Bachelor Thesis How Chinese SME perceive the strong brand as a crucial factor for establishing competitiveness? Author: Chang Liu: [email protected] Yunyu Li [email protected] Supervisor: Joachim Timlon Examer: Monika Müller Acknolegement The authors would like to express the gratitude to people who have supported and encouraged us with these acknowledgments, because this thesis will not be there if without these people’s help. Also, with this experience of writing thesis, we have learned lots of knowledge and got the invaluable experience. Firstly, we would like to thank our supervisor Monika Müller, for the constructive feedback and advice for the thesis. Also, we are very thankful to our tutor Joachim Timlon, who always give the strong support and provide us the effective recommendations and guidelines, which help us to shape the research process and solve many problems during the process of writing the thesis. This make us to believe in ourselves and strive for the best. Secondly, we like to thank our interviewees in CSC, they provided us with very important information for the thesis and spent time in the interviews. Without their participation, our thesis won’t be conducted well, and continued. So we are very grateful for their assist. Lastly and for most, we would be very thankful to our classmates, because they devoted their valuable time to help us, and provided valuable feedback. It really makes our thesis improved a lot, and help to overcome the barriers we met. May 22nd., 2016 Yunyu Li, Chang Liu 1 Abstract The globalization become a current tendency, and China as one of the biggest parts in the international market, plays the important role. Considering the SMEs in China occupy the main amount, Chinese SMEs are the key factors in Chinese economy. At the same time, they are also faced with fierce competition from global company that compared with other developed countries’ SMEs, Chinese SMEs are not competitive enough. One of the reasons is that their brands are lack of competitiveness. It is known to all, brand is a key strategic asset to long-term performance and it should be managed. Therefore this study is focused on how Chinese SMEs perceive brand as crucial factor for establishing competitiveness. This study is based on qualitative research, and case study research design is chosen. The semi-structured interview is conducted in the Chinese SME called CSC, and two managers and three employees were interviewed. In conclusion, it can be found that the CSC pays attention to the brand, but their brand still need to be improved to be more powerful, unique and positiveness then to reach the loyalty of consumers, and the media channels should be paid more attention . keywords: Chinese SMEs Brand, Brand equity, Brand marketing mix,CSC 2 Content Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Background information ................................................................................................ 5 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................. 5 1.2 Problem discussion .............................................................................................................. 7 1.3 Delimitation ......................................................................................................................... 8 1.4 Research question ............................................................................................................... 9 1.5 Purpose ................................................................................................................................ 9 2. Literature review ..................................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Brand equity ...................................................................................................................... 10 2.3 Brand Identity ................................................................................................................... 12 2.4 Brand positioning .............................................................................................................. 13 2.5 Brand marketing mix ........................................................................................................ 13 2.6 Building strong brand ....................................................................................................... 14 2.7 Summary: .......................................................................................................................... 15 3.Frame of reference .................................................................................................................. 17 4.Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 20 4.1 Qualitative research .............................................................................................................. 20 Constructionism ...................................................................................................................... 20 Interpretivism .......................................................................................................................... 20 4.2 Inductive research ................................................................................................................. 21 4.3 Design of the study ............................................................................................................... 21 4.4 Collection of data .................................................................................................................. 22 4.4.1 Interview ........................................................................................................................ 22 4.4.2 Limitation of metHod used ............................................................................................. 23 4.4.3 Data Coding .................................................................................................................... 24 4.5 Criteria for evaluating qualitative research ........................................................................... 25 4.6 Source Criticism ..................................................................................................................... 27 4.7 Operationalization ................................................................................................................. 28 5. Empirical Data ................................................................................................................. 31 5.1 Case Chapter ......................................................................................................................... 31 5.2 Data of Interview ................................................................................................................... 32 5.2.1 Brand .............................................................................................................................. 32 5.2.2 Brand equity ................................................................................................................... 33 Brand association ................................................................................................................... 33 Brand loyalty ........................................................................................................................... 33 Brand awareness .................................................................................................................... 33 5.2.3 Brand identity ................................................................................................................. 34 5.2.4 Brand positioning ........................................................................................................... 34 5.2.5 Marketing-mix ................................................................................................................ 34 ProduCt .................................................................................................................................... 34 PriCe ........................................................................................................................................ 35 CommuniCation ....................................................................................................................... 35 People ..................................................................................................................................... 35 6. Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 36 6.1 Brand equity .......................................................................................................................... 36 6.1.1 Brand awareness ........................................................................................................... 36 3 6.1.2 Brand assoCiation ........................................................................................................... 37 6.1.3 Brand loyalty .................................................................................................................. 37 6.2 Brand identity .................................................................................................................... 38 6.3 Brand positioning