Do flagship stores affect your habits and daily routines? A case study on Swedish Match and Löfbergs about brand equity in the FMCG industry

Sammanfattning: Abstract Purpose: To examine how flagship stores might affect brand equity for brands in the fastmoving consumer goods industry. Methodology: This paper adopts a qualitative research method. The information about the two cases on the flagship stores of Swedish Match and Löfbergs was collected by observations at the physical flagship stores and secondary data from the brands web pages. Furthermore, primary data about visitors' brand experience at the flagship stores was collected by six semistructured interviews. Findings: The findings of this paper show that the two flagship stores, by providing the customers with a brand experience, strengthens the brand equity through the four assets: brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality and brand loyalty. Original/value: Research within brand equity and how different brand experiences might affect brands is available in this field of research. However, the phenomenon of using flagship stores as brand experience for the customers and to study how this phenomenon might affect brand equity cannot be found in previous research. This is where this paper aim to fill in the research gap and be the first of its kind to do so. Keywords: Flagship stores, brand equity, perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand associations, brand awareness, brand experience Swedish Match, Löfbergs, fast-moving consumer goods