Semester of Graduation

Summer 2018

Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Textiles, Apparel Design, and Merchandising

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Brands can thrive in the marketplace based on their ability to generate brand equity. Companies have utilized many techniques to gain brand equity with their consumers. One method that has been very popular has been co-branding. Branding literature explains that one way that brand equity is created is through brand associations. Brand associations are generated through a consumer's direct and indirect experience with a brand. This research looked at a special case of co-branding in the form of the clothing line Yeezy. The purpose of this research is to better understand this special case of co-branding strategy by analyzing Yeezy using the Brand Concept Mapping (BCM) approach. The BCM approach is made up of three stages: elicitation, mapping, and aggregation. The first stage, elicitation, involved the researcher determining what associations consumers have about the Yeezy brand. The researcher completed this stage by surveying a sample to generate words they associate with the Yeezy brand. The survey was completed by158 participants and produced 62 words to describe the Yeezy brand. The mapping stage involved the researcher using the 62 words uncovered in the elicitation stage as a word bank for a convenience sample to generate individual concept maps about the Yeezy brand; this sample was made up of 57 participants who attend a southeastern university. Finally, in the aggregation stage, the researcher combined the 57 individual concept maps to create one consensus map for the Yeezy brand. Based on the new aggregation rules created by Böger et al. (2017) the researcher was able to create a consensus map featuring 7 first-order associations tied to the Yeezy brand: Kanye, expensive, Adidas, overrated, trendy, sneakers, athleisure.

Date

5-3-2018

Committee Chair

Lang, Chunmin

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.4716

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