Brand Identity and Country of Origin Effect Brand Identity of Ararat Armenian Brandies. COO effect on wine from Armenia

Abstract

The thesis has two main purposes. First, it provides an understanding on the brand identity theory, the process of its creation and communication. Particularly it discusses the implementation of the brand identity theory on Ararat Armenian brandies. Secondly, the thesis focuses on the Country-of-Origin effect studying Armenia's country image, products' recognizability, the attributes that consumers value while buying wines, and finally their attitudes towards Armenian wine. Each part has a different methodology of studying the phenomenon. Ararat Armenian brandies' brand identity creation and communication is discussed by a case study, specifically implementing D. Aaker's brand identity model (2002) on the brandy, and identifying the perspectives and categories that can be found in the brand's identity. The methodology of studying the second purpose of the thesis is a survey conducted among wine experts and students of two different universities. Those studies produced findings on the main perspectives and categories of Ararat's brand identity and its communication style according to Aaker's brand identity model. The outcome of this study shows that Ararat brandies brand identity is quite complete, which gives it a big opportunity to become better known and successful luxury brand in international markets. In addition, it was found that for the Norwegian consumers the most important attributes of wine are quality, price and producing country. Also, it was found out that Armenia, as well as its wine, is not well recognized among the Norwegian consumers, however, there is a great amount of interest towards both the country and its wine.