Online survey study : measuring and comparing Finnish consumer brands' and their co-branded products' brand equities

Thesis focuses on studying co-branding, brand equity, and how to measure it on Finnish consumer goods and their co-branded products. The hypothesis is that co-branding will have positive perceptions on brand equity in the eyes of a consumer. Therefore, it is assumed that co- branded product(s) will have higher brand equity evaluations than parental brand(s) alone in the eyes of a consumer. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on the elements of brand equity and how it can be measured. The theoretical part also includes how co-branding works as a strategy, its' goals, threats and opportunities and explaining different formats of co-branding. Six Finnish consumer brands (BilleBeino, Juhla Mokka, Angry Birds, Rapala, Novita Oy and Lonkero) and their three co-branded products consist in the study part. An online survey targeted at consumers is applied to measure brand equity. The online survey includes a few open-ended questions and six quantitative questions in a Likert-scaled format that reflects the thesis's theoretical part. A total of 65 respondents answered the online survey. From the result of the online survey study, it can evidently be analyzed that the co-branded products did not get higher brand equity evaluations than the parental brands alone. At the end of the thesis, the survey should be broadened so that brand equity measurement questions should be asked twice: before and after showing and co-branded products. Therefore, it could be analyzed if co-branding impacts the brand equities of the parental brands. Also, the sampling should be increased, and the consumers' own personal experiences on the brands should be taken under consideration due to its high impact on how consumers evaluate the brand equities