Abstract KAPITEL 7 Title The Depth Perspective – A Master’s Thesis about the B&O brand in a cultural perspective on Brand Management Author Nikolaj Høncke Keldorff Aalborg University July 2008 This Master’s thesis examines the latest version of thinking Brand Management through a case design. The goal is to uncover aspects of the Bang & Olufsen brand, and by utilizing newest brand theory position the future of the brand in the uncertain waters of the future. The cultural approach to Brand Management is the latest version among six others revealed by Master’s Thesis authors Thilde Heering and Charlotte Fagernæs Knudtzen in their thesis called The Meaningful Brand from Copenhagen Business School. They have analyzed approximately 300 scientific articles and thereby been able to describe the evolution of seven approaches to Brand Management formed throughout the period 1985- 2006. The new approach is the Cultural approach. This thesis draws from at theoretical framework based on that approach and examines challenges and opportunities for the B&O brand in present and future. By combining the theoretical framework of the cultural approach with the theories of deep metaphors by Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman as central and the basis of creating meaning in language, deep insights into the mind of the consumers is revealed. Together with theories of society by Anthony Giddens and Zygmunt Bauman this thesis creates a complex way of understanding the Mind of the Market surrounding Danish luxury electronics maker Bang & Olufsen. A eclectic framework of empirical material is the road to deep consumer insight, and the Danish media’s coverage of the development in the pride Danish company, 98 consumer comments to the development of the products and the brand and last but not least five depth interviews designed more or less by the rules of The Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique. The thesis builds is foundation of deconstructing the brand of the proud Danish company on the empirical framework. This results in deep insights into the mind of the market albeit theoretical and not proved in an greater 98 scale, these deep insights develops the notion of a possible crisis in the Danish company. After the deciphering and breakdown of the brand it’s results is evaluated and discussed in relations to the given context of the thesis’ investigations of the Bang & Olufsen brand. These results are put to use in the possible reconstruction of the brand in a search of cultural logic. The conclusion of the thesis notes that in the given context of the thesis, a version of the B&O brand is deconstructed and deciphered in the cultural way. This accentuates a possibility of a marketing/brand crises in the company because of customers inability to create a meaningful notion of the brand, so that it relates to their way of living.