The main data source in the first phase was a study of firms coproducing
materials for various branding, marketing, and media production
purposes in a Norwegian winter destination. This study comprised
a potential sample of 32 respondents representing 13 different
firms and 12 professional athletes in boardsports apparel, sports agency,
boardsports equipment, media, and tourism (ski resort) industries. The
researchers conducted a pre-study to check the appropriateness of the
particular research context and the informants. This pre-study included
an open-answer e-mail survey and access to e-mail correspondence
from the co-production planning. The pre-study showed that the context
included cases that are representative of different strategic brand
management archetypes. The context provides cases that enable comparison
to clarify if findings are transferable between different cases
(Eisenhardt, 1991). Accordingly, the researchers deemed this context
a strong base for building strategic brand management theories