Brand Management in SMEs - The Case of Hasta AB

Abstract: This thesis explores the issues around the process of brand management in SMEs. Most of conventional principles prescribed in the brand management literature are invalid to be applied to the SMEs’ marketing problems, but there are some relevant researches regarding some proposed branding policies for small businesses.   The purpose of this thesis is to find an effective and practical brand strategy for SMEs, which means I expect to generate a framework for the SME branding process. After I developed a conceptual model, some proposed branding guidelines were examined through a case study. Qualitative interviewing was used to collect data within a Swedish SME –HastaAB.   The empirical findings indicate that the SME branding policies are highly influenced by these factors: brand awareness, marketing strategies, brand recognition and resource etc. Based on the empirical findings, my conceptual model was adjusted by assessing the effect of proposed policies. In conclusion, I came up with a final model of brand management in SMEs which helps SMEs to build and develop their brands. The model involves some executable branding policies for SMEs.