Дисертації з теми "BRANDING DECISION"

In the present developing and modern day world, consumerism has dominated all the aspects of life. The life in the society follows the pattern of the capitalist culture where the human values have a different measure, ‘you are known by what you have not by what you are’.

This naturally leads to the life in a society where everyone wants to have a unique place in the society, by possessing the things which sets them apart from the rest of people in the society.

In present society and living way, the Brands not only represent the symbol of the company or product but to a larger extent define the general life of a person. What the person uses can reflect his taste of life, his status in the society, his economic background and many other things. This makes a deep connection between the company and its brand, with the consumer. In this two way relation both are dependent on each other for various different reasons.

In today’s time customers are very deeply connected to the brands. When they purchase any product like a car, mobile, items of daily need, brand name influence the consumer’s choice.

Some customers purchase the specific branded things just due to the brand name. Customers believe that brand name is a symbol of quality.

I found this interesting and wanted to find out whether brand name influences the consumer choice when they go for purchasing any product. I chose to for the specific product because

this is one of the products which got my attention because of many reasons.

Initially the car production was dominated by few companies and one or two countries. With the time, the market started to grow and once considered to be luxurious commodity, cars became a need

rather than a choice. This increased the demand and with that many more companies entered the arena to have their share of profit and exploit the growing market. This made the companies to put more efforts and money to creating brand awareness of their product.

With the Huge sum of money and effort invested by the companies to create the awareness of their brand in the market, many questions arise; does this really affect the purchasing decision

of the customer? Does the brand awareness somehow influence the sale of the product? Etc.

On the basis of these questions, I formulated my problem as follows:

The purpose of this thesis is to create deeper consideration of what influence a brand name can have, when people go for purchasing, choose the products between different brands in automobile industry. Further I want to identify, if there is a connection between brands and the consumer decision making process.

I conducted this study based on theories and surveys. I analyzed the result of the survey in order to be able to draw conclusions and find answers to my problem.

I came to the conclusion that when consumer purchases a car, brand names influence his choice. Customers choose the well known branded car among other brands which are new or not so known.

The study shows that branded cars have a great place in consumer mind, when customers go for purchasing a car, they prefer to purchase a well known branded car. Customers do not want to try new or unknown branded cars because they have no much information about the

lesser known brand. Usually, people purchase well known branded cars because they might have heard before about brands or they have some information about them from other sources.

This makes customer feel more comfortable during the time of decision making as they are not so confident about the knowledge they have gathered about the other brands.

The consumers are very conscious about branded and unbranded cars because they have the view that branded cars are more reliable than unbranded car. This study also explains that customers trust the branded cars’ quality. Before purchasing a car people do not consider the lesser known brand car, as people are very attached to some specific brands. Some people are loyal to specific brands, over time they want to purchase the same branded car because the specific brand has satisfied the customer’s needs and in turn has gained the trust in the brand name.

I feel that the purpose of this study has been fulfilled to some extant. The theory describe that brand name has a power, which attracts the customers towards branded products. The reason

is that customer gets special connection with specific brands product and become the loyal with brand.

Background: In the 1970’s, the first concerns regarding manufacturing pollu-tion headed off in Sweden and an enormous demand was cre-ated. The result came to be an enhanced consumption of ingredi-ent branded products such as KRAV, Bra Miljöval and The Swan to mention a few. Fair Trade entered the Swedish shelves in 1996 which gave the consumers the possibility to buy products and contribute to better conditions for farmers and employees in de-veloping countries.

Problem: In 1995 a research was performed, which showed that 50 percent of the respondents did not buy products with for instance an en-vironmental concerned label due to the significantly higher price. Some argue against this and believe that it is more of a marketing issue. Customers have become more aware in their shopping and, in order to keep them, companies must meet their demands by paying more attention to how they run their business.

Purpose: The aim with this thesis is to investigate why managers make decisions to purchase ingredient branded products, particulary Fair Trade.

Method: To accomplish this thesis a qualitative approach has been applied with the intention to describe the result from performed tele-phone and personal interviews with companies within chain res-taurants, hotels, grocery stores, and textile retail stores.

Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the decision to introduce Fair Trade labelled products depended on factors such as; the introduction year of these products, the history of the company and core values. Managers at the selected companies decided to purchase products with the ingredient brand Fair Trade for different rea-sons. Either since they had a long history of concern for fair production and rooted values or due to that the introduction of these products contributed to a good business image or to clean the company’s history.

Title

Corporate Social Responsibility in Branding - A study of The Body Shop's visitors' attitudes and  purchase decisions

Authors Sara Lundgren El-Salhy & Amanda Lundmark

Seminar Date 2009-06-02

Level C-level Thesis

Tutor Malin Näsholm

Keywords

CSR, The Body Shop, Corporate Identity, Corporate Image, Associations, Attitudes, Purchase Decision

Problem

Previous research suggests that by using well known CSR as a branding tool, companies can create positive consumer attitudes, and these attitudes are assumed to lead to positive purchase decisions. This study aims to test this connection, when CSR is well known, by answering the following problem question: What are the opinions and attitudes among The Body Shop Umeå's visitors towards The Body Shop and CSR, and how do they perceive the company regarding CSR? Are their purchase decisions affected by these opinions and attitudes?

Purpose

To explore the importance of a well-known CSR; to find what attitudes consumers have towards CSR and a company with well-known CSR, and to look at these attitudes' relation to the consumers' purchase decision.

Methodology

A quantitative, deductive study is conducted, where the theory is tested. The data is collected by handing out self-completion questionnaires to The Body Shop visitors in Umeå.

Results & Conclusion

This study shows that The Body Shop visitors in Umeå think that CSR is important when buying cosmetics. The respondents have positive attitudes towards The Body Shop and these positive attitudes can be connected to The Body Shop's CSR. The positive attitudes can also be connected to positive purchase decisions. A conclusion that can be drawn from these findings is that well known CSR can be connected to positive purchase decisions, if the CSR is trustworthy. This conclusion can, however, only be generalized to the population for this study; the visitors to The Body Shop's store in Umeå.

Number of Pages 57

Number of References 40

Background:

The Swedish fashion market today quickly becomes too small, even for the new companies, and they are quick to take the step abroad and launch their internationalisation process. With a focus on the four Swed-ish fashion companies Filippa K, Acne Jeans, Nudie Jeans and Whyred, we have analysed how these representatives of the industry have interna-tionalised themselves. The companies have chosen different ways to promote their brand and how to control the perceived image of the brand. As there is a lack of earlier in-depth studies into this particular question of the Swedish Fashion industry, we have set out to investigate how this is done.

Purpose:

The purpose of the thesis is to look at the internationalisation process of Swedish fashion companies, with a focus on the growth and the penetra-tion of the international markets in order to determine the key success factors for successful international expansion. We will also investigate to what extent branding, country of origin (COO) and psychic distance to geographical markets has an influence on the internationalisation process and its success.

Method:

We used a qualitative approach and conducted a case study consisting of four Swedish fashion companies. The data have been collected through interviews and secondary sources. The information has been put into dif-ferent models for internationalisation, branding and key success factors.

Conclusion:

We have interpreted the collected data together with the theories used, thereafter drawn the conclusions that the key Success factors that have taken these firms so far and have been important in the building of the successful brands/companies, are in fact to a large degree COO, rela-tions in the Swedish fashion Industry and the creation of superior prod-ucts. The companies have both similar and specific factors for their suc-cess on the international market.