International brand management: building brands and going
international with small financial resources: a case study
of the Swedish fashion industry

Abstract: With globalization, boundaries between countries are wiped out and this is
making it easier for companies to internationalize. Therefore today, it is
no longer only big financially strong companies that go international. This
phenomenon can be seen in the Swedish fashion industry where companies with
small financial resources are becoming global. The brand is today more
important than previously and this is especially true for the global fashion
industry where marketers market the brand rather than the traditional
products. Extensive previous research exists on the concepts of brand
identity and internationalization. However, there is little research on the
connection between the two of them and close to none on their relationship
to small financial resources.

In this thesis the relationship between brand identity, internationalization
and small financial resources is studied through two cases in the fashion
industry. The empirical data was gathered through interviews with Merde! and
Odd Molly, two Swedish companies. The results from this study indicate that
in a fashion company’s internationalization process, brand identity is of
importance. The findings further imply that small financial resources do not
have a negative effect on the brand identity creation process. However, this
research indicates that small financial resources affect the ways through
which a company internationalizes its brand. The study further indicate that
Swedish fashion companies have to internationalize their brand in order to
survive. The authors of this thesis conclude that for a fashion company, the
brand identity determines the make or break of an international opportunity.