Magister Commercii - MCom / A brand extension strategy is one of the marketing tools that firms utilise to introduce new products in the market. One of the advantages of adopting this strategy is that firms are able to leverage on the positive image, reputation, and equity of a recognised and established brand,thereby reducing risk associated with launching new products.This study examines how consumers perceive the overall quality and similarity/fit of the brand extensions (Nike camera, Nike socks, and Nike golf balls) in relation to the original brand (Nike athletic shoes) and how these perceptions influence their attitudes towards the extensions. The researcher proposes that the perceived overall quality of the brand extensions will be congruent to that of the original brand and that the attitude towards the brand extensions will be favourable only when there is a perceived similarity/fit between the brand extensions and the original brand.In order to get these insights, the study surveyed 147 undergraduate and postgraduate students from the University of the Western Cape across all faculties. A non-probability convenience sampling method was used to access respondents. To collect data, qualitative and quantitative methods were employed using a questionnaire which consisted of open-ended and closed-ended questions in the form of free associations technique and 5-point Likert scales. The data gathered was analysed by means of descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation coefficient. The findings indicate two things.(1) respondents only perceived Nike socks’ overall quality to be congruent to the original brand, Nike athletic shoes. (2) respondents only perceived Nike socks to be strongly similar to the original brand, Nike athletic shoes. Despite this, respondents had a favourable attitude towards all the brand extensions irrespective of whether they perceived the overall quality of the extensions to be congruent to the original brand or not, and whether they perceived the extensions to be similar to the original brand or not. These factors did not influence respondents’ attitudes towards the extensions negatively.

<p>In this dissertation, I investigated price dynamics in the hotel room-night market and attempted to explain pricing decisions from a market perspective. Since market dynamics of the hotel room-night market can be paralleled to those in the financial market, financial market models allowed for examination of various aspects of hotel room pricing decisions.</p><p>In the first study, advance-purchase discounts were estimated through application of an option pricing model considering property-specific attributes. Non-refundable advance-purchase discounts are a commonly used rate fence. One challenge to their implementation, however, is deciding upon the precise magnitude of the discount. Quan’s (2002) study on the price of room reservations is a good starting point, but it is a conceptual model that assumes away other property-specific factors. This study thus tested the idea that advance-purchase discounts are affected by various components, including the value of the right to cancel a reservation (e.g., cancelation option value) and the room- and property-specific factors in the hotel room-night market (e.g., uncertainty, reviews, and seasonality). The analysis supported this hypothesis and additionally revealed that advance-purchase discounts are smaller for rooms with high review ratings in a high-demand period. Interestingly, the divergence between advance-purchase discounts and cancelation option value components widened in a high-demand period, which implies a tendency by hotels to adjust their room rates rather than the amount of discount for customers who book their stay well in advance. Theoretically, this study thus contributes to finance literature by extending the application of the option pricing model to real options for non-financial assets. This study also contributes to the hospitality literature by demonstrating the effects of property-specific attributes on advance-purchase discount magnitude. The results also have implications to the hospitality industry by providing an analytical framework by which hoteliers can estimate property-specific advance-purchase discounts.</p><p>The second study concentrated on rate parity agreement’s effect on the hotel room-night market’s efficiency at reflecting product characteristics in room rates. This study examined the impact of rate parity agreement between hotels and online travel agencies by comparing hotel rates between Europe and the United States. This study found that room rates were less sensitive to property quality attributes under rate parity clauses. The reflection of property quality on room rates were less efficient when hotels have rate parity agreement with OTAs. Furthermore, the results supported the claim that rate parity exacerbates price increase in periods of high demand, which indicates possible collusion between suppliers (hotels) and distributors (OTAs). The findings provided theoretical implications by testing the market efficiency of the hotel room-night market and confirming the impact at the property level. This study also provided a perspective on pricing decision makers to understand how rate parity agreement influence their pricing decisions. Last, the findings provided support for recent policies in Europe that restrict rate parity agreements between hotels and OTAs.</p><p>The third study empirically examined hoteliers’ response to the demand by observing the price movement of two rates with different cancelation policies—free cancelation rates and non-refundable rates. By modifying Hasbrouck’s (1995) information share approach, this study examined the non-refundable rates’ contribution to the price discovery process. The perceived quality of accommodation by customers, one of the primary determinants of the price discovery process, was included in analysis. The results suggested that non-refundable rates were contribute more to the information variance than free cancelation rates did. The findings also suggested that consumers’ perceived quality and volatility influence non-refundable rates’ contribution to the price discovery process. The results also have practical implications for market participants, as they help to build an understanding of aggregated demand and its impact on pricing. Non-refundable rates are generally regarded as just one of many kinds of discounted rates, but the results of this study suggest that hoteliers should carefully consider the role that non-refundable rates play in their pricing strategy.<br></p>

A global crisis struck the world in the shape of the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020. As a result, supermarkets have experienced panic buying behaviors, empty store shelves, out of stocks, and a large increase in online sales. Supermarkets, producers, marketers, and businesses have had to adapt to consumers' changed buying behavior in food consumption. In previous research, it has been found that price and quality are two of the most influential factors in the consumer decision- process, in particular, increased price sensitivity and perceived quality of food products concerns consumers in crisis situations. The aim of this study was to research beyond panic buying behaviors, by investigating if consumer buying behavior has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding price sensitivity and perceived quality within two specific food categories, meat as well as fruits and vegetables. In addition, a moderating effect of residency in either Austria or Sweden was tested. A quantitative method has been used, in which consumers in Austria and Sweden were surveyed in an online questionnaire. 169 responses from consumers were analyzed. The result suggests that the buying behavior in regard to price sensitivity and perceived quality of meat, fruits, and vegetables has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. No moderating effect of residency was found. The findings in the study create a foundation in a unique crisis situation that has never been studied before and the exploratory nature of the study gives multiple indicators for future research.

This paper examines how social- and environmental sustainability is advertised on Instagram and how it in turn affects consumer-based brand equity. Firstly, a latent content analysis was conducted on Adidas Instagram account, @adidas, to gain insights on how they use sustainability in their advertising through their Instagram posts. The findings revealed how Adidas explicitly advertise sustainability, both social- and environmental sustainability on their Instagram account. However, the analysis displayed a higher focus on social issues compared to initiatives to facilitate environmental sustainability. Secondly, Adidas Instagram was analyzed with the use of insights from interviews, to capture how its sustainability efforts affect consumers and thereby brand equity. The findings demonstrate the importance of taking the consumer perspective into account to positively affect the dimensions included within brand equity through social media, and to not miss out on the favorable outcomes of sustainability advertising. Accordingly, the research offers concrete knowledge on how sustainability can be advertised on social media by fashion brands, and its effect on brand equity. An area that has highly been neglected among previous researchers. The study contributes to valuable knowledge on how brands, in a generally unsustainable industry, could demonstrate their sustainability efforts in advertising to foster sustainable consumption among consumers into a more sustainable future.

[Introduction] Cooperative banks in France have a major impact on the finance industry and the French economy. The French financial ecosystem differs in comparison with other European countries because of a higher number of cooperative banking groups, which have a dominant market share in the financial industry. With a highly competitive retail banking market frequently described as a commoditized space, customer satisfaction remains the largest competitive advantage for banks. [Research Purpose] Overall, the ambition with this research was to gain a deeper understanding of customer satisfaction in the retail banking market segment. The fundament of this thesis is a theoretical framework that analyzed customer satisfaction for retail clients of cooperative banks. By this, we identified which characteristic of the relationship between customers and their cooperative bank have the highest impact on customer satisfaction. Thus, our research question implied a search to explain an underlying causal relationship between six different variables within Perceived Quality and Perceived Value with customer satisfaction. Perceived Value (PV) included Trust, Employee Competences, and Price Transparency. Perceived Quality (PQ) included Accessibility, Reliability, and Reactivity. [Methodology] By adopting a quantitative approach, we could test, support and rank which variables impact customer satisfaction for cooperative banking clients. The analyzed dataset comprises a total of 21 914 respondents which are customers from 142 cooperative banking branches in France. [Results &amp; Conclusion] From the analysis of the empirical results, we answered our research question by detailing the relationships between perceived quality; perceived value, and customer satisfaction. Finally, our findings indicated that Perceived Quality contributes to customer satisfaction in cooperative banking to a larger extend than Perceived Value. Moreover, the study ranked the importance of each variables impacting customer satisfaction as follow: (1) Accessibility, (2) Employee Competences, (3) Trust, (4) Reliability, (5) Price Transparency, (6) Reactivity.

Nuestra oportunidad de negocio nace con el objetivo de lanzar una marca deportiva peruana que ofrezca las siguientes características: variedad, tecnología y precios accesibles. Proyectamos ofrecer nuestros productos a, por lo menos, un 40% por debajo de la competencia internacional como Adidas, Nike, Puma o Reebok. Ponemos especial énfasis en el renovado espíritu patriótico del consumidor peruano actual, que ha reforzado la tendencia a consumir productos de marcas peruanas. Nuestro proyecto consiste en competir con estas grandes marcas a nivel mundial, comprando artículos a un precio promedio de dieciséis dólares ($16) FOB, para venderlo en el canal B2C a ciento noventa y nueve (S/199.00) soles como ticket promedio, y en el canal mayorista a ciento cincuenta y cinco (S/155.00) soles. La estrategia de “Velcross” será 80% digital y estamos tomando como punto de partida y benchmarking a https://cosnova.com/en, ya que nuestro canal principal de ventas será nuestro e-commerce y alianza con los e-commerce más grandes del país. Esto nos permitirá atender en simultáneo a miles de clientes, y ayudará a mejorar nuestra utilidad operativa. Tendremos tres Flagship Stores como una estrategia de imagen de marca. Asimismo, tanto nuestra tienda virtual como las tiendas físicas van a tener el mismo look & feel para que la experiencia de consumo del cliente sea la misma. La marca sería “Velcross”, que traducido al español sería algo similar a un “velocista”, y cuando hablamos de velocistas hablamos de una velocidad muy superior a la máxima velocidad humana. Buscamos tener un nombre fácil de pronunciar para el segmento, tener un precio atractivo sin que sea barato, y brindar una experiencia de compra satisfactoria en las tiendas con los dos ejes de éxito de la marca: calidad y precio. / Our business opportunity was born with the purpose of finding in the Peruvian market the opportunity to launch a 100% local sports brand that offers: variety, technology, and accessible prices (at least 40% below the competition). Our project consists of competing with these big brands worldwide (Adidas, Nike, Puma or Reebok) by buying items at an average price of sixteen dollars FOB, to sell in the B2C channel at one hundred and ninety-nine S / 199.00 soles as an average ticket, and in the wholesale channel at one hundred and fifty five soles S / 155.00. Velcross's strategy will be 80% digital and we are taking the web https://cosnova.com/en as a starting point and benchmark since our main sales channel will be our e-commerce and alliance with the largest e-commerce companies in the country. This allows us to serve thousands of clients simultaneously, helping to improve our operating profit. We will have three Flagship Stores as a branding strategy. Both our virtual store and the physical stores will have the same look & feel so that the customer's consumer experience is the same. The brand would be "Velcross", which translated into Spanish would be something like a "sprinter", and when we speak of sprinters, we speak of a speed much higher than the maximum human speed. What we want is to have an easy-to-pronounce name for the segment, which has an attractive price without making it feel cheap, and to provide a satisfactory shopping experience in stores with the two axes of the brand's success: quality and price. / Trabajo de investigación

M. Tech. (Department of Fashion, Faculty of Human Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / The focus of this dissertation is to examine the relationship between footwear cues, perceived quality and consumer satisfaction amongst Generation Y at River Square mall in Vereeniging. This research considers the effects of these cues as important arrays of quality indicators that consumers utilise in their evaluation process when selecting products. This knowledge is important to managers in the footwear industry. The lack of these considerations may lead to the manufacturing of fashion footwear that may not meet the consumers expectation regarding quality of the product and hence their satisfaction or possibly dissatisfaction. Footwear is alleged to be indispensable for the development of fashion apparel. Thus, the study sought to investigate underlying variables that influence footwear for the purpose of identifying ways in which the fashion industry can improve performance and presentation of footwear. A conceptual model was developed, drawing from cue utilization theory (CU) and utility theory (UT). Generation Y consumers at River Square mall in Vereeniging formed the sample of the study. A survey was conducted and research data was collected from 550 consumers. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data via Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 22 and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) 22. The findings indicate that footwear cues have a strong influence on perceived quality and perceived quality has a strong influence on satisfaction amongst Generation Y consumers. This indicates that Generation Y consumers perceive quality of footwear through extrinsic and intrinsic cues hence their satisfaction. Consequently fashion footwear business should regard effective cues when trading footwear.

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Bakgrund: Då ett företags logotyp är kopplad till dess varumärkesvärde kan en förändring av en sådan ha en påverkan på det uppfattade varumärkesvärdet. Därför är det av intresse att undersöka huruvida det uppfattade varumärkesvärdet skiljer sig åt för en logotyp som genomgått en liten förändring jämfört med en logotyp som genomgått en stor. Det vore då även aktuellt att utreda vad som är viktigt vid sådana förändringar. Syfte: Att besvara frågeställningen och genom detta generera ett kunskapsbidrag till redan existerande forskning kring varumärkesvärde, logotyper och logotypförändringar. Metod: Studien har genomförts genom kvantitativ metod. Enkätinsamlingen för studien genererade totalt 305 svar. Det vetenskapliga förhållningssättet för studien är positivistiskt och den har en deduktiv forskningsansats. Bearbetningen och analysen av insamlad data har gjorts med hjälp av programmen Excel och SPSS. Slutsats: Varumärkesvärdet utifrån en logotyp uppfattas som mer positivt hos de respondenter som exponerats för en stor förändring jämfört med en liten. Hur pass engagerade konsumenterna är i varumärket är avgörande för hur väl förändringen tas emot. Även färgvalet är viktigt. Slutligen kräver en logotypförändring mycket reklam och marknadsföring för att den ska ha ett positivt resultat, oavsett engagemang och tidigare uppfattning av varumärkesvärdet. / Background: As a business’ logotype is connected to its brand equity, a change of thelogotype may affect the perceived brand equity. Therefore it is interesting to study whether the perceived brand equity differs for a logotype that has gone through a small change compared to a logotype that has gone through a large change. It is also interesting to evaluate which elements that are important when doing these types of changes. Purpose: To answer the research question and through this generate a contribution of knowledge to already existing research concerning brand equity, logotypes and logotype changes. Method: The study has been made using quantitative research method. In total, 305 answers were collected. The scientific approach is positivistic and it has a deductive research approach. To process the data, the programs Excel and SPSS have been used. Conclusions: Brand equity affected by a logotype is perceived as more positive by the respondents that have been exposed to a large change compared to a small. The respondents’ engagement to the brand is crucial for how well the change is being received. The choice of colour is also important. Finally, a logo change requires a lot of advertising and marketing activities to have a positive effect, regardless of level of engagement and earlier perception of the brand equity.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka sambandet mellan WOM, förväntningar, attityder, upplevd kvalitet och kundtillfredsställelse. Metod: Den befintliga teorin har analyserats för att få en översikt av den tidigare forskningen inom området. Data har samlats in genom en enkätundersökning och sedan bearbetats med hjälp av en deskriptiv analys samt en korrelationsanalys. Resultaten har därefter diskuterats och mynnat ut i studiens slutsats. Slutsats: Studien visar att den viktigaste faktorn för hur tillfredsställd kunden blir är den upplevda kvaliteten av en tjänst. Studien visar även att WOM har en stor påverkan på kundtillfredsställelsen. Vidare konstaterar studien att kundens attityd har en större inverkan än kundens förväntningar på kundtillfredsställelsen. Uppsatsens bidrag: Studiens bidrag till teorin inom företagsekonomins och marknadsföringens forskningsområde är en ökad kunskap om WOM:s påverkan på kundtillfredsställelsen inom tjänstebranschen. Vidare bidrag till ämnet är hur attityder och förväntningar påverkar kundtillfredsställelsen. Studien visar att attityder väger tyngre än förväntningar i fråga om hur tillfredsställd kunden blir. / Title: The relationship between WOM and Customer Satisfaction - expectations, attitudes and perceived quality Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between WOM, expectations, attitudes, perceived quality and customer satisfaction. Method: The existing theory has been analyzed to get an overview of previous research in this area. Data has been collected through a survey and then analyzed by using a descriptive analysis and a correlation analysis. Furthermore, the results have been discussed and concluded in the study's conclusion. Conclusion: The study shows that the most important factor for how satisfied the customer will be is the perceived quality of a service. The study also shows that WOM has a major impact on the customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the study finds that the customer's attitude has a greater impact than the customer's expectations on the customer satisfaction.