The Influence Of Coordinated Management Of Meaning On The Perception Of Brand Image

With interviews designed for managers and consumers of GODIVA, this research is to find the "GAP" between the managementand customer-perceived brand image of GODIVA in Chinese market. The researcher plans to conduct 2 gap analyses accordingly in the dimension of "intention" and "ability". That is to find whether the problem regarding incongruence of managers’ and consumers’ perception is in the field of Scustomer relationship(regarding "warmth") or is relative to the performance of this brand(issues on the "ability").The pertinent theories for this case are "Brand as Intentional Agents Framework" and Samli’s "Gap Analysis". The former is for the analysis of dimensions of brand image, and the latter will be applied for the overall procedure of finding the differences between managers and coustomers on the dimensions fixed by the interviews while guided by the "BIAF" theory.Data collection methods for this thesis are focus group interviews and questionnaires. The interviews with managers and consumers separately are used for the determination of brand image variables for the two dimensions discussed above, and the questionnaires will be delivered for getting their rankings for the dimensions for contrast.With the complement from "BIAF" theory, I hope that this research can flesh up the GAP Analysis theory in the broader field of brand management based on Samli’s research on retail store image.