2010:129

BACHELOR THESIS

Social media and brand awareness

- a case study in the fast moving consumer goods sector

Maria Johansson

Lule University of Technology

Bachelor thesis
Marketing
Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences
Division of Industrial marketing and e-commerce
2010:129 - ISSN: 1402-1773 - ISRN: LTU-CUPP--10/129--SE

SOCIAL MEDIA AND BRAND AWARENESS

A case study in the fast moving consumer goods sector

Maria Johansson
2010-06-09

Lule University of Technology

Bachelor Thesis (C-uppsats)
Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences
Division of Industrial Marketing, e-commerce and Logistics

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to the respondents of the company in the single case study for taking time and
energy to participate in this study and in the interview, and to share valuable information so
generously. I would also like to thank my supervisor Lars Bckstrm for his constructive
support and assistance.

ABSTRACT
We live in the midst of a global communications boom where the use of social media
between individuals for personal and professional use is widespread. It has been predicted
that 2010 is the year when the use of social media for branding purposes will really take off
in the corporate sector. The purpose of this thesis has been to look at how social media can
create brand awareness. The specific area of fast moving consumer goods was chosen. This
study is of an exploratory, descriptive and qualitative character, and by looking at a single
case, it has been possible to withdraw necessary primary and secondary data. The most
important findings were that the theoretical framework does explain how the company in the
case study uses social media to create brand awareness. The great challenge that came up in
the case study was for the company to find the right balance between providing contents of
great interest for the audience, while at the same time respecting what kind of information the
company can really go out with- it is about being relevant in social media and in all other
channels of communication. This means a constant need for learning and developing new
knowledge, for measuring and following up. Regarding the different degrees of brand
awareness however, it was difficult to show to what extent the real case builds on the
theoretical framework; that there exist a clear strategy for how to reach the different stages of
brand awareness, from the weakest (recognition) to the strongest (word-of-mouth). What was
considered more important by the company in the case study was to integrate social media in
the total communications and PR-strategy, a task which is actually being performed at this
very moment.

SAMMANFATTNING
Vi befinner oss mitt i en global kommunikations-boom dr anvndningen av sociala medier
mellan individer fr personligt och professionellt bruk r mycket utspridd. Det har frutsptts
att under 2010 kommer anvndningen av sociala medier i varumrkes-byggande syfte att ta
fart bland fretagen. Syftet med denna C-uppsats var att titta p hur sociala medier kan skapa
brand awareness, framfrallt inom marknaden fr snabbrrliga konsumentvaror. Detta arbete
r av utforskande, beskrivande och kvalitativ karaktr, och genom att studera ett single-case
har det blivit mjligt att f fram ndvndiga primr och sekundrdata. De viktigaste
resultaten visar p att det teoretiska ramverket kan frklara hur fretaget i fallstudien
anvnder sociala medier fr att skapa brand awareness. Fretaget lyfter fram att utmaningen
ligger i att vara relevant i sociala medier och i alla andra kommunikationskanaler, vilket
handlar om att hitta den rta balansen mellan att presentera intressant material fr lsarna,
samtidigt som hnsyn tas till vad fretaget verkligen kan och vill g ut med. Detta betyder ett
konstant behov av lrande och att utveckla ny kunskap, av att mta och flja upp. Betrffande
de olika graderna av brand awareness, visade det sig emellertid svrt att visa p i vilken
utstrckning fretaget i fallstudien bygger p det teoretiska ramverket, att det existerar en
tydlig strategi fr hur man skall uppn de olika stadierna av brand awareness, frn det
svagaste (recognition) till det starkaste (word-of-mouth). Vad som bedmdes mer viktigt av
fretaget i fallstudien, var att integrera sociala medier i den totala kommunikations och PRstrategin, en uppgift som r under utarbetande vid denna tidpunkt.

TABLEOFCONTENTS
Chapter1Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1
1.1Background...................................................................................................................................................1
1.1.1Socialmedia...........................................................................................................................................1
1.1.2BrandandBranding...............................................................................................................................2
1.2Empiricalarea...............................................................................................................................................4
1.3Researchproblem.........................................................................................................................................5
Chapter2Literaturereview....................................................................................................................................6
2.1Definitionsofsocialmedia...........................................................................................................................6
2.2Socialmediaandmarketing..........................................................................................................................7
2.3Inwhichphasesofproductlifecyclecansocialmediabeused?.................................................................8
2.4Socialmediaandbranding............................................................................................................................8
2.5Brandandbrandingingeneral,brandinginfastmovingconsumergoodssector.......................................9
2.6Brandstrategy............................................................................................................................................12
2.7Brandequityandbrandawareness............................................................................................................12
2.8Managingthebrandportfolio....................................................................................................................14
2.9Summary.....................................................................................................................................................16
3Conceptualframeworkresearchquestionsandframeofreference...............................................................18
3.1Researchproblemandresearchdiscussion................................................................................................18
3.2Frameofreference.....................................................................................................................................19
3.3Delimitations...............................................................................................................................................21
3.4Summary.....................................................................................................................................................21
Chapter4:Methodology......................................................................................................................................22
4.1ResearchPurpose.......................................................................................................................................22
4.1.1Exploratorystudies..............................................................................................................................22
4.1.2Descriptivestudies...............................................................................................................................22
4.1.3ExplanatoryCasualstudies...............................................................................................................22
4.2ResearchApproach.....................................................................................................................................22
4.2.1InductiveversusDeductive..................................................................................................................22
4.2.2QuantitativeversusQualitative...........................................................................................................23
4.3ResearchStrategy.......................................................................................................................................24
4.3.1Casestudy............................................................................................................................................24
4.3.2Survey..................................................................................................................................................24
4.3.3Experiment...........................................................................................................................................25
4.4SampleSelection.........................................................................................................................................25
4.5DataCollectionMethods............................................................................................................................26
4.6Dataanalysis...............................................................................................................................................26

4.7ReliabilityversusValidity............................................................................................................................27
4.8Summary.....................................................................................................................................................28
Chapter5Empiricaldata......................................................................................................................................29
5.1Thepurposeofusingsocialmediatocreatebrandawareness.................................................................29
5.2Howcanthesocialmediaactivitiesusedtocreatebrandawarenessbedescribed?................................29
5.2.1Theuseofsocialmediatocreatevariouslevelsofbrandawareness.................................................30
5.2.2Measuringofbrandawareness...........................................................................................................31
5.3Advantagesinusingsocialmediatocreatebrandawareness...................................................................31
5.4Disadvantagesinusingsocialmediatocreatebrandawareness...............................................................31
Chapter6:Dataanalysis.......................................................................................................................................33
6.1Thepurposeofusingsocialmediatocreatebrandawareness.................................................................33
6.2Howcanthesocialmediaactivitiesusedtocreatebrandawarenessbedescribed?................................34
6.3Advantagesinusingsocialmediatocreatebrandawareness...................................................................35
6.4Disadvantagesinusingsocialmediatocreatebrandawareness...............................................................35
Chapter7:Conclusionsandsuggestions..............................................................................................................37
References:.......................................................................................................................................................39

AppendixAInterviewguideEnglish
AppendixBIntervjuguidesvenska

CHAPTER1INTRODUCTION
Marketing managers have predicted that 2010 will be the year when social media are
integrated in the organizations and really start to become useful for companies and become
important tools in the communication (Carlsson 2010). Others have argued that it is crucial
for marketers to look to the Web for new ways of finding customers and communicating with
them, rather than at them, that it is vital to create a dialogue with the customers, and various
kinds of social media are the most promising way to reach new customers (Weber 2009)
At the same time, one of the most prominent names in research about branding and related
subjects, David Aaker, has said that with the multitude of new medias developing, it is
becoming increasingly difficult for companies to raise awareness for their brand. The only
way forward in managing this complexity, is for companies to be able to coordinate messages
and their marketing efforts across all medias (Aaker 1996)
The combination of coordinating your branding messages across all medias including the
social media, the great impact that social media (as an example the social network Facebook
with more than 400 million active users) has for both individuals and companies, the speed
with which things move in this domain, and the relative scarcity of existing research about
this area all are reasons why this study was initiated. With regards to the discussion above,
this study will be about how social media influences branding.

1.1BACKGROUND
In studying how social media influences branding, we need to look at what social media is,
what it is composed of and what existing literature says about the correlation between social
media and branding. Branding per se is a vast and widespread area, where opinions diverge
concerning the basic definitions, such as brand equity for example. We need to clarify which
parts of branding that we will focus on in this context.
1.1.1SOCIALMEDIA
What is social media? Kaplan and Haenlein (2010, p 60) define social media as "a group of
Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of
Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Web 2.0 is
platform on which social media is based (Carlsson 2010).
Social media can take many different forms, including social networks, Internet forums,
weblogs, social blogs, micro blogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and social
bookmarking (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Weber, 2009).Weber also includes search engines
in the definition of social web, and describes them as reputation aggregators with the task of
aggregating sites with the best product or service to offer and usually put things in order of
reputation (Weber 2009).
Weber approaches the question of branding in the social web. He defines this as the dialogue
you have with your customer, and claims that the stronger the dialogue is, the stronger the

brand is, and vice versa. Actually he questions the very core concept of traditional marketing
and branding, and means that rather than broadcasting messages to audiences and target
groups, in the era of social web that we live in today, branding and marketing is about
participating in social networks to which people want to belong, where dialogue with
customers and between customers can flourish. (Weber 2009)
According to a study made in 2010 in the United Kingdom amongst 30 companies (which are
early adopter business and perhaps not representative of the mainstream UK businesses), the
importance of participating in social networks in order to develop the brand and build
relationships with key customers is in fact recognized by the companies. It is argued that
online communities will play a key role in the future of marketing because they replace
customer annoyance with engagement, and control of the content with collaboration. The
authors of this study, Harris and Rae, claim that the prosperous businesses of the future will
be those who embrace the social media and who see change as an opportunity. (Harris and
Rae 2010)
1.1.2BRANDANDBRANDING
What is brand and branding and why do we need to look into this more deeply? According to
Czinkota and Ronkainen (2010), brands are important because they shape customer decisions
and ultimately create economic value. Brand is a key factor behind the decision to purchase
in business to consumer operations, and thanks to strong brands, it has been showed possible
to charge a 19 percent higher price. (Czinkota and Ronkainen 2010)
What specific aspects and dimensions in branding are we particularly interested in?
In order to get a necessary overview of the state-of-the-art in branding literature, it has been
deemed necessary to look closer into brand strategy, brand equity and assets that underlie
brand equity which are brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand association
and other proprietary brand assets.
1.1.2.3 B RANDSTRATEGY

One definition of brand strategy is the following: Your brand strategy is how, what, where,
when and to whom you plan on communicating and delivering your brand messages. Where
you advertise is part of your brand strategy, so are your distribution channels and your verbal
and visual communication. Consistent branding strategy leads to a strong brand equity,
which means the added value brought to your company's products or services that allows you
to charge more for your brand than what identical, unbranded products command.
(www.entrepreneur.com. Retrieved 100424)
The brand and marketing consultancy Prophet.com highlights the following elements in the
branding strategy: to build a brand positioning, to manage your brand portfolio, to build your
brand architecture and naming, and to consider possible brand extensions.
(www.prophet.com. Retrieved 100424) This proposition takes the perspective of looking into
the management of several brands at the same time.

1.1.2.4 B RANDEQUITYANDBRANDAWARENESS

Despite the availability of numerous definitions for brand equity in the literature, there is
little consensus on what exactly brand equity means, claim Park and Srinivasan in Pappu et
al. (2005). Nor is there a general agreement among researchers at the conceptual level about
what brand equity comprises. The broad meaning attached to the term brand equity is
similar to the definition provided by Farquhar in Pappu et al. (2005), as the value endowed by
the brand to the product. A product is something that offers a functional benefit (for example
toothpaste, a life insurance policy, or a car) (Farquhar in Elliott and Percy 2007).

The definitions of brand equity can be broadly classified into two categories; either as
financial considerations and the value of the brand equity for the firm, or based on the
consumer perspective which looks as brand equity as the value of a brand for the consumer
(Brasco and Mahajan in Pappu et al. 2005).
Aakers point of departure in his studies on brand equity, is a consumer perspective based on
consumers memory-based brand associations. He has provided a comprehensive definition
of brand equity, namely: a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and
symbol, that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm
and/or to that firms customers (Pappu et al. 2005).
Aaker conceptualized brand equity as a set of five assets: brand awareness, perceived quality,
brand loyalty, brand association and other proprietary brand assets. Brand awareness is an
important component of brand equity, it deals with the strength a brands presence has in
consumers minds.
It is predicted by Aaker that with the multitude of new media that have developed and that
are likely to develop in the future, it is constantly becoming more challenging to create this
brand awareness, and that the winners in the battle of raising brand awareness will be those
who are able to coordinate their branding messages through all medias (Aaker 1996).
Weber (2009) holds a diverging view on brand equity, and means that it is not interesting to
look at how well the customer remembers a brand, but one should consider that the social
media arena changes the marketing mindset, and that brand equity is a living thing and should
be measured by to what extent the customer is prone to highly recommend the brand to
others.
There exist different degrees of brand awareness according to Aaker, and it is measured
through analysis of how well the customer recalls the brand. The scale starts off from the
weakest level:
recognition (the customer has been exposed to the brand)
recall (which brands within the product group that the customer can retain)

top of mind (the first brand the customer can recall)

dominant (the only brand the customer can recall) (Aaker 1996).
To create brand awareness in a successful way considering that consumers everyday are
bombarded by more and more marketing messages, two things are needed according to
Aaker: first, it is necessary to have a broad sales base. This is because it is expensive and
often impossible even to support brands with relatively small unit sales and short lifecycle.
This is the reason why many firms reduce the number of their brands and focus only on a few
brands. Second, firms need to acquire the knowledge of operating outside the traditional
media channels (Aaker 1996)
There is also a close connection between brand awareness and brand positioning. In a
positioning statement, the benefits a brand offers a specific target audience in order to satisfy
a particular need are addressed (Elliott and Percy 2007). Brand positioning can be thought of
as the element that tells the potential customer what the brand is, who it is for, and what it
offers (Elliott and Percy 2007).
Considering the great importance that brand awareness has in the creation of brand equity,
and that recent research take into account also how social media influence brand awareness,
brand awareness is the aspect of branding that this thesis will focus on. The approach will be
a combination of Webers and Aakers ideas: the strongest form of brand awareness will be
considered to be word-of-mouth (Weber 2009), that the customer has such a high brand
awareness that she/he recommends the brand to others. This stage is preceded by weak brand
awareness (recognition), medium brand awareness (recall), strong brand awareness (top-ofmind, the brand is the first the customer come to think of) and very strong brand awareness
(dominant, the brand is the only one the customer can remember) (Aaker 1996).

1.2EMPIRICALAREA
Up until now, it is mainly within business to consumer market that social media have been
used for the sake of strengthening the brand and to reach new customers (Wikberg, 2010).
Apria and Back (2004) claim that it is within the fast moving consumer goods sector
(FMCG) that only the strong brands, either own brands or the suppliers brands, survive.
Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) are defined as products that are sold quickly at
relatively low cost. Though the absolute profit made on FMCG products is relatively small,
they generally sell in large quantities, so the cumulative profit on such products can be large
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_moving_consumer_goods retrieved 100424).
The strong brands are defined as those with strong support from customers. To ensure their
brands survival, the brand owners have to seek an ever greater understanding of what the
consumer and customers want and to develop a relationship between them and the brand.

Since existing research about social media so strongly emphasize that branding in the era of
the social web is about creating a dialogue with your customer, the choice of the empirical
base in this study is a medium sized company, company X, within the FMCG which is one of
the 300 strongest brands in business to consumer market in Sweden. The company had a
turnover in 2008 of 750 MSEK.

1.3RESEARCHPROBLEM
It seems clear that we are currently living in the midst of the boom of the use of social media.
Social networks such as Facebook with some 400 million active members represent a larger
community than most individual countries. But research is somewhat lagging behind this
rapid development, and it is difficult to find relevant up to date studies on how social media
are to be part of the branding process, how this relates to the strategy that companies have
with the use of social media- if they are to be used to strengthen the brand, increase sales,
find new customers, recruit more competent staff, to improve the support-function, to be part
of the product development and/or to improve the internal communication (Carlsson, 2010).
Also the question of how companies create brand equity through brand awareness has been
debated with the upsurge of social media. Traditional marketers such as Aaker, claim that
brand awareness is about the strength the brands presence has in consumers minds (Aaker
1996).
Social media guru Weber is of the opinion that brand awareness is to be measured not in
brand recall but by dynamic measures such as customer word-of-mouth (Weber 2009).
These are the contents that will be looked into in this thesis. With regard to this, the research
problem of this study can be formulated as:
To increase the understanding of the role of social media for the creation of
brand awareness

CHAPTER2LITERATUREREVIEW
The purpose of this chapter is to establish a theoretical outline. The literature presented in
this chapter deals with research findings on social media; and theories relating to branding
in a broader sense, and brand awareness more specifically. All the literature is described and
explained in order to build a theoretical background for this study.

2.1DEFINITIONSOFSOCIALMEDIA
In addition to the definitions given in section 1.1.1, Wikipedia defines social media as:
media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, using highly accessible and
scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and
broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. They support the democratization
of knowledge and information and transform people from content consumers to content
producers (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media. Retrieved 100420).
Social media are distinct from industrial or traditional media, such as newspapers, television,
and film. They are relatively inexpensive and accessible to enable anyone (even private
individuals) to publish or access information, compared to industrial media, which generally
require significant resources to publish information.
Social media technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant
messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Many of these
social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like
Mybloglog and Plaxo (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media. Retrieved 100420).
Weber uses the term social web instead of social media, and defines the social web as the
online place where people with a common interest can gather to share thoughts, comments
and opinions. It includes social networks such as MySpace, Gather, Facebook, BlackPlanet,
Eons, LinkedIn, and hundreds more. It includes branded web destinations like Amazon,
Netflix and eBay. It includes enterprise sites such as IBM, Best Buy, Cisco and Oracle. The
social web is a new world of unpaid media created by individuals or enterprises on the web
and they include:
-Reputation aggregators: search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, Ask and Live. They
aggregate sites with the best product or service to offer and usually put things in order of
reputation.
-Blogs: online journals where people can post ideas, images, and links to other web pages or
sites. Some appear on personal or corporate sites, while others are hosted on Blogger,
BlogHer (for women), Weblog, Tumblr, and other blogging sites. (Weber 2009)
-Microblogs: Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users
to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140
characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who

are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by
default, allow open access (http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/76460. Retrieved
2010-04-25. http://blog.twitter.com/2009/10/theres-list-for-that.html. Retrieved 2010-04-25).
-Topic-specific e-communities are generally advertising supported although some are free.
Hewlett Packard for example has communities on its website, and there are communities
involving sports such as KayakMind for people who enjoy kayaking. Password-protected ecommunities are growing especially quickly.
-Social networks are places where people with a common interest or concern come together
to meet people with similar interests, express themselves and communicate. In addition to the
ones abovementioned are also for example Xanga, Stumbleupon. Some sites are devoted
specifically to image-sharing, such as Flickr, and some to video-sharing, YouTube serves 10
billion videos a month to U.S. viewers alone (Weber 2009).

2.2SOCIALMEDIAANDMARKETING
According to Weber, marketing to the social web means to adopt a completely new way of
communicating with an audience in a digital environment. Instead of continuing as
broadcasters, marketers should become aggregators of customer communities. It is not about
broadcasting marketing messages to an increasingly indifferent audience. Instead, when
marketing to the social web marketers should participate in, organize and encourage social
networks to which people want to belong. Rather than talking at customers, marketers should
talk with them (Weber 2009).
The task of aggregating customers is done in two ways: by providing compelling content on
your web site and creating retail environments that customers want to visit, and by going out
and participating in the public arena (Weber 2009).
Marketing to the social web is not only for the largest multinational corporations; it may be
easier and more effective, argues Weber (2009), for a relatively small or medium-size
company to take maximum advantages of the social media.
Also the way of segmenting changes radically with the advent of the social web.
Demographics like gender, age, education and income, lifestyle factors have become less
relevant, and what really counts is segmenting according to what people do and feel- their
behaviour as well as their attitudes and interests. The goal for the marketer is to identify
groups of customers within the larger market that can be reached and affected through the
marketing (Weber 2009).
Harris and Rae (2010) have looked at the role of social networking in establishing an
integrated marketing strategy. They argue that online communities have evolved considerably
since the early days of news groups and chat rooms. For example Cisco has put forward a
customer community which allow customers to help themselves to technical support
information via web communities. After Cisco put the technical support function online,

customers began to compete with each other to answer queries that had been posted by other
customers. This strategy contributes towards the creation of a community of people with
similar interests who will trust and act upon the recommendations of others in the group
(Harris and Rae 2010).
Harris and Rae claim that businesses are recognising the potential of generic online social
networking such as Facebook and Myspace for the development of their brands and to build
relationships with key customers, but that this is a very recent trend in the UK (which the data
comes from) and that it is difficult at this stage to draw conclusions on how successful
companies have been in using social networks in the marketing work (Harris and Rae 2010)

2.3INWHICHPHASESOFPRODUCTLIFECYCLECANSOCIALMEDIABEUSED?
Weber suggests that the social web can play a role throughout the entire life cycle of product
development, market introduction and market adoption. He exemplifies by stating that blogs,
wikis (A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of
interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a
WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to
create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in
corporate
intranets,
and
in
knowledge
management
systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki. Retrieved 100420) and communities can be used during
the development phase on various product features.
During market introduction, podcasts and webinars (a seminar conducted over the web,
designed to be interactive) to engage and educate potential customers about the new
products benefits and applications may be used. And as the product begins to sell, the social
web can be used for trouble-shooting, problem solving and customer service and support,
plus the important word-of-mouth to build that buzz (Weber 2009).

2.4SOCIALMEDIAANDBRANDING
Weber compares the traditional way of looking at brand equity (which will be examined in
section number 2.7) in terms of brand recall- and points to that in the era where social
networks have become an important media channel, brand equity is a living thing and should
be measured not in terms of brand recall but by dynamic measures such as customer word-ofmouth.
A strong brand ought to be based on the dialogue you have with your customers and
prospects- the stronger the dialogue- the stronger the brand. The social web allows companies
to have these kinds of dialogues more efficiently and less expensively than in the past
(Weber 2009).
Webers (2009) view on how the blog should be used as a marketing tool, is that through this
means of communication it is not possible to control your message. But you can present your

view on a specific matter, and by that you are able to become part of the conversation. Blogs
can be used for different reasons.
For small start-up companies, to have a blog is a way for an executive in the firm to talk
about the industry, to talk about the market space, to establish credibility, to get the search
engines going. All this helps not only with customers, it helps with media and PR efforts
since reporters and writers look through the blogs all the time for people to quote and
interview. Blogs are used as references (Weber 2009).
If then you are an executive and want to raise your profile and the companys profile, a blog
is a great way to help secure speaking engagements, contributed articles, and quotes in major
media. All of that adds credibility, which eventually can lead to the interest of new
customers, who may be used to buying other brands, products or services but may feel more
comfortable with you. An executive may also want to blog to get a feel for what is taking
place in the field, and get a direct line with your customers (Weber 2009).

2.5 BRAND AND BRANDING IN GENERAL, BRANDING IN FAST MOVING CONSUMER GOODS
SECTOR
Why is branding interesting to look at in this study? There is a great variety of concepts
relating to brands and branding. From the beginning, a brand was used to mark ownership of
cattle (Aaker in Bertilsson 2009). In modern times, brands functioned as symbols that
enabled consumers to identify and separate one producer from another, with the ability to
trace one good back to the manufacturer holding it responsible for its quality (Koehn in
Bertilsson 2009), but they are today ascribed with almost divine characteristics serving as a
strategic business asset essential for firms to develop if they are to compete successfully
(Aaker and Kapferer in Bertilsson 2009). This leads to the conclusion, that when looking at
how social media affects marketing in a broader perspective, it makes sense to concentrate on
the area of branding within marketing.
But branding in itself is as mentioned above, a large area containing many concepts and
dimensions and diverging definitions. Therefore, it has been deemed necessary in this study
to make an overview of key concepts in marketing, and to on the basis of this analysis,
choose which concepts within branding to focus on. The areas which will be looked into in
this section besides brand and branding following right hereafter, are brand strategy, brand
equity and brand awareness and managing the brand portfolio.
The traditional definition of a brand used in brand management literature was formulated by
the American Marketing Association in 1960 and identifies a brand as a kind of
differentiating device ...distinguishing name and/or symbol (such as a logo, trademark or
package design) intended to identify the goods or services of either one seller or groups of
sellers, and to differentiate those goods or services from those of competitors... (Aaker 1991,
Bengtsson 1996).

A central concept in classical brand management presented by de Chernatony and Riley

(1997) is that as a result of augmenting the core offering with consumer relevant added
values, consumers will be prepared to pay a price premium.
It is also pointed out, that a brand consists of a set of perceptions which serve to differentiate
the product from the competition (Aaker 1996). The brand strength depends on the extent to
which these perceptions are consistent, positive and shared by consumers. To improve the
brand strength, managers need to shape this set of perceptions so that the target audience will
think of the brand in positive terms (Aaker 1996).
According to de Chernatony and Riley (1997), it seems that from the brand managers
perspective, the brand is to be regarded as a name to be exploited to satisfy short-term sales
and goals. But for the consumer, the purpose to consume the brand might be the meanings the
brand brings to the consumer, or as put by Heilbrunn (in Bengtsson 1996): A brand may be
viewed not solely as a sign added to products to differentiate them from competing goods, but
as a semiotic engine whose function is to constantly produce meaning and values.
De Chernatony and McWilliam (1989) and McWilliam (1991) identify four complementary
views of brands from the consumers perspective: a visual identifier, a guarantee of consistent
quality, a shorthand device, an expression of self-concept. The idea behind is that brands can
speed up and simplify consumers choices, and that they might reduce any believed
performance risk (de Chernatony and Riley, 1997). A fairly similar view is taken by
Bengtsson (1996), who states that from the consumer point of view, a brand can be
understood as a multidimensional construct that represents a variety of elements which
consumers consider to represent the brands.
Melin in Apria and Back (2004) has looked at another angle of brand and branding. He
states that brand building is a process which takes place both within the company and in
consumers minds. A central part of the brand building process, according to Melin, is the
concept of core value; that is the brands primary differentiation advantage which provides
the basis for the brands positioning. The basic argument is that unique core values should be
developed to give the brand an ability to compete. In all cases Melin investigated, the
consumer and her or his needs were in the centre for choices of core value (Melin in Apria
and Back 2004), and this is very similar to the traditional view of branding from 1960.
In literature about brands, it is often stated that the company appreciates strong brands
because they are an asset which contribute to strong profitability, and consumers appreciate
them because they reduce uncertainty. Apria and Back (2004) however, bring forward the
importance of branding for the distributors in fast moving consumer goods sector (FMCG);
for them, strong brands create sales in the shops.
Weber approaches the question of branding relating it to the consequences for branding
considering the emergence of the social media. He defines branding as the dialogue you have
with your customer. The stronger the dialogue- the stronger the brand and vice versa.
Actually he questions the very core concept of traditional marketing and branding, and means
that rather than broadcasting messages to audiences and target groups, in the era of social

10

web that we live in today, branding and marketing is about participating in social networks to
which people want to belong, where dialogue with customers and between customers can
flourish. (Weber 2009) He means that transparency is critical if you want customers and
stakeholders to trust you and engage in dialogue with you. The objective is to have customers
invite you to deliver the message to them. Messages cant be forced through. (Weber
2009)
Yet another way of looking at what a brand is, is that the brand is your promise to your
customer. It tells her/him what to expect from your products and services, and it differentiates
your offering from that of your competitors. Your brand is derived from who you are, who
you want to be and who people perceive you to be. (www.entrepreneur.com. Retrieved
100424)
Aaker (1996) is of the opinion that contemporarily, it is hard to build a brand. One of the
factors causing this, is the fragmenting markets and media today compared to 30 years ago.
With a limited number of media options and only a few national media vehicles, being
consistent across media and markets was easy. The media world today consists of a lot of
possibilities; advertising on the Internet, interactive television, event sponsorship etc.
Coordinating messages across these media without weakening the brand is a real challenge,
argues Aaker.
In addition, companies are dividing the population into smaller and more refined target
markets, often reaching them with specialized media and distribution channels. It is tempting
to develop different brand identities for some or all of these new target segments. But,
developing and managing multiple identities for the same brand presents problems for both
the brand and the customer. Since media audiences invariably overleap, customers are likely
to be exposed to more than one identity relating to the same brand (Aaker 1996).
Considering that since Aaker wrote this book in 1996, a lot of new media channels have
emerged such as social networks, on-line communities etc, see sections 2.1-2.4 for an
overview of this area. Thus, the media market has become even more fragmented, and hence
it is reasonable to think, following Aakers arguments, that it has become increasingly more
difficult to build and manage a brand. These trends are very recent, so studies about social
media are, as mentioned previously, fairly rare.

In FMCG products, it is argued by researchers that well-known brands are much more likely
to enjoy good distribution, which helps maintain high market share. The competition for shelf
space amongst FMCG products is very strong, and strong brands have a clear advantage here.
The pull-strategy focuses on mass communication tools, mainly advertising and aims at
creating a strong consumer demand for branded products, and distributors and retailers have
very strong incentives to carry the brand. (Elliott and Percy 2007, Czinkota and Ronkainen
2010)

11

2.6BRANDSTRATEGY
Brand strategy can be defined as follows: Long-term marketing support for a brand, based
on the definition of the characteristics of the target consumers. It includes understanding of
their preferences, and expectations from the brand (http://www.businessdictionary.com.
Retrieved 100424).
The brand and marketing consultancy Prophet.com defines the following parts in a branding
strategy: build a brand positioning, manage your brand portfolio, build your brand
architecture and naming, consider the possible brand extensions (http://www.prophet.com.
Retrieved 100424)
Kapferer identifies branding strategy as the term used for decisions on: the number of brand
levels to be implemented; one, two or even three and the role of the corporate in the product
value communication; should it be absent, strongly present or hardly present. He also
considers the relative weight of these brands, and the graphic arrangement of their
coexistence on all the documents, packaging and products but also industrial sites, offices and
business cards of salespersons and managers as well as the degree of globalisation of the
architecture as bearing elements of the branding strategy (Kapferer 2008).

2.7BRANDEQUITYANDBRANDAWARENESS
As mentioned in section 1.1.2.4, there is little consensus on what exactly brand equity means
and there are numerous definitions for brand equity in the literature (Park and Srinivasan in
Pappu et al. 2005). In marketing it has for a long time been considered that brands add value
to a product, but it was not until the large wave of mergers and acquisitions in multinational
corporations with large and well-known brands in the 1980s that this value was measured in
the asset value of companies. Besides the traditional way of considering asset value and net
income, also goodwill was to be included (Elliott and Percy 2007). Even if accepted
accounting procedure did not permit considering the added value of a brand name on the
balance sheet, it was nevertheless being counted as part of the net value of the firm. The term
brand equity stems from this context.
There exist many definitions of brand equity, defined mainly from two perspectives, either as
financial considerations or as consumer perceptions of a brand. Here are some examples: A
set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol, that add to or
subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to firms customers
(Aaker 1991)
Aakers point of departure in his studies on brand equity, is a consumer perspective based on
consumers memory-based brand associations. He has provided a comprehensive definition
of brand equity, namely: a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and
symbol, that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm
and/or to that firms customers. (Aaker in Pappu et al. 2005) The five assets underlying
brand equity identified by Aaker are: brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty,
brand association, other proprietary brand assets.

12

Aaker predicts that with the multitude of new medias that have developed and that are likely
to develop in the future, it is constantly becoming more challenging to create this brand
awareness. Aaker (1996) predicts that the firms skilful in operating outside the traditional
media channels and who can coordinate messages across all medias (advertising in
newspapers, TV, radio, the Internet, event sponsorships, direct marketing, trade shows) are
those that will be the winners in the battle of raising brand awareness (Aaker 1996).
Weber (2009) argues against the traditional way of looking at brand equity in terms of
brand recall- and instead claims that contemporarily, with a new marketing mindset adapted
to the social media arena, brand equity is a living thing and should be measured not in terms
of brand recall but by dynamic measures such as customer word-of-mouth. Instead of
creating brand awareness through brand recall, it is about how likely customers are to highly
recommend the good or service to others. Instead of creating brand awareness through brand
recall, it is about how likely customers are to highly recommend the good or service to others
(Weber 2009).
There is also a close connection between brand awareness and brand positioning. For a brand
to be successful, it is not enough to reach brand recognition, a brand must occupy a salient
position (top-of- mind recall or dominant recall) within the target audiences consideration set
(Elliott and Percy 2007). A brand must be positioned in its marketing communication in such
a way that when the need for such a product occurs, that brand comes to mind. Then the
brand must be linked to a benefit that provides a motivating reason to consider it. It is this
link between the brand and the benefit that lies at the root of building positive brand attitude,
which in turn builds positive brand equity (Elliott and Percy 2007).
According to Kotler (2003), positioning is about enabling a brand to occupy a distinct and
valued place in the mind of the target consumer. In a positioning statement, the benefits a
brand offers a specific target audience in order to satisfy a particular need are addressed.
Brand positioning can be thought of as the element that tells the potential customer what the
brand is, who it is for, and what it offers (Elliott&Percy 2007 p 229).
Considering the great importance that brand awareness has to create brand equity, and that
recent studies are questioning the traditional way of looking at brand awareness, taking into
account how it is affected by social media, this is the aspect of branding that this study will
focus on, and the approach will be to look at brand awareness in the way that Aaker has done.
Amongst the other 4 assets underlying brand equity, perceived quality is defined by Aaker
(1996) as a brand association that is elevated to the status of a brand asset for a number of
reasons: among all brand associations, only perceived quality has been shown to drive
financial performance and perceived quality is linked to and often drives other aspects of how
a brand is perceived (Aaker 1996).

13

Brand loyalty: Aaker (1996) defines the third dimension of brand equity as brand loyalty,
which is not recognised by some researchers. Keller for example (1992) defines consumerbased brand equity in terms of brand knowledge and unique brand associations.
The importance of including brand loyalty as a fundamental asset underlying brand equity is
according to Aaker that a brands value to a company is largely created by the customer
loyalty it commands. He also believes that considering loyalty as an asset, encourages and
justifies loyalty-building programs which can then help to create and enhance brand equity.
Another definition of brand loyalty, is arguing that a highly loyal customer base can be
expected to generate a predictable sales and profit stream. A brand without a loyal customer
base is usually vulnerable or has value only in its potential to create loyal customers (Aaker
1996).
This is true also because it is much cheaper to retain customers than to attract new ones, the
costs can be 5 times higher to gain a new client than keeping an old one.
(http://gmj.gallup.com/content/745/constant-customer.aspx. Retrieved 100419)
The brand loyalty of existing customers also constitute an important barrier of entry towards
competitors, the costs of attracting customers to change loyalties is often high (Aaker 1996).
Frequent-buyer programs and the possibility to use database marketing thanks to customer
data that becomes available through the joining of frequent- buyer programs are ways to
strive for higher brand loyalty (Aaker 1996).
Brand associations: deals with the fact that brand equity is supported in great part by the
associations that consumers make with a brand; it may be product attributes or a particular
symbol. Brand associations are driven by the brand identity, what the organization wants the
brand to stand for in the customers mind. A key to building strong brands is to develop a
brand identity (Aaker 1996).
Other proprietary brand assets cover assets such as channel relationships and patents that are
attached to the brand (Aaker 1996).

2.8MANAGINGTHEBRANDPORTFOLIO
What is managing brand portfolio strategy about? Aakers approach to this area is that it
supports a company's business strategy and profoundly affects the firm's profitability. He
claims that understanding and managing the brand portfolio can be a key to both the
development of a winning business strategy and its successful implementation. The first key
element of brand portfolio management is to make sure that each brand has a well-defined
scope and role or set of roles to play in each context in which it is expected to contribute.
Second, a portfolio view can ensure that the brands of the future get the resources they need
to succeed, instead of that high potential brands get starved of resources, in part because their
business is still small.

14

Third, strategic growth challenges can be addressed through portfolio. Usually that means
entering new markets, offering new products or moving into upscale or value arenas. The
portfolio task is to design the optimal brand strategy which can include leveraging existing
brands to support such growth options.
Fifth, an offering can get complex and confusing for both the customers and even employees.
In the face of competitive pressure, a cohesive, well-defined brand portfolio becomes
imperative (http://www.prophet.com. Retrieved 100419).
According to Kapferer (2008) it is due to historical reasons that most companies have to
manage a large portfolio of brands. The natural trend during the growth of firms has been to
add new brands each time they wanted to penetrate new market segments or new distribution
channels. This was done in order to avoid conflict with former segments and channels which
could have endangered their old brands. The vogue of company mergers and acquisitions in
the 1990s brought additional brands that managers were reluctant to dispose of or merge
with other brands. The size of brand portfolio therefore grew to increased complexity
(Kapferer 2008).
There has been a rupture of this trend however, argues Kapferer, and today the trend
particularly in the FMCG industry, is to reduce the size of portfolios as soon as possible. The
reasons are that it is considered difficult to promote several brands to retailers at the same
time, there is simply not enough shelf space. A few brands will be promoted to gain sufficient
market share, and the others will be abandoned.
Furthermore, Kapferer highlights that the concentration of the distribution trade has reduced
the number of retailers and has even almost suppressed certain retail channels and small
businesses. Brands that were previously uniquely handled by specific distribution channels
and sold only in certain stores, may now be found in a single wholesale or purchasing group.
This tends to lead to a reduction in the numbers of brands. Another strong trend in the FMCG
industry is the creating of distributors own brands. This, together with the fact that
supermarket shelf space is limited, leads to the reduction of the space allocated to the other
brands.
There is also a concentration of industrial production. International competition has put the
emphasis on high productivity and low costs and has led to the regrouping of production units
and R&D activities. There is less justification for large brand portfolios when the products,
even if they are varied, come from the same factories or even the same production lines.
Finally consumers show signs of being overwhelmed and confused by the multitude of
brands. A response from manufacturers is to rationalise the number of brands.
Brand internalisation and the abolishing of national barriers is also a reason to the reduction
of the number of brands in the brand portfolio, according to Kapferer. In Europe for example,
class, lifestyle and consumer needs are no longer exclusive for a single country. The
investment required to establish a significant global presence means that firms can only
maintain a small number of brands, or even one single brand for companies with a monobrand strategy such as Siemens, Mitsubishi and Philips (Kapferer 2008).

15

A brand portfolio reflects, as claimed by Elliott and Percy (2007), the various brands
marketed by a company within a particular product category, and a brand line is all of the
products marketed under a single brand name. They also suggest that brands may be thought
of in terms of a hierarchy. A corporate (or company) brand identifies the parent company,
brands like Daimler-Benz. A group brand is a brand name that is used in more than one
category, brands like Yamaha that are used to market diverse products such as pianos and
motorcycles. At the bottom of the hierarchy are single brands, where the name is restricted to
a single product category (Elliott and Percy 2007).
Brand portfolio has been defined as the mix of brands and sub-brands owned by an
organization. This portfolio should be actively managed to ensure effective brand
management. For example, Procter & Gamble and Unilever both have a large portfolio of
brands; General Motors manages Buick, Cadillac, Dodge and other brands; Hallmark
manages the Hallmark, Shoebox, and Crayola brands among other (Error!Hyperlinkreferencenot
valid.

ODonnell argues that a well-orchestrated brand portfolio strategy needs to be fully integrated
with the companys business model, and mix well with such economic factors as pricing
policies, manufacturing scale and distribution policies (Error!Hyperlinkreferencenotvalid.).
In Wikipedia, three key levels of managing the brand portfolio are identified:
- Corporate brand/umbrella brand/family brand
These are consumer-facing brands used across all the firm's activities, and this name is how
they are known to all their stakeholders- consumers, employees, shareholders, partners,
suppliers and other parties. Examples include Virgin Group and Heinz.
- Endorsed brands, and sub-brands
These brands include a parent brand which may be a corporate brand, an umbrella brand, or a
family brand as an endorsement to a sub-brand or an individual product brand. The
endorsement should add credibility to the endorsed sub-brand in the eyes of consumers.
Examples are Nestl KitKat, Sony PlayStation.
- Individual product brand
The individual brands are presented to consumers and the parent company name is given little
or no prominence. Other stakeholders, like shareholders or partners, will know the producer
by its company name. Examples are Procter & Gambles Pampers or Unilever's Dove.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_architecture. Retrieved 100425)

2.9SUMMARY
The aim of this chapter was to review and explain the relevant literature in the field of social
media on one hand and branding in general and brand equity and brand awareness in
particular on the other hand; in order to present to the reader the state-of-the art research in
this domain. In the following chapter, this literature review will serve to create a suitable

16

theoretical framework to solve the research problem, and in order to do this, the precise
research questions will be formulated.

17

3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND FRAME OF

REFERENCE
The aim of this chapter is to, based on the introduction and the literature review, formulate
the research questions which will enable the data collection and the analysis of this to be
done in a proper way to solve the research problem.

3.1RESEARCHPROBLEMANDRESEARCHDISCUSSION
The research problem in this thesis, as formulated in the introduction in chapter 1 is: To
increase the understanding of the role of social media for the creation of brand awareness
Considering that the use of social media to create brand awareness and ultimately to create
brand equity in the forms of increased sales is a very recent trend, we need to find answers to
the following research question of an exploratory character:
Research question 1: What is the purpose of using social media to create brand
awareness?
Carlsson (2010) claims that social media can be very valuable for creating long term relations
and for building brand awareness. There are a variety of social media activities that can be
initiated to build brand awareness according to Carlsson (2010), the using of a company blog
for example gives the possibility to spread the corporate philosophy and to show the soul of
the company. It gives the possibility for fans to further spread the company culture. YouTube
or Facebook may be used in the same way. Social media also give the possibility to position
the company or the brand within a specific category.
With regard to the arguments presented by Carlsson, I will be looking at what purposes
company X, which constitutes the case study in this thesis, has by using social media to
create brand awareness.
Research question 2: How can the social media activities used to create brand awareness
be described?
As mentioned in chapter 1, many professionals within marketing predict that in 2010, social
media will really become integrated in the operations of companies and truly become
important tools in the communication. Carlsson (2010) is of the opinion that it is not a good
enough reason to be active in social media simply because everybody else is. The early stage
of development of this media leads to the assumption that there might be a discrepancy
between what the goal is of using social media to create brand awareness and how it is
actually used in reality to create brand awareness. Therefore the case study will deal with this
matter, and I will ask company X how they actually use social media activities to create
brand awareness.

18

Research question 3: What advantages are there in using social media to create brand
awareness
Weber (2009) argues that the social media offers the company a possibility to create dialogue
with the customer, social media may lead to creating the strongest brand awareness possible,
word-of-mouth-, the stage in which the customer recommends the brand to another person. In
this thesis, an investigation will be made concerning whether or not the company X in the
case study can distinguish any advantages in using social media to create brand awareness,
and if so, how these advantages are built up.
Research question 4: What disadvantages are there in using social media to create brand
awareness?
Aaker (1996) is of the opinion that the growing number of media makes it increasingly
difficult for companies to create brand awareness. Getting involved in social media brings
with it an opening up of the company and increased transparency (Carlsson 2010). Each
company should consider, before becoming involved and active in social media, how open
the company wants to be, which type of information the company wants to share and why. It
is also important to create understanding and acceptance internally for the use of social
media. It is necessary to find the balance between what feels good for the company and what
is interesting for the reader. A too strict information policy probably leads to that the contents
are not interesting and that nobody reads them. Questions that may arise with the starting up
of getting involved in social media are: what risks does the openness entail? What happens if
competitors imitate us and make use of our openness? What if somebody steals our
companys ideas? (Carlsson 2010) Considering the above-mentioned issues, the last research
question deals with if the company in the case study can identify any disadvantages in using
social media to create brand awareness, and if so, what these disadvantages these are.

3.2FRAMEOFREFERENCE
The frame of reference has been defined by the dictionary Merriam-Webster as a set of
ideas, conditions or assumptions that determine how something will be approached,
perceived or understood (Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.)
This thesis aims at providing an increased understanding of how social media create brand
awareness, and a presentation of the theoretical framework for marketing with the use of
social media and brand awareness will now be presented:
Concerning how to manage marketing with the use of social media, the analysis will be based
on the findings of Weber. Weber argues, as previously mentioned, that marketing within
social media means to adopt a completely new way of communicating with an audience in a
digital environment. Instead of continuing as broadcasters, marketers should become

19

aggregators of customer communities. It is not about broadcasting marketing messages to an

increasingly indifferent audience, but about participating in, organizing and encouraging
social networks to which people want to belong. The catchword should be talking with
customers instead of at them.
The task of aggregating customers is done in two ways: by providing compelling content on
your web site and creating retail environments that customers want to visit, and by going out
and participating in the public arena. Also the way of segmenting changes radically,
demographics like gender, age, education and income, lifestyle factors are less relevant, and
what really counts is segmenting according to what people do and feel- their behaviour as
well as their attitudes and interests. The goal for the marketer is to identify groups of
customers within the larger market that can be reached and affected through the marketing.
Weber (2009) suggests that the social web can play a role throughout the entire life cycle of
product development, market introduction and market adoption.
As regards brand awareness, the analysis will be based on a combination of the traditional
view defended by Aaker concerning brand awareness, and the new perspective that Weber
presents. This leads to the following assumption: the strongest form of brand awareness will
be considered to be word-of-mouth, i e that the customer has such a high brand awareness
that she/he recommends the brand to others. This stage is preceded by very strong brand
awareness (dominant, the brand is the only one the customer can remember), strong brand
awareness (top-of-mind, the brand is the first the customer come to think of), medium brand
awareness (recall) and weak brand awareness (recognition).
Levels of brand awareness
Strongest [word-of-mouth]

Very strong [dominant]

Strong [top-of-mind]

Medium [recall]

Weak [recognition]

20

How, then, can one reach the strongest form of brand awareness? In this thesis it is assumed,
following Aakers ideas, that building a brand contemporarily is hard, and that the winning
concept is to coordinate messages across all the different media. To create awareness is a
process with different layers, ranging from weak brand awareness to the strongest form of
brand awareness.
The first steps in the process are for firms, besides having a broad sales base, to acquire the
knowledge of operating outside the traditional media channels. The highest layer of
awareness can be created through acting as aggregators of customer communities and
participate in, organize and encourage social networks to which people want to belong
instead of broadcasting marketing messages to an increasingly indifferent audience.

3.3DELIMITATIONS
In this study, focus is put on business to consumer market in general and fast moving
consumer goods in particular. The business to business market has not been a primary subject
of the study. This has made it possible to create a deeper understanding of the relevant area.

3.4SUMMARY
The aim of this chapter was to present the theoretical frame of reference for this study. This
can be summarized as follows: the aim of this thesis is to provide an understanding of the role
of social media for the creation of brand awareness. The theoretical base in this area is fairly
scarce. This study will however as concerns social media, be based on the findings of Weber.
Concerning brand awareness, a combination of Aakers model and Webers finding has been
made. It describes various degrees of brand awareness as in the picture above. Focus in the
study is limited to business to consumer markets and in particular fast moving goods sector.
In the following chapter, the research methodology choices will be discussed and justified.

21

CHAPTER4:METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the methodology planned to be used in this study. Diverse alternatives
for research approaches, designs, strategies, sample selection, data collection methods and
data analysis are discussed and the specific choices made in this research proposal are
clarified. Finally, critical questions about how to handle reliability and validity of the study
are presented.

4.1RESEARCHPURPOSE
A research purpose provides the basic direction for carrying out the research. Basically, in
social research, there are three categories of research purpose: exploration, description, and
explanation (Saunders et al. 2009). These categories differ in several aspects including the
way research questions or hypotheses are formulated, and the way data are collected.
4.1.1EXPLORATORYSTUDIES
This type of research is typically used when a researcher examines a new interest or when the
subject of study itself is relatively new. The major emphasis of exploratory research is on the
discovery of ideas and insights (Saunders et al. 2009). The research questions or assumptions
might be difficult to understand because the phenomenon of interest is considerably new and
unfamiliar to the researcher. More information is needed to clarify the concept and scope of
the study and to make the researcher understand the problem better. The exploratory research
could be conducted through a number of techniques including literature review, interviews,
focus group and case study.
4.1.2DESCRIPTIVESTUDIES
Descriptive research is employed to provide an accurate snapshot of some aspect of the
observed persons, events, situations, and environments. Descriptive research is conducted to
describe situations and events. The researcher observes and then describes what was observed
(Babbie 2004). This type of research purpose is frequently used when a problem is well
structured.
4.1.3EXPLANATORYCASUALSTUDIES
The focus of this research purpose is on studying a situation or a problem in order to explain
the relationships among variables (Saunders et al. 2009). It is concerned with determining
cause-and-effect relationships. Explanatory research aims to develop precise theory that can
be used to definitively explain the phenomena, which leads to the generalization from the
research. Does a change in one event bring about a corresponding change in another event?
Since little prior knowledge of the relations between social media and branding exists, the
research purpose is exploratory and descriptive.

4.2RESEARCHAPPROACH
4.2.1INDUCTIVEVERSUSDEDUCTIVE
The inductive approach typically moves from specific observations to broader generalizations
and theories. The researchers may begin with specific observations and measures, to detect

22

patterns and regularities, and then formulate some tentative hypotheses that they can explore.
They might end up by developing some general conclusions or theories. The study of a small
sample size of subjects might be appropriate (Saunders et al. 2009).
In contrast, a deductive approach commonly works from the more general to the more
specific. Researchers might begin by examining theories related to their topic of interest.
They then narrow those theories down to more specific research questions or hypotheses that
can be tested. Then, the researchers answer questions or confirm hypotheses through a
number of research methods, mainly in quantitative ways in order to be able to generalize the
findings (Saunders et al. 2009).
These two approaches are different ways to conduct research. In short, the difference between
two approaches is that one is building the theory (inductive) while the other one is testing the
theory (deductive). The selection of approach depends on the extent to which existing
knowledge and theories are available related to the topic of interest.
The research problem was formulated based on existing theory, and the intention is to create
more knowledge about specific factors. For this reason, a deductive approach has been
adopted in this thesis.
4.2.2QUANTITATIVEVERSUSQUALITATIVE
There are two major research methods, quantitative and qualitative. Each method is
considerably different in the way data are collected and analyzed. Both methods are widely
used in business research. A quantitative method means that the data collection techniques
and data analysis procedures that generate or use numerical data. In contrast, qualitative
method refers to any data collection techniques and data analysis procedures that generate or
use non-numerical data (Saunders et al. 2009). It is the research problems and purposes that
determine which method is more appropriate.
For quantitative study, the vital skills needed for the researcher are the ability to develop
proper hypotheses, test them with proper statistical techniques, and interpret statistical
information into descriptive information. A large sample size is preferred and it should be
possible to generalize from the findings.
In most qualitative research there are, in contrast to quantitative research, no statistical
calculations aimed at establishing correlations between certain stated variables, with the
ambition to give an exact representation of an objective reality out there. It is possible to
use a variety of qualitative techniques such as interviews, observations, and analysis of texts
and documents. Using different techniques and combining them within one study gives a
possibility to cover multiple perspectives of the phenomenon under study (Yin 2009).
When examining the research problem in this thesis, a qualitative research method has been
chosen. The reason is that there are complex connections between various factors that can not

23

be quantified numerically, and there is a need to create a deeper understanding of the

situation.

4.3RESEARCHSTRATEGY
The research strategy refers to the research procedure used to answer research questions and
fulfil the purposes of the research. The choice of research strategy is guided by the research
questions and objectives, the extent of existing knowledge, the amount of time and other
resources available, and the researchers philosophical foundation (Saunders et al. 2009).
There are several research procedures that can be labelled as research strategies including
case study, survey and experiment.
4.3.1CASESTUDY
If the phenomena to be investigated are complex and deeply embedded in the organisational
context of a company, the case study can be chosen as a suitable research strategy (Yin
(2009). When conducting a case study, a natural question is whether to focus on one case or
go for multiple cases. Yin (2009) argues for choosing one case if it represents a unique or
extreme case of the studied phenomenon. Usually, one case implies a one case company,
although Yin (2009) discusses the embedded case design, where the main case can contain
several intertwined sub-cases. For example, one and the same company in different markets
can become the embedded case with local markets as sub-cases and the corporate one as an
umbrella case.
A case study is most often used in exploratory and explanatory research with the ability to
answer the question why as well as what and how (Saunders et al. 2009). Both
quantitative and qualitative techniques can be applied for data collection in case study
research (Yin 2009).
4.3.2SURVEY
The survey research strategy is the most popular and common strategy for social research,
including business disciplines (Saunders et al. 2009). This strategy can be used to answer
who, what, where and how questions and is mainly used in descriptive and
exploratory research. It is generally associated with the deductive research approach. In
addition, a survey strategy allows researchers to collect a large amount of data from a
substantial population at a very low cost. The data are typically quantitative and gathered by
questionnaire. The data can be easily compared and analyzed using various statistical
techniques.
Survey is usually the preferred research strategy for researchers who are interested in
collecting original data to describe a population that is too large to observe directly. Careful
probability sampling provides a group of respondents whose characteristics may be taken to
reflect those of the larger population, and carefully constructed standardized questionnaires
provide data in the same form from all respondents (Babbie 2004). Questionnaires are not the
only data collection technique in the survey research strategy. Structured observation and
interviews can also be employed in survey research, but the questionnaire remains the most
commonly used tool in survey.

24

4.3.3EXPERIMENT
Experiment is used in both natural and social science research. Experiment tends to be used
in exploratory and explanatory study to answer how and why questions (Saunders et al.
2009).
Two groups are set and members in each group are basically similar in all aspects. The
researcher uses one group as the experimental group and another one as the control group. At
the beginning, the dependent variable is measured for both groups and the two measurements
are compared with each other. Then, the researcher places some form of planned intervention
or manipulation only to the experimental group. The intervention or manipulation is the
independent variable. Finally, the dependent variable from each group is re-measured.
The researcher is now able to compare the results before and after the manipulation of the
independent variable for both the experimental and the control group. This allows the
researcher to see if there is a causal relationship between the independent and dependent
variables. This experimental research strategy can be conducted in either laboratory
experiments or field experiments (Saunders et al. 2009). In business disciplines, an
experiment strategy could be used in several ways but this research strategy is typically
expensive and complicated.
This research will be conducted as a single case study, of how the selected company X uses
social media to create brand awareness. The reason why this case was chosen, is that
company X has one of the 300 strongest brands in the business to consumer sector in
Sweden, their products classify amongst the fast moving consumer goods industries, and
initial research indicates that company X uses social media currently. The intention is to
create a deeper knowledge about the case in question, and to investigate deeply into the
organizational context of this case. The choice was made to make an in-depth study of one
case, instead of looking at several cases in a more superficial way.

4.4SAMPLESELECTION
For some research, it might be possible to collect and analyze data from every possible case
or member of the whole interested population if such research focuses on a small group.
However, most research needs to employ sampling procedures because the group of interest
is typically large, containing too many cases or members which make it impossible to collect
data from all of them. Sampling techniques are divided into two broad categories, probability
and non-probability.
In probability sampling, each unit or element in the sampling frame has an equally known
chance of being included in the sample, which allows for statistical inferences. This allows
researchers to answer research questions and to achieve research purposes that require them
to estimate statistically the characteristics of the population inferred from the sample.
Probability sampling is often associated with survey and experimental research strategies.

25

In contrast, in non-probability sampling, it is not possible to make valid inferences about the
population. All non-probability samples rely on personal judgment somewhere in the process,
which implies that such samples derived from non-probability sampling are not necessarily
representative of the entire population. Researchers may still be able to generalize from nonprobability samples about the population, but not from a statistical standpoint. Nonprobability sampling is more generally used in case study research (Saunders et al. 2009).
In this study, the intention is to gather information about how social media create brand
awareness. This research will be conducted using non-probability sampling. A judgmental
selection has been used to choose the company that will be investigated and the employees
that will be interviewed.

4.5DATACOLLECTIONMETHODS
There are two types of data collection methods. The critical distinction between the types of
data is that primary data is collected by the researcher specifically for the purpose for which
the data are required. Secondary data have been collected for another primary purpose e.g. all
secondary data were primary data for another study. Both primary and secondary data sources
can yield quantitative or qualitative data (Babbie 2004).
Primary data is collected through the use of observation, interviews or questionnaires.
Secondary data include both raw data and published summaries, it may include data collected
by other organisations, governments, or data gathered by research organisations. Routine data
collected by institutions participating in an activity (e.g. schools, health centres) are
exceptionally good sources of secondary data which could not be replicated by primary data
collection without unreasonable expense. The use of secondary data can result cost and time
savings (Saunders et al. 2009).
In this study, it is important to get information directly from the persons responsible for
information and branding of the company chosen and to gather their views and opinions. But
since it is a very recent phenomenon we are looking at, it has also been deemed necessary to
build on secondary data (the secondary data has been collected through search on the
companys website); i e data collected for other purposes, in combination with using primary
data collection, where the method used will be semi-structured interview.

4.6DATAANALYSIS
With regard to data analysis, quantitative analysis is the numerical representation and
manipulation of observations for the purpose of describing and explaining the phenomena
that those observations reflect while qualitative analysis refers to the non-numerical
examination and interpretation of observations for the purpose of discovering underlying
meanings and patterns of relationships (Babbie 2004).
Qualitative analysis begins with the raw data generated by first-hand observations, in-depth
interviews or other types of non-numerical data. The key step in processing such data for

26

analysis is coding, classifying or categorizing pieces of data in terms of theoretical concepts

(Saunders et al. 2009). Qualitative data processing means spending hours reading and rereading the data files, creating and assigning codes. This is not distinct from data analysis, as
the act of coding data will give rise to insights as to patterns in the phenomena under study
(Babbie 2004).
When analyzing the interviews, it will most likely not be possible to give numerical
description to the answers. Instead they will be categorized using a qualitative data analysis.

4.7RELIABILITYVERSUSVALIDITY
Reliability estimates the extent to which data collection technique will yield consistent
findings, similar observations would be made or conclusions reached by other researchers or
there is transparency in how sense was made from the raw data or more simply the degree
to which an instrument measures the same way each time it is used in under the same
conditions with the same subjects. Validity, on the other hand, estimates the extent to which
data collection method accurately measure what they were intended to measure, the degree to
which you are measuring what you are supposed to (Saunders et al. 2009).

Figure 4: Reliability versus Validity

Source: Columbia Centre for New Media Teaching and Learning 2009
Figure 4: above shows three possible situations. In the first one, the target is hit consistently,
but the centre of the target is missed. We are consistently and systematically measuring the
wrong value for all respondents. This measure is reliable, but no valid that is, it is consistent
but wrong. The second situation shows hits that are randomly spread across the target. We
seldom hit the centre of the target but, on average, we are getting the right answer for the
group. In this case, we get a valid group estimate, but we are inconsistent. The third scenario
shows a consistently hit at the centre of the target. The measure is both reliable and valid.
The intention in this study is to use measurement tools that are both reliable and valid as
shown in situation three above. To increase the reliability in this study, questions were sent
beforehand to enable the respondents to prepare the questions and provide more complete
answers. It was the goal to make this interview with the persons in charge of information and

27

branding at the company, and very much due to the good will of the respondents it was
possible to make the interviews.

4.8SUMMARY
The aim of this chapter was to present the methodology used in this study. It can be
summarized as follows: The study is exploratory and descriptive, the approach deductive and
qualitative, the strategy a single case study, the sample selection based non-probability
samples, the data collection method is primary and secondary data, the data analysis used
qualitative data analysis and careful attention has been given to create high reliability and
validity in the study.

28

CHAPTER5EMPIRICALDATA
In this chapter the most important parts of the interview with representatives will be
highlighted regarding how they use social media to create brand awareness. The headings
follow the research questions identified to answer the research problem.
The identity of company X is kept hidden, following the request of the respondents. It is a
medium sized company within the FMCG, and the companys brand ranks as one of the top
300 brands in business to consumer market in Sweden. There are two respondents, the head
of information (HI) and the head of branding (HB).

5.1THEPURPOSEOFUSINGSOCIALMEDIATOCREATEBRANDAWARENESS
The purpose of using social media in the process of creating brand awareness is that social
media are a part of the companys communications and branding. According to HB, the
company needs to build credibility by being good at listening and by being relevant.
In general terms, the way in which company X views social media and brand awareness is
that social media are important in the communications with the consumers. The respondents
describe social arenas on the net as digital ecosystems. This is where conversations about the
company take place, whether the company wants it or not. By listening, participating and
contributing the company can find new ways to strengthen the brand.

5.2HOWCANTHESOCIALMEDIAACTIVITIESUSEDTOCREATEBRANDAWARENESSBE
DESCRIBED?
HB describes that the way in which brand awareness is created traditionally in the company
is a combination of communication in traditional media, through strong presence in the stores
close to the customers, through PR, the brand is one of the strongest in Sweden and has in
interesting history and owners structure which create a lot of media attention. Sponsoring is
also used, corporate social responsibility and other channels too.
The companys proactive social media involvement includes the company site and the
running of the companys own blog. The company does not run a company page at Facebook.
The reactive social media involvement builds on following what is said about the company
and the products on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, digital newspapers/digital journals etc. If the
company can find opinions/views or information or similar items about the company and/or
the products, an evaluation of this piece of information is made, and often the company
responds and comments to the opinion/information. In that way, the company can contribute
in creating a deeper knowledge about the issue subject of the debate. At the same time, the
company gets a picture of how the consumer sees the company brand. In the launching of
new products social media are used in different ways in the communication. Social media are
used for improving communication with the customers, to maintain a good dialogue and to
learn what customers are interested in and what they like.

29

This is the way social media are used today. The company is currently revising the working
methods concerning social media. According to HI, it is not possible to distinguish any
particular kind of social media that is more important than others, what is interesting is the
whole flow.
There are also other purposes of using social media. One is to increase sales, where social
media can be one way to increase sales, in particular in connection with product launching
campaigns.
Social media are also used to find new customers, in the sense that when the company creates
a dialogue around the brand, this paves the way for new consumers wanting to test the
products. Social media are also used for recruitment purposes, to collect information.
In product development, there are elements of social media that are included. The main areas
within product development where social media come in are to collect information, to follow
trends (including international trends), to make analyses, to follow research results, to follow
interesting dialogues and finally active bloggers are invited to give direct input in the product
development. HI predicts that within an 18-month period, the company will be even more
active and will measure and follow up in a more structured way than is done today.
Moreover, a PR-strategy including social media will be developed.
5.2.1THEUSEOFSOCIALMEDIATOCREATEVARIOUSLEVELSOFBRANDAWARENESS
5.2.1.1 S OCIALMEDIAANDWEAKBRANDAWARENESS RECOGNITION

The company uses social media to create recognition by establishing dialogue with the
consumers. One way of establishing this dialogue is the company blog. The company has
used the blog to create PR in connection with the launch of new film commercials.
5.2.1.2 S OCIALMEDIAANDMEDIUMBRANDAWARENESS RECALL

HB responds that social media are used to create brand recall for new products and subbrands under the corporate brand. One example is in connection with the launch of a product
directed to parents with smaller children. Different bloggers within the industry spread the
product news to blogging parents, who were invited to receive the product for free and also
received material and a knitting description for a soft toy with the same name as the product.
Images were put on the web by knitting parents, and were spread to others and through this
we created a buzz around the product, it was talked about and discussed in different places
on the net.
5.2.1.3 S OCIALMEDIAANDSTRONGBRANDAWARENESS TOPOFMIND

This is used to a limited extent, according to HB. At this very moment, plans concerning this
are being elaborated, for example by connecting the PR-strategy to all other communication,
i e social media are one piece of the puzzle in the total strategy for communications.
Concerning social media and the strongest forms of brand awareness, dominant and word-ofmouth, this is used to a limited extent, the company is currently revising how to develop the
strongest forms of brand awareness.

30


5.2.2MEASURINGOFBRANDAWARENESS
Brand awareness considering traditional media is measured through VM-tracking and other
market researches and relevant analyses. (authors note: VM-tracking means varumrkestracking. With the increased number of media, it has become more difficult to know if the
investments in marketing give the wanted result. VM-tracking can include interviews with
representatives from the target group, concerning their knowledge and feelings for the
companys brand and competitors brands. These interviews are compared with how large
investments in marketing that have been made, which media have been used etc. The analysis
gives an indication of what effect the investments should have lead to, given the investments
made [www.demoskop.se. Retrieved 10-05-22])
Measuring brand awareness considering the use of social media is done with the use of a
media agency and a web agency and their tools of analysis in connection with campaigns and
activities.
What is measured and how it is measured depends on the activity or campaign. It may be
number of visits, showing of pages, number of comments, number of fans, subscribers etc,
number of sites and blogs that links to the companys proactive contents, search-words and
search phrases in search engines, the number of people writing about the company blog, the
industry, a certain type of products or particular words, sales/turnover.
Other comments from HB regarding measuring of brand awareness, are that a keyword for
the company is the importance of being relevant in the channels where the company wants to
be, including in social media. HB says that this is the reason why it is essential to
continuously develop the companys skills to assure that the information ranks high on
search-engines and is interesting for the consumers. Also, the following up and the evaluation
of social media will be done in a more in-depth way in the following 18-months period.

5.3ADVANTAGESINUSINGSOCIALMEDIATOCREATEBRANDAWARENESS
The upsurge of social media have changed the way in which the company works with brand
awareness, the company both has to be active in social media and wants to be active in social
media. HB sees clear advantages, but also sees no alternative to not using social media: The
discussion about our brand goes on in social media whether we choose to become involved or
not. If we are actively involved in social media we can have an influence on what is being
said and an influence in questions that are important to us in different ways.
Our company holds a strong reputation and has a lot to gain from being present in social
media and to build credibility and to create a positive dialogue where great parts of our target
group are and where they talk about us.

5.4DISADVANTAGESINUSINGSOCIALMEDIATOCREATEBRANDAWARENESS

31

The respondents are not pointing at explicit disadvantages in using social media to create
brand awareness, but they emphasize that there is no alternative for them to not being active
in social media. The things that are mentioned, are that the company constantly needs to
assure that they remain relevant within social media, and to really consider what the purpose
is by the involvement in social media.

32

CHAPTER6:DATAANALYSIS
In the following chapter, the collected data will be analyzed building on the theoretical
framework outlined in chapter 3.
The overarching goal of this thesis is to build up an answer to the research problem: To
increase the understanding of the role of social media for the creation of brand awareness.
The literature review served to provide an overview of what current literature says about
various parts that are explicitly and implicitly implied in the research problem. The current
concepts were introduced: social media, social media and marketing, phases in the product
life cycle in which social media may be used, social media and branding, brand and branding
in general and branding in fast moving consumer goods sector, brand strategy, brand equity
and brand awareness, the management of brand portfolio. The area of branding is widespread
and leads into several directions. The aim was to cover the central concepts related to
branding which justify which aspects of branding are the most important ones when it comes
to social media.
In this study, the aspect of branding that has been deemed central is brand equity the value
added to the product- and brand awareness which by Aaker has been considered the most
important element building the brand equity.
The essential parts of the literature review has then boiled down to the frame of reference,
where the theoretical framework that this study is based upon is presented. Parts of the frame
of reference are based upon the findings of Weber (2009), and parts are based upon Aakers
studies (1991, 1996, 2004, 2008).

6.1THEPURPOSEOFUSINGSOCIALMEDIATOCREATEBRANDAWARENESS
Weber (2009) claims that marketing within social media is to adopt a completely new way of
communicating with the customers. It is not about broadcasting marketing messages, but
about participating in, organizing and encouraging social networks. The marketing function
should act as aggregators of customer communities, instead of as broadcasters (Weber 2009).
The task of aggregating customers can be done in two ways according to Weber (2009), by
providing compelling content on the company website, and by going out and participating in
the public arena.
The single case study looks at how company X can help us to increase our understanding of
how social media create brand awareness, and thanks to the good will of the respondents,
important information about how these questions are tackled in real business operations has
become available and presented in chapter 5. As regards the purposes of using social media to
create brand awareness, it seems clear that the companys purposes to a large extent are based
on the studies of Weber. The company states their purpose of using social media to create
brand awareness is that this channel is important in the communications with the consumers.
The respondents have described that they view social media as digital ecosystems. For good
and bad, this is the place where people talk about the company, whether the company wants

33

that or not. By listening, participating and contributing, the company can find new ways to
strengthen the brand.
The companys purposes coincide to a relatively large extent with what is stated by theory,
although the company does not go so far as theory. The company is currently revising their
communication strategy in which consideration of how the whole flow of social media play a
part in the total strategy. The company does not seem to be in a stage where they completely
choose a new path for their marketing and communications functions and become solely
aggregators of customers, they do seem to keep the traditional way of marketing through the
broadcasting of marketing messages.
It should be noted here, and that is true for the whole study on social media, that this is a very
recent phenomenon, and that the company subject for the empirical study here, is also
currently revising their overall goals and strategy for how to use social media to create brand
awareness.

6.2HOWCANTHESOCIALMEDIAACTIVITIESUSEDTOCREATEBRANDAWARENESSBE
DESCRIBED?
Aaker (1996) argues that there exist various levels or degrees of brand awareness, ranging
from weak brand awareness to the strongest brand awareness. The lowest degree of brand
awareness is weak, recognition, where the customers has been exposed to the brand. Then
follows brand recall, medium brand awareness. The customer can recall certain brands within
a product group. After this comes top-of-mind, strong brand awareness, it is the first brand
the customer can recall. Dominant is very strong brand awareness, it is the only brand that the
customer can recall (Aaker 1996). The strongest form of brand awareness is word-of-mouth,
the customer recommends the brand to another person (Weber 2009).
Carlsson (2010) is of the opinion that it is not a good enough reason to be active in social
media because everybody else is.
As regards the way in which the company in the case study uses social media activities to
create brand awareness, and to what extent different degrees of brand awareness is created,
one remark could be that it is yet too early to clearly define what steps are made to reach
various degrees of brand awareness. The methods used in the reaching of the weakest form of
brand awareness is the blog, where the intention is to create a dialogue.
The company wants to reach brand recall for example in connection with the launch of new
products and sub-brands under the corporate brand. It seems that in general the way in which
social media are used, are to create a dialogue with the customers, and to create some form of
brand awareness, be it weak, medium, strong, very strong or the strongest form. It seems like
the company wants to create a buzz, that the company gets talked about, rather than making
clear plans for how they can maximize the number of personal recommendations of the brand
to other people etc.

34

Once again it is true that we are currently in the early stage of the use of social media, and the
company empirically studied is revising their communications strategy in which social media
will play a part. Hence, the combination of the models of Aaker and Weber on various
degrees of brand awareness that was presented in the frame of reference, seems to have
relatively little bearing in the case studied. Aaker (1996) says that to reach high brand
awareness, it is important to have a broad sales base and the knowledge of operating outside
the traditional media channels. Considering this, it seems that the company in this case study
has the possibilities of really reaching and maintaining the strongest brand awareness by the
use of social media; the company has a steadily increasing turnover rate, and underlines
themselves the importance of learning more about how to make the best use of social media
related to branding. In contrast with the argument of Carlsson, it does not seem like the
company is involved in social media because everybody else is, but the company wants to
listen and take part in the dialogue with consumers in social media.
In the case in this study, the proactive ways in which social media are used are the company
site and the company blog. Reactive activities include following what is said about the
company and the products on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, digital newpapers etc; and also
responding and commenting in the debate. By doing that, the company aspires to create
deeper knowledge about the subject debated.
Social media are also used in the launch of new products, and in different stages in the
product development social media are used. Although this is true, it does not seem as if all
the possibilities that Weber (2009) mentions are used, to use podcasts and webinars and wikis
for example. One explanation could be that these methods are not yet so common on the
Swedish market.

6.3ADVANTAGESINUSINGSOCIALMEDIATOCREATEBRANDAWARENESS
One of the most important advantages Weber (2009) has put forward in this area, is the
possibility to create dialogue with the customer and through this to create the strongest brand
awareness. This is exactly the item that the company mentions as the most important
advantage with social media, to talk to customers and to influence what is being said about
the company and the products in social media. It is particularly underlined, that the company
in the case study has a strong reputation and that they have a lot to gain from being present in
social media.

6.4DISADVANTAGESINUSINGSOCIALMEDIATOCREATEBRANDAWARENESS
The risks and disadvantages that were mentioned by Carlsson (2010) in section 3.1 were not
brought up by the respondents, so an analysis of how social media can become a risk for the
company was not possible to make. Instead, the respondents point to that there is no real
option for this kind of company in the fast moving consumer goods sector to not being active
in social media, the discussion about their brand goes on in social media whether the
company chooses to participate in this discussion or not. Carlsson (2010) also draws attention
to the issue of the importance for the company to really find the balance between what kind
of information the company can go out with without damaging the companys vital interests,

35

and the necessity of providing interesting contents for the reader. A too strict information
policy would lead to that the contents are not interesting and that nobody is interested in
reading them, let alone debating them.

36

CHAPTER7:CONCLUSIONSANDSUGGESTIONS
The purpose of this study was to, based on the fact that social media are predicted to really
have a strong breakthrough in the corporate sector in this year of 2010, look at how
companies use them in branding. Initial research on the branding area and on the social media
area led to the formulation of the research problem as previously described, to increase the
understanding of the role of social media for the creation of brand awareness. The specific
area of fast moving goods sector within business to consumer market was chosen.
The whole approach of this study has been exploratory and descriptive, as mentioned in the
methodology chapter. With social media, we are sailing into unknown waters, and there is no
clear sea-map yet. The necessary parameters allowing for comparative studies being made on
the usability of social media in the creation of brand awareness do not yet exist, or at least
they were not possible to find within the literature overview which was made in this study.
The most important message that comes across from the interview with the company in the
case study, is that the great challenge that the respondents see, is for the company to find the
right balance between providing contents of great interest for the audience, while at the same
time respecting what kind of information the company can really go out with- it is about
being relevant in social media and in all other channels of communication. This means a
constant need for learning and developing new knowledge, for measuring and following up.
Another remark is that Weber (2010) points to the necessity of creating interest, creating a
buzz about the brand in social media, to feed the discussions with information that makes the
readers interested in the brand. In the case study, this approach is indeed used, in connection
with the release of new commercial films for example. But perhaps is it premature to expect
at this stage, to expect companies to have a clear strategy for how to reach the different stages
of brand awareness, from the weakest (recognition) to the strongest (word-of-mouth).
In addition, in contrast with the findings by Weber explained in the frame of reference, it
seems like the company does not abandon completely the traditional way of marketing for
marketing in social media, and do not fully follow the idea of switching from being
broadcasters of messages to being aggregators of customer communities. Instead, what was
considered more important by the company in the case study, was to integrate social media in
the total communications and PR-strategy, a task which is actually being performed at this
very moment.
One comment on the setting up of this kind of integrated strategy in which social media take
part, is for future research to look at the possibilities that social media create in terms of reach
out and affordability to establish dialogue. The perspective in this study has been a qualitative
one.
It would be very interesting to make a more quantitative study looking at now that everybody
with an internet access can participate in social media, why is it not yet used in a more
systematic way in the corporate sector? What parts in the communications, making use of the

37

social web, generate costs? It is clear how much an ad costs per line, but how does one
estimate the costs of having rapid and responsive communications from a company?
In conclusion, the knowledge about the research problem ought to be greater with the
findings presented in this paper.

38

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41

APPENDICES
AppendixAInterviewguideEnglish

BACKGROUND:
This thesis is about how social media create brand awareness. The following approach
regarding brand awareness will be used in the study: according to academics like Aaker,
Czinkota&Ronkainen et al. brands are important because they shape the customers choice
and create value (brand equity). Aaker means that this added value, brand equity, is built up
by: brand awareness, perceive quality, brand loyalty, brand association and other proprietary
brand assets (for example patent).
Aaker means that brand awareness is one of the most important factors creating brand equity,
and brand awareness is about, as the name indicates, how aware the customer is about the
brand. Brand awareness is measured traditionally by how well the customer is aware of the
brand. The scale ranges from the lowest level:
recognition (the customer has been exposed to the brand) WEAK BRAND AWARENESS
recall (what brands within the product group that the customer can recall) MEDIUM
BRAND AWARENESS
top of mind (the first brand that the client can recall) STRONG BRAND AWARENESS
dominant (the sole brand the customer can recall) VERY STRONG BRAND
AWARENESS
There are academics who question this approach. For example Larry Weber, who has studied
social media and branding and marketing, argues that brand awareness is about the extent to
which the customer is prone to recommend the product or service to others, and that reaching
brand awareness is about the ability to make customers do this recommendations to other
persons.
In this study, it is assumed that word-of-mouth according to Weber is the strongest form of
brand awareness, which may follow after the dominant-phase. It is also assumed that brand
awareness can exist in various degrees, from being weak (recognition), to medium (recall), to
strong (top of mind), to very strong (dominant).

Introduction:
What is your role within the company?
In general terms, what can you say about what how the company sees brand awareness and
social media?
How does the company use social media today?
What kinds of social media are used today?
If several kinds of social media are used, which is the most important one?

Socialmediaandbrandawareness:
Are social media used to create the weakest form of brand awareness- recognition?
If so, could you please describe how this is done?
Are social media used to create the medium form of brand awareness- recall?
If so, could you please describe how this is done?
Are social media used to create the strong form of brand awareness- top of mind?
If so, could you please describe how this is done?
Are social media used to create the very strong form of brand awareness- dominant?
If so, could you please describe how this is done?
Are social media used to create such a strong form of brand awareness that the customer
makes recommendations to others- word-of-mouth?
If so, could you please describe how this is done?

Thepurposeofusingsocialmedia
Are social media used to create brand awareness?
Are social media used to increase sales?
Are social media used to find new customers?
Are social media used to for recruitment purposes?
Are social media used in product development?
Are social media used to improve communications with customers?

Is there any other purpose for using social media?

What is the purpose of using social media?
How do you think that the company will be using social media within an 18-month period?

Brandawareness:
How is brand awareness created in the company today?
Has the upsurge of social media changed the way in which the company creates brand
awareness?
How is brand awareness measured when traditional media are used?
How is brand awareness measured when social media are used?
What is measure regarding brand awareness and social mediaThe number of visits?
Number of comments?
Number of fans, subscribers etc?
Other sites and blogs that make links to you?
Search-words and phrases in search engines?
The number of writers about the company blog, the industry, a certain type of products or
particular words?
Sales/turnover?
Do you have any other comments regarding measuring of brand awareness and social media?
What is the purpose of using social media in the process of creating brand awareness?
Do you see advantages in using social media to create brand awareness?
If so, which advantages?
Do you see disadvantages in using social media to create brand awareness?
If so, which disadvantages?
Is there anything else you would like to add regarding the company and social media and
brand awareness?

AppendixBIntervjuguidesvenska
Bakgrund:
Denna C-uppsats handlar om hur sociala medier pverkar brand awareness. Fljande
angreppsstt kring brand awareness kommer att anvndas i uppsatsen: Enligt forskare ssom
Aaker, Czinkota&Ronkainen m fl r varumrken viktiga fr att de formar kundens val och
skapar vrde (brand equity). Aaker menar att detta mervrde, brand equity, byggs upp av:
brand awareness, upplevd kvalitet, varumrkes lojalitet, varumrkesassociationer och andra
tillgngar som varumrket har (patent etc).
Aaker menar att brand awareness r en av de viktigaste faktorerna som skapar brand equity,
och brand awareness handlar om hur medveten kunden r om varumrket. Brand awareness
mts traditionellt genom analys av hur kunden kommer ihg ett varumrke. Skalan gr frn
lgsta nivn:
recognition (kunden har exponerats fr varumrket) WEAK BRAND AWARENESS
recall (vilka varumrken inom produktgruppen kan kunden komma ihg) MEDIUM
BRAND AWARENESS
top of mind (det frsta varumrket som kunden kommer ihg) STRONG BRAND
AWARENESS
dominant (det enda varumrket kunden kommer ihg) VERY STRONG BRAND
AWARENESS
Det finns forskare som ifrgastter denna approach. T.ex. Larry Weber, som studerat sociala
medier och varumrkesbyggande och marknadsfring, menar att brand awareness handlar om
hur bengen kunden r att rekommendera produkten eller tjnsten till andra, och att uppn
brand awareness handlar om frmgan att f kunderna att gra denna rekommendation till
andra kunder.
I denna uppsats antas att word-of-mouth enligt Weber r den starkaste formen av brand
awareness, som kan flja efter dominant stadiet (dr det aktuella varumrket r det enda
kunden kommer ihg). Det antas ocks att brand awareness kan existera i olika omfattning,
frn att vara svag (recognition) till mycket stark (dominant, varumrket r det enda i
produktkategorin som man kunden kommer ihg).

Introduktion:
Vilken r din roll inom fretaget?
Allmnt, vad kan du sga om hur fretaget ser p brand awareness och sociala medier?
Hur anvnder fretaget sociala medier idag?
Vilka typer av sociala medier anvnds idag?
Om flera typer av sociala medier anvnds, vilket r det viktigaste sociala mediet som
anvnds?

Socialamedierochbrandawareness:
Anvnds sociala medier fr att skapa svagaste formen av brand awareness-recognition?
Om ja, kan du bertta ngot om hur detta grs?
Anvnds sociala medier fr att skapa brand awareness s att kunden kommer ihg olika
varumrken inom produktgruppen -recall?
Om ja, kan du bertta ngot om hur detta grs?
Anvnds sociala medier fr att skapa brand awareness s att varumrket r det frsta kunden
kommer ihg-top of mind?
Om ja, kan du bertta ngot om hur detta grs?
Anvnds sociala medier fr att skapa brand awareness s att varumrket r det enda kunden
kommer ihg-dominant?
Om ja, kan du bertta ngot om hur detta grs?
Anvnds sociala medier fr att skapa s stark brand awareness att kunden rekommenderar
varumrket till andra?
Om ja, kan du bertta ngot om hur detta grs?

Syftenmedattanvndasocialamedier:
Anvnds sociala medier fr att skapa brand awareness?
Anvnds sociala medier fr att ka frsljningen?
Anvnds sociala medier fr att hitta nya kunder?
Anvnds sociala medier fr att rekrytera nya medarbetare?
Anvnds sociala medier i produktutveckling?

Anvnds sociala medier fr att frbttra kommunikationen med kunderna?

Finns det ngot annat syfte med att anvnda sociala medier?
Vad r mlet med att anvnda sociala medier?
Hur tror du att fretaget kommer att anvnda sociala medier p 18-mnaders sikt?

Brandawareness:
Hur skapas brand awareness i fretaget idag?
Har uppkomsten av sociala medier frndrat fretagets stt att skapa brand awareness?
Hur mts brand awareness med beaktande av anvndningen av traditionella medier?
Hur mts brand awareness med beaktande av anvndningen av sociala medier?
Vad mts betrffande brand awareness och sociala medierr det antal besk?
Antal kommentarer?
Antal fljande fans, prenumeranter och liknande?
Andra sajter och bloggar som lnkar?
Skord och fraser i skmotorer?
Hur mnga som skriver om till exempel fretagets blogg, branschen, en viss typ av produkter
eller srskilda ord?
Frsljning/omsttning?
Har du ngra andra kommentarer kring mtning av brand awareness och sociala medier?
Vad r mlet med att anvnda sociala medier i processen att skapa brand awareness?
Ser du att det finns frdelar med att anvnda sociala medier fr att skapa brand awareness?
Om ja, vilka frdelar?
Ser du att det finns nackdelar med att anvnda sociala medier fr att skapa brand awareness?
Om ja, vilka nackdelar?
Finns det ngot annat du vill tillgga rrande fretaget och sociala medier och brand
awareness?