was exploratory, with the case study method for data collection, which allowed to further examine the issue. The companies chosen were the fast-food chain Giraffas and Embraer, companies in different stages of internationalization and different sectors, allowing analysis from different perspectives. The completion of field research is that the studied companies recognize the existence of the concepts \"country of origin effect\" and \"country brand\". However, as this knowledge is not properly grounded in theory, the decision process of association or not with the country brand lacks foundation. That is, a decision of relevance to the Brazilian brands in the internationalization process is taken more intuitively than necessary and advisable.

The study aimed to explore and describe consumers’ reliance on brands, specifically the Country of Origin (COO) of brands as a heuristic, i.e. the perceived quality of a selected category of interior merchandise and to subsequently explain how COO influences consumers’ quality perceptions and product choices. The study focussed on major household appliances, due to the prominence of brand names and the COO on these products. In other interior merchandise product categories such as furniture and textile products, the brand name and COO is not necessarily that prominent or visible. A survey was conducted in the Tshwane metropolitan, which is a wealthy urban area in South Africa and a key role player in the economic sector. The study was conducted in the context of an emerging economy, where international brands have penetrated the market and made a wider range of products and brands available to the consumer. The data was collected by using convenience sampling methods supplemented by snowball sampling. It involved the self-completion of a structured questionnaire by 450 willing respondents who fit the prerequisite for the study, i.e. males and females, 25 years and older who belong to the middle to upper socio-economic group (earn R5000 or more per month) and who have an education level of grade 12 or higher, regardless of population group. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, as well as exploratory factor analysis, specifically Principal Axis Factoring, using an Oblimin rotation with Kaiser Normalization to determine the underlying factors associated with the quality indicated by brand names and the associations consumers make of brand names and specific product characteristics. Calculations of means, standard deviations, Cronbach’s Alpha, Anova, t-tests and post hoc Sheffe’s tests were calculated where significant differences between demographics were investigated for further interpretation. The study concluded that consumers are relatively brand conscious, men more so than women and that they are brand familiar in terms of various major household appliance brands. Quality as the most important branded product meaning were confirmed, as well as the use of brands as an indicator of performance and functional product attributes, i.e. value for money. Brands are also frequently used, especially by females, as an indicator of the product’s environmental and ethical compliances, but less so to infer its status implications. The study did however confirm younger consumers use brand names to a greater extent to infer social status than older consumers. It also revealed that the Black and other population group use brand names as an indication of status characteristics significantly more than White consumers. Consumers seem to have little knowledge of the COO of brands; they do however have strong stereotypes of Western and Eastern countries as well as South Africa, where Western countries enjoy more positive stereotypes than the others. These stereotypes also seem to strongly influence their overall quality perceptions of major household appliances, especially in terms of durability, performance and prestige. The COO of a brand can therefore have implications for its brand equity and should be addressed in brand management and marketing initiatives. / Dissertation (MConsumer Science)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Consumer Science / MConsumer Science / Unrestricted

Nowadays, there are many trends and changes happening in the market industry, in order to cope with the rise of technologies. Brands are finding new, modern, and revolutionary ways in order to elevate their identities into new levels. Therefore, the adoption of motion graphics and videos yield remarkable improvements in marketing in general. The benefits of motion graphics and its impact on the field of design and marketing have attracted the attention of researchers and businesses around the world. This thesis focuses on the benefits of motion graphics in branding, and how it can add more values, opportunities, and movement to digital brand identities in order to make brands live and breathe. First, the term “Motion Graphics” is introduced and defined, for it is a vague concept for some of the viewers. In addition, a small description of the history of branding and motion graphics is touched upon, in order to give the viewers, the idea of where both fields came from and how they evolved to the level they are now. Second, the thesis uses a qualitative method such as semi-structured interviews, together with data through the insights, experiences, and knowledge of professional designers working in the field. The interview method is chosen because it is best suited to provide a more complete understanding of the research problem than quantitative data for this specific topic. Then this thesis continues to illustrate the importance of adding motion graphics in every digital brand. Where each brand can have its own unique style of animation that can differentiate their identity in the market. Therefore, some examples are presented as well as some successful digital brands that have their own animation and illustration style that make their identity stand out. Finally, the results show that motion graphics is indeed in demand and may become a norm to be added in every digital brand toolkit. In addition, motion graphics can add dynamism, can reflect the digital brand and its attributes in a better way, help brands convey their messages in a more effective way, and can increase the value and make it more suitable for social media.

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All fashion brands work with PR in some way, its importance is evident. At the same time it is expensive and difficult to say what it provides, consequently one may wonder whether if it is all worth it. Existing literature leaves a gap of missing research in PR and especially in PR events. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute with an increased understanding of PR events in the fashion industry, by an open approach. In more detail, the purpose is to explore the fundamental aspects of PR events in the fashion industry, and how such events contribute to brand equity. The method used was a qualitative case study, including descriptive and exploratory research methods. The data collection consists of participant observations, during an internship at a PR agency, and semi structured interviews with five participants. A cross case synthesis analysis method was used with a comparative approach. The fundamental aspects of PR events and its contribution to brand equity, was found to differ and depend to a great extent. The main dependent variable is the strategy and objective of the brand. The findings show that a PR event is a marketing activity and a communication tool/channel, of which the end goal is to create sales. Important aspects include relationships, reputation/image and experiences. PR events contribute to brand awareness and brand associations, however the contribution to perceived quality and brand loyalty was found to be less evident. PR events may have a positive effect, negative effect, or no effect. It is possible to evaluate events to some extent. Quantitative and qualitative aspects are discussed, both as possible and less usable methods. The results were found to be wide and extensive, opening up for more questions rather than providing answers. Future research could narrow the scope to a less extensive range of PR events, in order to generate answers that may be more useable. The data collection methods could, for the same reason, be more structured. The study adds knowledge to existing theories to the area of PR events. By the open approach, this study draws attention to the rather unexplored and undiscovered topic of PR events, and brings focus to the discussion of its value. The qualitative research method brings attention to considering both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The findings are of interest to brands that use or consider using PR events, and want to gain a more clear picture of the events and their contributions to brand equity.

Overweight people claim to be mistreated by the fashion industry. If they were, it would be in line with branding theory supporting the idea of rejecting fat consumers to improve user imagery for fashion brands. However, fashion companies do not confess to such practices. To shed some light on the subject, I have conducted two studies. The first attempts to illustrate what effect, if any, user imagery has on fashion brands. It is an experiment designed to show how the weight of users affects consumers’ perceptions of mass market fashion brands. The findings show that consumers’ impressions of mass market fashion brands are significantly affected by the weight of its users. The effect of male user imagery is ambiguous. For women’s fashion on the other hand, slender users are to be preferred. In the second study I examine what effects these effects have on assortments. I compare the sizes of mass market clothes to the body sizes of the population. No evidence of discrimination of overweight or obese consumers was found -quite the contrary. The reasons for these unexpected findings may be explained by the requirements a brand must fulfil to make management of the customer base for user imagery purposes viable. The brand must be sensitive to user imagery; a requirement that mass market fashion fulfils. However, it must also be feasible for a company to exclude customers, and while garment sizes can be restricted to achieve this, the high volume sales strategy of mass market fashion apparently cannot.

As sport sponsorship has grown in importance and sophistication over the past three decades, so too have the efforts made by un-associated brands to capitalize on the financial benefits and media value provided by sport. By offering would-be sponsors an alternative means of associating with an event without the substantial expense of securing an official partnership, ambush marketing has become a major threat to the investments made by official sponsors, cluttering the marketing environment surrounding sponsorship and challenging sponsors for consumer attention and awareness. Unfortunately, our understanding of ambushing and its impact on the management of sponsorship programmes has been limited by the predominantly atheoretical, outdated perspective of ambush marketing espoused by commercial rights holders and event organizers. This study presents a conceptual examination of ambush marketing, providing a theoretical investigation of the nature, role, strategy and impact of ambush marketing and a renewed perspective of ambush marketing as a form of marketing communications. Contemporary ambush marketing represents a strategic alternative to official sponsorship, which offers a brand access to consumer attention and awareness by creating an affiliation, whether implicit or explicit, with an event or property. This previously unexplored complexity and diversity has informed the construction and development of a typology of ambush strategy which contemporizes past ambush marketing research and affords new insight into the role and evolution of ambush marketing, and its impact on sport sponsorship management. The development of a theoretical conceptualization of ambush marketing represents an integral step in the advancement of the academic study of ambushing, and affords the opportunity to better understand the impact of ambushing on sponsorship and to further explore the nature of ambush marketing.