Marketing case study

: "How to build strong brands in emerging countries”

Abstract

This thesis explores the issues around the process of brand building, brand positioning, and brand management in emerging countries. Despite these topics being largely debated, some important multinationals still have been showing an inconsistency in its emerging markets strategies. The purpose of this thesis is to give a real and practical example of a brand which was built from scratch adopting its marketing strategy to Angola and to Angolans' needs and which faced some problems related to consumers' brand knowledge. Quantitative and qualitative studies were run in order to understand the main habits and attitudes of the Angolan middle-class segment when buying Furniture and Decoration products, as well as their relationship to the home, the different rooms in the home, and decoration. The empirical findings indicate that the branding policies and marketing strategies in emerging countries are highly influenced by the following factors: Complexity on segmentation, differences on communication channels, on consumers’ needs and desires, on frames of reference being significant the traditional commerce, a lack of trust in brands promises and fear regarding modern distribution. In conclusion, based on the research done, I came up some executable rules and policies for brand management and brand building on Furniture and decoration retail industry in emerging markets.

Date of Award	20 May 2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Paulo Alexandre Gonçalves Marcos (Supervisor)