Rasmus Bergqvist

Is There More to Merchandise Than Making Money: a Comparative Study of Scandinavian Football Clubs Describing How They Build Brand Equity Through Merchandise Rasmus Bergqvist

Merchandise is one part of the product that a football club offers. Kapferer's (2008) Brand Identity Prism should be useful to map the relationship between product and Brand Equity. Merchandise attractiveness can affect consumers' perception regarding the product quality of the whole club. As little have been written regarding how Scandinavian football clubs use their products to build their Brand Equity we saw a relevance of further searching in to this subject. The purpose was to identify what differences and similarities Scandinavian football clubs have in their development of fan merchandise and presenting successful methods to build Brand Equity, in terms of the percental contribution to the club's total turnover and the merchandise turnover contribution from each attending supporter. We found that the Brand Equity component that the clubs are trying to affect the most through merchandise is brand association. Perceived quality and brand awareness are secondary focuses for the clubs to affect while brand loyalty couldn't be seen in this thesis.