Project Proposal: Evaluating Online Media in Purchase Decisions

This project proposal investigates the effectiveness of online media in influencing consumer purchase decisions, specifically focusing on the behavior of consumers who purchase from Charles & Keith. The research aims to determine the impact of online media on consumer purchase intent, shopping behavior, and sales, examining the role of brand awareness and recognition. The study poses research questions to explore these impacts and outlines personal learning objectives related to enhancing research skills and understanding brand influence. A literature review covers changes in consumer behavior due to the internet, the impact of brand awareness, electronic word-of-mouth, social media's role, and the trustworthiness of online information sources. The proposed methodology involves a survey of 100 participants using random sampling to gather primary data. The survey questionnaire will be sent via email, and participants will be required to complete a consent form. The proposal also acknowledges potential research challenges and emphasizes the use of authentic sources to maintain credibility.

Running Head: PROJECT PROPOSAL 1
Project Proposal

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Purpose of the Project
The purpose of the project is to identify the effectiveness of the online media in the consumer
purchase decision. The present research will identify the consumer behavior, purchase intent and
shopping behavior of the consumers working in Charles and Keith. It is a Singapore-based
company which sells fast-fashion footwear and accessories to the customers. The company is
spread across various countries in Asia, Middle-East, Europe, Latin America and Africa (Charles
& Keith, 2018).
Research Questions
With the advent of internet, several small and medium enterprises have emerged which have
increased the competition in the marketplace. In this situation, it is important that the
organizations focus on developing strategies which can convert the potential leads to sale
(Gordon, 2014). The present research study will examine the impact of brand awareness in
increasing the sales of the organization. The research questions of the study will be framed as:
 What is the impact of online media in the consumer purchase decision? Does online media increase the sales of the organization?
Personal Learning Objectives
The research project will be beneficial in increasing the sales of organization. The research
project will be beneficial in increasing the knowledge regarding the impact of the brand
awareness and brand recognition of the organization in the consumer purchase decision. In
addition to it, the research will also enhance my research skills. The process of research requires
extensive patience and punctuality; therefore, I will practice to engage in extensive labor.

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Literature Review
In the perception of Chen, Teng, Yu, & Yu (2015), in the last decade, the purchase behavior of
the consumers have undergone a lot of change. It is considered that the arrival of internet has
changed the manner in which the consumers conduct research on the business organizations. In
order to make a well-informed decision, the customers can interact with the online chat rooms,
forums, or they can visit the manufacturer website for more brand related information. Moreover,
the type and the source through which the brand-related information is collected will have a
significant role in the purchase decision of the customers. In order to develop efficient brand
strategies, the brand managers should identify the usefulness of different types of brand
information and the impact of this information in the purchase decisions of the consumers. In the
present, electronic-word of mouth and third party information can influence the purchase
decision of the purchase intent of the consumers.
However, Scheinbaum (2012) has suggested that the perceived information exchange in
electronic environment as untrustworthy. Some consumers rely more on consumer exchange as it
is less susceptible to the commercial motives. The recommendations from the company’s agents
which are based on the consumer’s desired utility and functions reduce the search efforts of the
consumers. However, if the agents are not believable or autonomous, they can give biased
reviews and result in bias in decision-making of the consumers. In addition to it, there are several
information sources which are not perceived as trustworthy by the consumers.
In the perception of Schivinski, & Dabrowski (2016), today, nearly everyone has a social media
account and use social media to share their information. With the growing number of internet
users, it has become necessary for the communication managers to understand the online
consumer behavior. The consumers are proactively using the social media websites for the

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information exchange and spending more time on this rather than on the traditional broadcast
media (television, radio and newspapers).
According to Kubacki (2014) social media sites have transformed the traditional one-way
communication and adapted it into multi-dimensional, two-way, peer-to-peer communication.
The social media platforms increases the opportunity of the organization to interact with their
consumers and consumers to interact with other consumers. Therefore, the business
organizations are not the only source of brand communication. The traditional brand
communication was controlled by administrators and marketing managers; however, it is now
shaped by the consumers.
In the views of Huang & Sarigöllü (2014), brand awareness can be defined as the phenomenon in
which the consumers can recall or identify the brand. The brand awareness is interlinked with the
brand equity. The brand name is an important asset as the consumers can link the brand
knowledge with the brand name which results in brand equity. The most significant aspect of the
brand equity is that it provides learning advantage for the consumers. While making the purchase
decision, the consumers give priority to the brands about which they have prior knowledge.
Therefore, brand awareness can increase the performance of the brand in the marketplace.
However, there is little research on the brand awareness of the organization.
As per the views of Boone & Kurtz (2015) is significant association between the brand
awareness and the consumer decision making. The consumers use the brand awareness as a
significant criteria in the purchase decision. A well-known brand is more likely to perform better
in the market. There are significantly higher chances that a consumer will select a well-known
brand rather than a significantly lesser-known brand. In the present times, there are high chances
that the incidental encounters with the brand and the frequency of the encounter will increase the

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probability that the consumer will select the brand. However, in B2B environment, high
corporate brand awareness does not result in direct sales. However, the brand awareness and the
market performance are directly related. There are also other factors such as shopping
environment, product placement, and the promotion which can increase the outcomes at the
market.
According to Xie & Lee (2015), social media advertising is quite different from the traditional
media sources as it assist the communication between the firms and between the consumers. As
per the social media activity, the social media messages can be divided into earned social media
and owned social media messages. The earned social media refers to the social media activities
which are related to specific brand which are not generated by the brand owner or his associates.
The marketing actions can enhance the social media activity; however, they are not the main
generator. The owned social media activity is generated by the brand owner and they can
enhance control over social media activity.
In the views of Lake (2009), interactive nature of the social media can enhance the earned and
owned social activities which can scale up the brand and the associated publicity around the
brand. However, the relative effectiveness of marketing efforts through earned and owned social
media activities is not yet analyzed. According to Evans (2010) has also highlighted that the
consumers receiving the brand related information from social sources are more likely to have
purchase intent rather than the customers who have received the brand related information from
the traditional sources. The consumer generated earned social media is also called electronic
word-of-mouth has a high impact on the consumer purchase behavior.
Ioannides (2012), highlights that effective marketing efforts requires aligning different marketing
methods and advertising channels which can increase the effectiveness of the promotion on the

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purchase decision of the consumers. The marketing channels as well as marketing methods such
as sales, diffusion and the consumer acquisition are essential in effective marketing methods.
The study supports the theory of planned behavior in which the people respond to the
information signals and proceed to different stages of brand awareness and knowledge building.
The uninformed customers respond to the information signals, proceed to the stage in which they
are informed of the product and at last they purchase the product online. The literature has
highlighted that the brand awareness is a result of the social media activity of the organization.
Lu, Chang, & Chang (2014) have discussed the phenomenon of blog posts on the consumer
purchase behavior. As per the literature, the blog posts refers to a form of consumer review
which discusses the benefits and promote the products on their personal blog. However, most of
the countries have made the market regulations in which the market sponsorship has to be
revealed in the blog posts. Therefore, sponsored blog posts would not be able to conceal the
marketing intent of the posts. Kubacki (2014) has discussed the attitude of the consumers
towards the sponsored recommendations. Therefore, analyzing the intent of the consumers
towards the sponsored posts is essential in assessing the effectiveness of the marketing efforts.
The result of the literature highlights that if the products promoted in the blog posts have high
brand awareness, then the consumers have high purchase intent towards the product.
Sources of Data
The data collection methods are an integral part of the research study. It refers to the methods
which are used to collect data from different sources for the research study. The data collection
sources can be categorized as primary sources and secondary sources. The primary sources are
the sources in which the data is directly collected by the researcher. The researcher collects the
data directly for the research study. The research data is collected for the research; therefore, it is

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expensive in nature. There are various methods of data collection through the primary methods.
It includes survey, interview, questionnaire method or observation. In contrary to it, there are
several sources in which the researcher utilizes the data collected previously (Freisen, 2010). It
refers to the data collected through company’s annual report, CSR report, newspaper
publications and through internet. These methods are cost-effective as well as the data can be
collected easily through them. The timeline of data collection process also significantly reduces
as all the data is previously available in the internet sources.
The data collection methods can also be categorized as qualitative methods and quantitative
methods. The qualitative methods refers to the methods in which the information collected us
qualitative in nature. This information cannot be represented or denoted by numerical methods.
The information collected through interview or observation methods is qualitative in nature
(Walliman, 2010).
The quantitative data collection methods refers to those methods in which the information can be
presented through statistical methods. The survey or questionnaires are the quantitative data
collection methods.
Proposed Methodology
In the present research, the researcher will use the survey method to collect primary data. It is a
convenient, cost-effective and easy method. The survey method is used to identify the impact of
brand awareness and digital media marketing strategies on the purchase decision of the
customers.
A survey questionnaire is developed to obtain the responses of the interview candidates. The
survey is conducted with the online customers so that their intent and factors affecting their

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purchase decision can be identified. The survey will be conducted with 100 research participants.
The research participants will be selected with the help of random sampling. It is the easiest
sampling method in which each member of sampling population has equal chances of being
selected in the survey (Skinner, Edwards & Corbett, 2014). The sample represents the
characteristics of the entire population. It represents the entire population and each member of
the population has equal chances of being chosen.
The survey questionnaire will be sent with the help of email to the survey participants. The
survey participants will be the consumers of the Charles & Keith. The survey participants will
have to fill a consent form in which they shows that they agree to the research. The research
participants have to fill the consent form and send it with the survey questionnaire. The survey
questionnaire will be sent on the email addresses of the respondents. A specific time window will
be decided and the participants have to fill the form and send it within the time window.
Challenges in Research
Research requires extensive hard work and time investment. However, there are several
challenges which can jeopardize the credibility and authenticity of the research work. In order to
maintain the credibility of the research work, the researcher has assured that he will obtain the
information from the authentic sources such as journal articles, books and renowned magazines.
Unreliable sources such as Wikipedia and blog articles will be avoided. Moreover, the researcher
will also try to protect the personal information of the research participants. The personal
information as well as email IDs of the research participants will not be revealed (Benedetti,
Piersimoni, Bee & Espa, 2010).

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There are also several challenges in conducting a successful survey. The first challenge is that
the response rate of the survey is declining over the years. Moreover, obtaining a distribution list
of the respondents is quite difficult (Skinner, Edwards & Corbett, 2014). There can also be issues
with the designing of the questionnaire. Several times the questions are misleading, the questions
can be long or the questions are not capable of answering the research questions.
Outline of the Chapters
In order to successfully implement the research, the researcher should conduct the research in
parts. In this regard, the research study is divided into five chapters so that the complete research
can be presented in a clear and concise manner. The chapters of the research are discussed in the
below section:
1. Introduction: In the introduction chapter, the researcher will give the background
information of the research subject. It will discuss the background to the problem,
research questions and the aims and objective of the research.
2. Literature Review: The literature review is a significant chapter of the research study and
discusses all the current knowledge pertaining to the research subject. In the literature
review, the researcher discusses all the current knowledge of the field of the research
subject. The researcher synthesizes all the current knowledge in the field of the research
subject and present them to the reader. Literature review is important tin understanding
all the relevant advancements in the research topic. It is also important in understanding
the potential gaps in the current knowledge and the research topics.
3. Research Methodology: The research methodology discusses all the potential methods,
tools and technologies which will be send in the research. The research methodology

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discusses all the relevant tools and practices and then selects he most appropriate one for
the research.
4. Data Collection and Analysis: In this chapter, the research collects the data from different
sources, interpret them and present them to the reader. The obtained data is analyzed
through different data analysis methods.
5. Conclusion: In this chapter, the researcher concludes the research.
Expected Schedule
It is proposed that the research will be completed in five months. The proposed research will be
submitted in April 2018. Determining the timeline of the research is important for the researcher
as it assists the researcher to complete the research in logical and coherent manner.
Activities/Months Dec 2017 Jan 2018 Feb 2018 March 2018 Apr 2018
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Data Collection
Conclusion

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References
Benedetti, R., Piersimoni, F., Bee, M., & Espa, G. (2010). Agricultural Survey Methods. John
Wiley & Sons.
Boone, L.E., & Kurtz, D.L. (2015). Contemporary Marketing. Cengage Learning.
Charles & Keith. (2018). About us. Retrieved 23 January 2018 from
http://www.charleskeith.com/sg/
Chen, J., Teng, L., Yu, Y., & Yu, X. (2016). The effect of online information sources on
purchase intentions between consumers with high and low susceptibility to informational
influence. Journal of Business Research 69, 467-475.
Evans, D. (2010). Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day. John Wiley & Sons.
Freisen, B.K. (2010). Designing and Conducting Your First Interview Project. John Wiley &
Sons.
Gordon, B. (2014). Computer-Mediated Marketing Strategies: Social Media and Online Brand
Communities: Social Media and Online Brand Communities. IGI Global.
Huang, R., & Sarigöllü, E. (2014). How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand
equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132).
Springer New York.
Ioannides, D. (2012). Social Media in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality: Theory, Practice and
Cases. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Kubacki, K. (2014). Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old: Proceedings of
the 2013 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Springer.

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Kubacki, K. (2014). Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old: Proceedings of
the 2013 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Springer.
Lake, L. (2009). Consumer Behavior For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
Lu, L. C., Chang, W. P., & Chang, H. H. (2014). Consumer attitudes toward blogger’s sponsored
recommendations and purchase intention: The effect of sponsorship type, product type, and
brand awareness. Computers in Human Behavior, 34, 258-266.
Scheinbaum, A.C. (2012). Online Consumer Behavior: Theory and Research in Social Media,
Advertising and E-tail. Routledge.
Schivinski, B., & Dabrowski, D. (2016). The effect of social media communication on consumer
perceptions of brands. Journal of Marketing Communications, 22(2), 189-214.
Skinner, J., Edwards, A., & Corbett, B. (2014). Research Methods for Sport Management.
Routledge.
Thyer, B. (2010). The Handbook of Social Work Research Methods. SAGE.
Walliman, N. (2010). Research Methods: The Basics. Routledge.
Xie, K., & Lee, Y. J. (2015). Social media and brand purchase: Quantifying the effects of
exposures to earned and owned social media activities in a two-stage decision making
model. Journal of Management Information Systems, 32(2), 204-238.