Debasers om-profilering : -Från o-polerad källarrock till att servera småplock och spela etablerad hiphop 

Sammanfattning:

Motivation: Debaser started of as a rock club with live acts located in a shabby basement in the center of Stockholm in 2002. Thirteen years later the organization has grown into including restaurants, conference locations and rentals. Despite the drastic changes it still manages to keep its original image of a unpolished rebel. It is interesting to look at what changes that have been made and how the organization has worked in order to keep its image intact.

Problem statement: By using this case the thesis aim to explore how to change a brand while keeping its original image. Also how strategic communication can be used in that process to keep the legitimacy intact. This will be done by asking if and how strategic external communication can be used to change such image and to what degree?

Approach: We have conducted qualitative interviews with CEOs, managers and other employees to understand not only what strategies has been used but also in hope to gain some insight into the thoughts of implementers and stakeholders. This is complemented by a quantitative content analysis of visual PR materials throughout the history of the organization. This is used as a historical mapping to confirm the material from the interviews and show patterns and trends in the external comunication which affects the stakeholders image of the company. Furthermore this thesis aim to test how the current theories about rebranding works in this type of brand.

Results and Conclusions: The results show it’s possible to make a re-branding of a service brand as long as it goes along with the original concept of the service provided. The product is secondary to the experience given to the costumers in this types of brands.

Keywords: Re-branding, Branding, Service Brands, External Communication, Strategic Communication, Debase

Paper type: Bachelor’s thesis