Marketability of Tony Bianco Shoe Brand: Research Proposal

This research proposal outlines a comprehensive plan to investigate and enhance the marketability of the Tony Bianco shoe brand within the Australian market. The proposal begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of effective marketing for business success and the need for research to determine the most appropriate strategies. It then provides background information on product management and branding, focusing on Tony Bianco's target market of young, fashion-conscious women. The proposal identifies the key problem faced by Tony Bianco's management: ensuring their shoes align with current market trends to maintain customer interest and revenue. A literature review explores existing knowledge on product development and marketability, emphasizing the importance of a consistent brand image, relevant KPIs, expanding business boundaries, developing appealing narratives, and embracing corporate social responsibility. The research methodology is described as a two-phase approach, starting with an exploratory phase to identify influential dimensions and followed by a descriptive phase to test hypotheses and generate generalizable results. The proposal also addresses ethical considerations, including informed consent, debriefing, and confidentiality, and provides an approximate budget and proposed timeline for the research. The ultimate goal is to provide Tony Bianco with actionable strategies to increase brand visibility, customer engagement, and sales within a competitive market.

Research Proposal 1
Research Proposal
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Contents
Research Proposal............................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background......................................................................................................................................4
Managers’ Problem..........................................................................................................................4
Literature Review............................................................................................................................5
4.1. Form a consistent brand image.........................................................................................6
4.2. Adoption of Realistic and Relevant KPIs..........................................................................6
4.3. Expound business boundaries............................................................................................7
4.4. Develop Appealing Narratives..........................................................................................7
4.5. Embracing Corporate Social Responsibility.....................................................................7
4.6. Summary............................................................................................................................8
Research Design and Method..........................................................................................................8
5.1. Exploratory Phase – first stage............................................................................................9
5.2. Descriptive phase – stage 2................................................................................................9
5.3.1. Notes for Quality Market Research Questionnaire...................................................10
5.3.2. Segmentation of the Interview or Questionnaire.......................................................11
Ethical issues in conducting the survey.........................................................................................12

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6.1. Design of the Questionnaire.............................................................................................13
6.2. Consent that is informed..................................................................................................13
6.3. Debriefing........................................................................................................................13
6.4. Confidentiality.................................................................................................................14
Approximate budget and proposed time schedule.........................................................................14
References list................................................................................................................................16

Research Proposal 4
Research Proposal on how to Increase Marketability of Tony Bianco Shoe Brand in
Australian Market
1. Introduction
All businesses, regardless of the sector or industry require appropriate or quality marketing to
enable their services and products become common to customers and attract investors. They
make assurance of providing every embracing correspondence in standards expansion via
working practices innovation in marketing. It is therefore necessary to conduct a research so as
determine the most appropriate approach a business can employ to enhance products and
services marketable features. Such are features that deal with comprehensive and conform to the
correct statutes of profitable, social, trustworthy and lawful aspects which are environmentally
conscious. This article proposes and research to be undertaken for the aforementioned purpose
while highlighting the best procedure Tony Bianco fashion footwear should adopt to increase
marketability of its brand. Firstly, there is a keen glance on the prior conducted studies and
research on the topic thus drafting a literature review to make the researchers gain awareness on
what issues to concentrate on during their research. It points out on decisions the shoe company
is expected to make as regards marketability of a Tony Bianco brand and the impact of the
research. A research design that is deemed most appropriate to the kind of research intended is
proposed as well with all procedures highlighted step by step. The article does not end without
discussion of the ethical issues to be observed during the research as well as stipulated the
anticipated time frame of the research.

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2. Background
The management of a product or service involves a wide scope of management practices. It
ranges from the period there is a new ideology for a product to finally offering a continuing
support to clients and purchasers of the new service or product. Each organization carries out a
product development. It might be done intentionally or happen unintentionally. This research
proposal focuses on broad overview of considerations in product management and development.
This includes activities such as branding preference which attracts both the customers and
investors who have interests in the product. The target market of Tony Bianco is women and
mostly the young ones who like designer and trendy shoes. The development or management of
a product is highly dependent on the nature of the management system of the organization. It is
important to note that different individuals possess different activities categorization. That is why
it is important to conduct a research in order to determine the best and productive approaches in
making a product or services marketable. The trading approach on communication is necessary
to improve the marketable features of services and products. Features are essential since the
offers customers with hints on how a certain product or service will be able to deliver its
benefits. Even if benefits are more important than features in general, at times features can make
all the difference. Due to the mergence and flooding of shoe companies in Australian market,
Tony Bianco has been compelled to up their game through provision of creative and unique
feature on their product thus the reason for thus study.
3. Managers’ Problem
Tony Bianco’s management is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that their shoes
conform to the current market need and trends. If there is no conformity with the current market

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trends, customers might opt for alternative products in the same line of business. This can greatly
affect the revenue and profits of an organization as there is no one to sell their products to. If no
sales are made there is no generation of income and eventually the business might end up
shutting down. That is why it is important for the management of to develop correct approaches
and strategy of ensuring the product is in the best marketable condition. After this research, the
shoe line will be able to have their products in the best and presentable condition, including
labeling, branding and features making fashionable women opt for them instead of other
competing brands such as Alias Mae, Jaggar Footware and Wittner. Various shoes vendors will
also be attracted to the brand due its high rate of moving off the shelf.
4. Literature Review
This literature review aims at presenting current knowledge on the present management
issue. It is carried out on the basic disciplines of product or service development to make
marketable and appealing to the customer. According to Steve Olenski, (Aug 29, 2017) it is more
challenging for small or starting brands to make their product or service marketable than it is for
larger established brands. The more a person continues to explore the literature the more they
realize that the said larger and established brands are usually guilt of complacency (Baker, et. al.,
2015). From different sorts of archived literature, it is evident that prior research and study has
realized some of the essential elements that make a product or service appealing to the clientele
base outside there.

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4.1. Form a consistent brand image
A brand image that is consistent assists customers to recognize an organizations products
and services as soon as possible (Gitter, 2014). The brand image can turn out to be anything that
a business posts online or offline including such things as paid advertisements, posts on social
media platforms, blog articles, packaging of the product, website design, and flyers and
brochures. Numerous factors can be an influence to the image of the brand from fonts and colors
chosen to once content tone. The consistent image can be used to enhance brand awareness that
drives engagement and render a brand more marketable.
4.2. Adoption of Realistic and Relevant KPIs
Amid key performance indicators, a business will not have the knowledge of the sort of
metrics to track it as it pursues advertising and marketing efforts. For instance, managers in
younger entities/businesses might need to track key performance indicators such as cost per lead
and conversion rates while brands that are more established might find more value, inbound
marketing return, and traffic-to-lead ratio on investments.
Once the management is aware of their business KPIs, they should religiously track them.
Adjustments that are deemed to move the needle in the right direction as a brand becomes more
marketable are worth making. For example, specific statistics like a higher customer rate of
retention might be marketing tools by themselves.
In addition, management is expected to let key performance indicators evolve as the
business continues to grow. As the business wins more clientele base and stock keeping units in
the entire market, it can consider shifting towards new metrics. KPIs which are more advanced

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like NPS (net promoter score), can assist in making a decision on where to concentrate marketing
efforts.
4.3. Expound business boundaries
The business might not be reaching an audience that is not wide enough. For example, in
case much of the efforts in marketing revolve such or general marketing, management should
consider branching into outbound or even social media marketing. Through the development of
content for a new channel, an entrepreneur gains the opportunity to present their brand to a
different new audience. For example, one’s friends on Facebook may not be their followers on
Instagram and Twitter accounts and the vice versa is true. Management should make a keynote
on their reach expansion to upgrade market share and visibility of the brand.
4.4. Develop Appealing Narratives
Telling appealing stories about a brand can make it more marketable. It transforms an
emotionless brand to an empire followed by real people. Begin with the business’s corporate
“about” page. Tell the audience how the brand t started, its founders and the reason behind
starting the business. Develop narratives into different pieces of content as well. Opt-in soliciting
user-generated content from influencers and customers. Allow them to put their experiences in
their own words (Mattson, 2012). Testimonials and other kinds of social proof can provide the
marketing campaign with some teeth and offer an opportunity for it to spread faster.
4.5. Embracing Corporate Social Responsibility
In the present day, consumer desire to get engaged with companies which are socially
responsible. A brand can be differentiated from the competition with corporate social

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responsibility through different them (Davis, 2018). Some the practical activities include provide
improved work-life benefits for the staff, supporting local charities, try to keep the environment
within which it operates clean and green and ensuring that those policies are known.
Some organizations host volunteer weekends with their staff and sponsor youth sports
team in the locality. Think of posting pictures in social media platforms. For example, in case of
a voluntary service with the staff, the group can take a shot and post it online before starting the
work. Nevertheless, consumers of today have become overly smart (Healey, 2011). They have
the ability to detect untrue CSR. Therefore, the management should focus their efforts in
maintaining advertisement legitimate CSR.
4.6. Summary
It is not very complicate to make a brand more if the management is committed to it. All
that is required for them is to formulate a good plan before. With the awareness on the way to
enhance marketability it is possible to track relevant metrics and make adjustments as the
business progresses. By going through the history of research and recorded literature on the
issues, it is determined that all mechanisms of increasing the marketability of a brand are not
exhausted or rather realized. Therefore, this research proposal suggests a research that is aimed at
revealing more ways to increasing marketability of a brand and providing managers with
appropriate approaches to develop and implement them.
5. Research Design and Method
After literature review completion, it is evident that there is the necessity for two-phase
research design. The reason is the nature of the research objective and targeted market should be

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further specified prior to employment of any descriptive designs. Therefore, the proposed
research design will be categorized into an exploratory phase and later the descriptive phase.
5.1. Exploratory Phase – first stage
The research will initially start with exploratory stage, since influential dimensions will be
examined prior to targeting of the descriptive research properly. Thus, the first stage should
diagnose the dimensions the dimensions influencing attitudes towards preference and choice of
brands. This will enable an efficient following descriptive research. Qualitative data regarding
attitudes, opinions, and feelings by consumers towards specific brands is necessary for collection
to clearly understand the issue. Thus, this initial staged is employed as a concept tester
examining the perception toward marketability of a product. It should be noted that exploratory
research provides indications that cannot be generalized. Therefore, the hypothesis developed in
this stage should be examined with the application of descriptive design of research.
5.2. Descriptive phase – stage 2
The main objective of the descriptive phase of research is to examine the hypothesis derived
from the prior stage, to build an outcome that can be generalized (Buchbinder, 2013). Therefore
the reason for the second phase is to point out and define partial variables influencing the
capacity of management to develop a service or product brand that is highly marketable. So in
this phase it will be describe specific issues particularly identified which are well suited by the
descriptive design. Additionally, a descriptive design will enable managers to apply the results in
making valuable decisions regarding the marketability Tony Bianco brand. Before starting the
hypothesis, it will be necessary to gather conclusions from the exploratory phase. Therefore, in
this research proposal there will be no further consideration of the descriptive stage.

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5.3. Methodology
Questionnaires and interviews are considered as the most appropriate method to conduct this
survey (Cervone, 2010). It is important to derive first information from the managers, business
owners, and current and potential customers of different brands. This will enable the researcher
to understand the reason why customers prefer certain brands over the other in the open market.
It will also be possible to determine what approaches managers are using to render their shoes
marketable and the form of challenges they encounter while trying to do so.
5.3.1. Notes for Quality Market Research Questionnaire
 Conduct the research outside the clientele base - It is valuable to get the consumer
fulfillment feedback from the presently existing customers. However, for expansion of
the audience and the will be need for opinions from people outside the clientele base.
Find different individuals to interview and respond to questionnaires. This might lead to
realization of other issues that no one thought of before. Instead of only focusing on
women who where their shoes, men and older women can also be question on what they
think of the brand, and how they perceive women who where them.
 Be specific – start with demography study of direct customer such as shoe wearers and
vendors. This mighty target a particular audience or groups but ensure that the questions
have features that can go diverse.
 Be broad – interrogate workers from other shoe manufacturers to get a wide scope of the
problem solving in different dimensions. Go for the customers of these different brands
as well. Collect as much information as possible and try to found out if there are different
preferences for different shoes and how they are impacted by marketability.

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Given the three months time frame provided to conduct the research, there is no need to
overspend to get answers. The researcher is required to take advantage of the smart cost-effective
tools. For instance, survey monkey audience offers an opportunity to reach millions of
respondents willing to respond to the questions posed. Make sure that the efforts are possibly
effective to enable reaching out to the target market.
5.3.2. Segmentation of the Interview or Questionnaire
Satisfaction to customers
Find out the extent to which customer are satisfied with by use of different other brands.
Ask what they would prefer done better for the products and services they do not like. Learn
about consumer experience by asking questions such as “what appeals you to another shoe line?”
and is it likely for to recommend your supplier to others?
Product and service development
Some of the businesses have a great ideology for particular service or product. But
competing with other brands is in the management is challengeable. Regardless of the services
and products quality and efficiency over others in the market they might still lag behind due to
their poor marketability. Apply relevant researchers research questions to get the participants
explain how likely they are to reuse Tony Bianco shoes and if not or yes, why? Or, what would
make them opt for upcoming shoe designs?
Demographics
Income, age, and gender of the consumers and the target audience of a particular business
are the characteristics which lead to its development successfully and marketing of their product