Research Proposal

MA (Top-up)

Research Proposal

Research Title: A study on the impact of social media

marketing on brand awareness

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 3
1.1Introduction .................................................................................................................. 3
1.2 Background ................................................................................................................ 3
1.3 Research Problem/Rationale ........................................................................................ 4
1.4 Research Aims and Objectives ..................................................................................... 4
1.5 Research questions....................................................................................................... 5
1.6 Significance of the proposed study............................................................................... 5
2.0 Literature Review ............................................................................................................ 6
2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 6
2.2 Social Media Marketing ............................................................................................... 6
2.3 Brand awareness .......................................................................................................... 7
2.3.2 Factors that affect on a business's brand awareness ................................................... 8
2.5 Impact of social media marketing on business brand awareness ................................... 8
3.0 Research Methodologies................................................................................................ 10
3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 10
3.2 Research paradigm..................................................................................................... 10
3.3 Types of investigation ................................................................................................ 10
3.4 Data sources .............................................................................................................. 11
3.5 Data collection method ............................................................................................. 11
3.6 Sampling Method ...................................................................................................... 11
3.7 Data Analysis Method................................................................................................ 12
3.8 Accessibility Issues .................................................................................................... 12
3.9 Ethical issues ............................................................................................................. 12
3.10 Research limitation .................................................................................................. 13
3.11Research Timetable................................................................................................... 13
References .......................................................................................................................... 14

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1.0 Introduction
1.1Introduction

The chapter introduces the research topic, where the topic is " A study on the impact of social
media marketing on brand preferences". The chosen case study of this research is Holiday
Inn. This is grouped into a several sections. In the second section, the research background is
outlined, following the research problem/rational in the third section. In the fourth section,
research aims an objectives are defined, including the research questions in the section five.
Finally, the significance of the research is discussed in the sixth section.

1.2 Background

Gaining an improved brand awareness has been a challenging issue for the hospitability
industry including Holiday Inn. Brand awareness refers to the extent to which a business's
brand is recognized by target as well as potential consumers (Palmer, 2014), and perfectly
associated with specific product or service. Brand awareness is mainly disclosed as
percentage of target market (Kotler et al., 2014). On the other hand, the endless fading of
social media marketing is getting more popularity in current digital world than ever before to
improve awareness According to Blackwell and Engel (2013), Social media marketing is the
process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media
marketing programs usually emphasizes on efforts to create content that attracts attention and
encourages readers to share it across their social networks, which support to increase
company awareness However, in the challenging and competitive market environment many
marketers including Holiday Inn has still now vague idea about effectiveness of social media
marketing on brand awareness (Makkar, 2011).

Holiday Inn is facing challenges from the brand management point of view, where the key
problems are image problem, product perception issue, and competitive weaknesses. As a
result, Holiday Inn must improve its brand image and change the erroneous perception which
if offers fewer amenities (like in-room restaurant service, kids staying free, reward points,
etc.) than competitive hotel (Holiday Inn Annual Report, 2015).

There is evidence that social media marketing can play an important role in creasing brand
awareness among the target customers (Shimp, 2013). As a result, the proposed study will
conduct a research on the social media marketing and its effectiveness on the brand
awareness in the perspective of Holiday Inn. Then, the study will suggest Holiday Inn on

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how it can effectively uses social media as marketing tool to attract wider range of customers
and improve awareness.

1.3 Research Problem/Rationale

Improving brand awareness is one of the key issues for any marketers including Holiday Inn
(Bolton et al., 2012). Marketers use several marketing techniques to meet this particular
objective, where social media plays a significant role (Kotler et al., 2014). However, many
businesses including Lancaster London are often hesitating to adopt this marketing tool in
their business (Munoz and Wood, 2015). Thus, the question is raised by marketers including
Holiday Inn as "how can social media be used for developing effective marketing strategies
and to improve brand awareness?" (Holiday Inn Annual Report, 2014).

Developing effective marketing plans and formulating right marketing strategies depend on
the target customers’ needs and expectations (Kotler et al., 2014). UK Net Citizen Report
(2014) shows that 98% of young people aged 20-40 use social media where only 44% of
total social media users show attraction towards particular brand getting information through
social media ads (UK Net Citizen Report, 2014). On the other hand, as Zhu and Chen (2015)
notes, almost 70% of businesses have been using the social media as marketing tools in
current business world, which has increased their sales revenue more than 120%. However,
many companies including Holiday Inn is facing problem in identifying the needs of the
customers through social media marketing campaigns. Thus, improving the effectiveness of
social media marketing has been key issue for Holiday Inn to improve its brand awareness
(Holiday Inn Annual Report, 2014).

1.4 Research Aims and Objectives

1.4.1 Aims

The study will assess and analyze the impact of social media as marketing technique on brand
awareness in the perspective of Holiday Inn. Then, the study will provide recommendations
for the Holiday Inn on how it can improve its brand awareness through social media
marketing tool.

1.4.2 Objectives

1. To assess the social media marketing tools applied by the Holiday Inn in improving brand
awareness

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2. To analyze the factors affecting brand awareness in hotel industry

3. To assess the impact of social medias as marketing tools on brand awareness in the
perspective of Holiday Inn

4. To identify the weaknesses of Holiday Inn in the usages of social media as marketing
tools in improving awareness

4. To recommend Holiday Inn to improve its social media marketing strategies in such a way
that can improve its brand awareness.

1.5 Research questions

a) How is Holiday Inn using social media marketing techniques to improve its brand
awareness?

b) What factors do impact on brand awareness in hotel industry?

c) How social media as marketing tool is impacting the brand awareness of Holiday Inn

d) What are the issues faced by Holiday Inn in improving its brand awareness through social
media?

e) How Holiday Inn can overcome its weakness in social media marketing for improving
brand awareness?

1.6 Significance of the proposed study

The proposed study will be significant for both the hospitable industry including Holiday Inn,
and the researchers. The hospitability industry including Holiday Inn will benefited through
understanding the tools and techniques of social media used in marketing purpose in the
industry which will support Holiday Inn to take effective initiatives to improve its social
media marketing performance and increase brand awareness among the potential and target
customers. On the other hand, the researcher will be benefitted in improving research and
interpersonal skills through conducting this academic research work.

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2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

Literature reviews is the process of studying and critically analyzing the current theories and
models developed by previous theorists, researchers, and experts on the research topic and
subject matters (Saunders et al., 2012). This chapter conduct a study on the literature of the
research topic, where the study mainly focuses on two variable defined in the topic: social
media as marketing tool (independent variable) and brand awareness (dependent variable). In
the first section, the chapter emphasizes on the literature of independent variable (social
media as marketing tool). In the second section, the chapter focuses on the literature of
dependent variable (brand awareness). Finally, the chapter has developed a conceptual
framework of the research.

2.2 Social Media Marketing

2.2.1 What is Social Media?

Social media refers to the group of online communication channels which are devoted and
dedicated for interaction, community based input, collaboration, and content sharing. The
common social media applications and websites are social networking (such as Facebook,
Twitter, Linkedln), social carnation, social bookmarking, micro-blogging, forums, and wikis
(Kaplan and Haenlein, 2015). Social Media use web 2.0 technology as well as internet
(Mashable, 2014). In this age of globalization, millions of people across the world are using
social media nowadays. More than 20 million people are using only Facebook, where billion
of videos are uploading in YouTube in a single year (Mashable, 2014). Therefore, most of the
modern business organizations are nowadays are trying to use this social media as the
marketing tool improve their brand awareness.

2.2.2 How Social Media is effective in business

Global Web Index Report (2014) discloses that social media as marketing tool is going to be
more effective than ever before in the improvement of brand awareness of business. The top
ten social media which are widely recognized as the effective marketing tools are Facebook,
Google, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedln, Tumblr, Mysapces, Badoo, Pinterest, Instagram.
Among these ten tools, Facebook is the most effective one, which has more than 20 million
users at this moment, where Google reach the second position, and Twitter gains third
position.

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Diagram: Top ten social media used in the world Source: socialmediaexaminer.com (2014)

The study discloses that the use of social media increased by more than 60% in the last two
years, which cross more than 1000 million of users in the globe. The use of social media also
increased in different age group of people across the world, where the age group from 25-45
is using the social media most in the buying and selling purposes (Social Media Examiner
Report, 2015). The different age groups and their social media usages is shown in the
diagram below:

Chart: Social media users by age groups Source: globalwebindex.net (2014)

2.3 Brand awareness

2.3.1 What is brand awareness?

As Palmer (2012) notes, brand awareness refers to the extent which is gained by a specific
organization in a certain time periods. Kotler et al. (2014) said brand awareness is defined by
undertaking a business visits by consumers over a specified periods and dividing that
customer numbers by the same time periods. This measurement is mainly used to gain an idea
on how potential customers prefer the brand in the competitive market.

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2.3.2 Factors that affect on a business's brand awareness

According to Kotler et al. (2012) notes, four key factors impact on a business brand
awareness, which are cultural factors, social factors, personal factors, and psychological
factors. Oakes (2014) sates that there are five key factors which affect brand awareness : 1)
business itself: customers first look at what the business and its competitors offer. When
customers see that the business is offering better than the competitors, then they decide to buy
otherwise not (Oakes, 2014); 2) external factors: several external issues like political, social,
economic, environmental, technological issues and legal issues influence the purchasing
decisions made by customers (Leon and Joseph, 2013); 3) nowadays customers look for
simplicity when go to buy any products or services because simplicity same time and reduce
stress (Leon and Leslie, 2012); 4) opinion leaders from overseas countries can influence
customer buying behaviors in home country (Wayne, Hoyer and MacInnis, 2010); and 5)
online opinion: as billions of customers are buying products and services nowadays through
online mainly through mobile devices and social network sites, information provided about
products and services online can influence the customer buying behavior (Hawkins and
Mothersbaugh, 2012).

2.3.2 Impact of brand awareness on business performance

Aaker (2014) stated that improved brand awareness impact on business performance in
different ways. Firstly, brand awareness influences the current and the potential investors
because investors always keep eyes on relative competitiveness and company position, and
then they make decision to invest in. According to Blackwell and Engel (2012), if a business
can continue its brand awareness growth, it is able to gain an improved sales revenue and
profits. This means, as Palmer (2012) notes, the faster company gain an improved brand
awareness , the faster it can grow up its awareness In other word, as Kotler et al. (2014)
notes, increased brand awareness is the cause of grater scale of business operations and
profitability. Thus, marketers always try to increase their brand awareness and maximize their
total market size focusing on the demographics and potential customer characteristics,
products quality and prices, and through effective marketing and promotional tools usages.

2.5 Impact of social media marketing on business brand awareness

As a promotional strategy, social media marketing provides huge opportunity to create

product awareness as well as condition towards the minds of target and potential consumers

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and motivate them to purchase the products. The key mission of the social media marketers
is to attract target and potential customers and influence their awareness, attitudes and buying
behavior towards the products. According to a study conducted by Ayanwale et al. (2012) on
social media marketing discloses that, social media marketing has significant influence on
customers likeness and preference of products. Similar research done by Richard, Chebat
and Yang (2014) on the customers' internet experiences and web atmosphere reveals that
digital marketing including social media marketing, web 2.0 marketing, and mobile
marketing play an important role in improved customer engagement. Kotler et al. (2014)
stated that social media marketing impact on purchasing tendency and perceived time
pressure significantly, where price consciousness, product assortment, and conveniences
orientation are the key issues.

2.6 Conceptual Framework Development

Marketing through social Marketing through

networks like Facebook other social media

Holiday Inn Marketing

Attract Potential and Target

Customer

Improved brand preference

Figure: Conceptual framework developed

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3.0 Research Methodologies

3.1 Introduction

According to Saunders et al (2010), research methodology refers to the approaches of

undertaking a valid as well as reliable research. This chapter formulates methodologies for
the proposed study on the impact of social media marketing on business awareness First
section discuses the research philosophy and research approaches. Second section outlines the
research strategies, and the last section discusses the accessibility issues, ethical issues and
limitation of the study.

3.2 Research paradigm

According to Cohen et al. (2010), research paradigms explore the social phenomena in
nature and define the research variables related to the social phenomena in nature. Research
paradigms are classified into two groups: interpretive and positivism. Positivism paradigms
are the researcher's philosophical concepts, where researcher defines the participant’s
behaviors through observations. The interpretive paradigms define the social reality which is
viewed by participants through personal ideological opinions.

The proposed study will use both positivism and interpretive paradigms. Positivism
paradigms will be applied in survey to conduct empirical study on social media marketing.
Interpretive paradigms will be applied in interview to analyze qualitative data on the
effectiveness of social media marketing on awareness

3.3 Types of investigation

As Saunders et al. (2010) notes, a research work can generally be exploratory, descriptive,
explanatory, testing of hypothesis. Descriptive study is suit when researcher does not need to
change the environment in collecting data, which is called observational studies or co-
relational study. Exploratory study refers to the investigation of the issues which are
unknown to the researcher. Explanatory study refers to the investigation of the issues about
which researcher has initial knowledge and understanding (Saunders et al., 2010).

The proposed study will be descriptive, where the research work will create relationship
between the social media marketing and the brand awareness based on both primary and

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secondary data collected. Then, the study will evaluate how social media as marketing tool
effect brand awareness in Holiday Inn.

3.4 Data sources

Data sources mainly classified as primary sources and secondary sources, as Saunders et al.
(2015) notes.

In the proposed study both primary and secondary data sources will be utilize to collect the
required data. As primary data sources the survey and interview technique will be applied on
customers and management people of Holiday Inna respectively. On the other hand, for
collecting secondary Holiday Inn annual report, several websites, books and latest journals
related to the subject or research topic will be utilized.

3.5 Data collection method

As both qualitative and quantitative data are required to meet the proposed research aims and
objectives, both qualitative and quantitative data collection method will be applied in the
proposed study. The qualitative data will be collected through interview (primary data
source) conducted with the management people of Holiday Inn and from secondary data
sources (such as books, journals, website, annual reports, etc.). The quantitative data will be
collected through survey (primary data source) on the customers and from the secondary data
sources (like statically reports published by company or third parties). The quantitative data
will be analyzed to find out the effectiveness of social media marketing on the brand
awareness , and the qualitative data will be analyzed to justify whether any limitations in the
social media marketing of Lancaster in improving its awareness

3.6 Sampling Method

As Sunders et al. (2010) notes, sampling method is a tool which is used to conduct statistical
study on a particular group of participants or people. Sampling can be classified as
probability sampling or non-probability sampling. In probability sampling, all of the
participants have equal opportunity to share their opinions. where in non-probability
sampling the participant do not have equal opportunity to share their views (Nambisan and
Watt, 2011).

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Non-probability sampling technique will be applied in the proposed study. Following this
technique an interview will be conducted with five management people come from five
different branches of Holiday Inn . The non-probability quota sampling will be applied to
conduct survey on 50 customers, where participants will not equal opportunity and freedom
to express their opinions. Because of time limitation, the study will make smaller sampling
size. However, the effectiveness of the study will provide the valid and reliable data. The 50
target participants will be grouped as male (25) and female (25), where their age will be
grouped as 16-25, 26-35,36-45,46-55, 55+. In each group, it will be five men and five
women.

3.7 Data Analysis Method

Data analysis methods are the techniques of analyzing the collected data in the research work
(Saunders et al., 2010). The proposed study will use MS Excel Sheet and SPSS application to
analyze the quantitative data, and the thematic and content analysis tools with coding system
will be applied to analyze the qualitative data.

3.8 Accessibility Issues

Accessibility issues are the difficulties faced during the data collection by the researcher
during the research work (Griffin and Babin, 2012). In the proposed study, the researcher
might face challenges in collecting primary data because the participants might raise data
privacy issues and might not give the accurate and authentic data.

In these cases, researchers will make understand the research aims and objectives to the
potential participants, and convince them to participate in the research. Researcher will also
make sure that the proposed study will be harmful anyway for them, rather it will contribute
to the researcher's career.

3.9 Ethical issues

Ethical issues refers to the factors which are related to the ethics and behaviors of the
participants and respondent in a research work. In the proposed study, a number of issues will
come under ethical considerations. First, the data anonymity and confidentiality will be
ensured. Second, the stakeholder of the researchers will be informed before beginning the
research. Third, a comfortable environment will be created so that the participants feel free to

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share their opinions. Finally, participants will be given an opportunity to withdraw their
opinion within a certain time periods.

3.10 Research limitation

The proposed study might include a number of limitations. As the research will be finished
within short time periods, it might difficult for the researcher to collect the authentic data
which might raise questions of research validity and reliability. In addition, the research
might have imitated access to the recent journals related to the research subjects. Further, as
the researcher has limited analytical skills and IT knowledge, it data analysis in the proposed
study might be weak, which might raise questions against research reliability.

3.11Research Timetable

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References

Aaker, D. (2014) Building strong brands. 4th Ed. New York: Free Press

Blackwell, M and Engel, K. (2012) Consumer Behaviour. 10th Ed. Harlow: Thomson
Learning.

Dahl, S. (2015) Social media marketing. 3rd Ed. London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Kotler, P., Wong, V., Saunders, J. and Armstrong, G. (2014) Principles of Marketing. 8th
European Ed. London: Pearson Education Limited.

Holiday Inn (2015) Annual Report-2014. Available at: http://www.lancasterlondon.com/.

[Accessed on: 2 August 2016]

Leon, S. and Leslie, K. (2014) Customer buying behaviors. 10th Ed. Harlow: Sage
Publications

Leon, G. and Joseph, W. (2013) Consumer purchasing decision. 11th Ed. Harlow: Oxford
University press.

Makkar, U. (2015) Customer Relationship Management. Harlow: Tata McGraw-Hill

Munoz, C. and Wood, N. (2015) “Update Status: The State of Social Media Marketing
Curriculum”, Journal of Marketing Education, 37(2), pp. 88-103.

Zhu, Y. and Chen, H. (2015) “Social media and human need satisfaction: Implications for
social media marketing”, Business Horizons, 58(3), pp.335-345

Palmer, A. (2014) Principles of Marketing. 6th Ed. London: Oxford University Press.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2015) Research Methods for Business Students.
8th Ed. London: Prentice Hall

Singh, Y.K. and Bajpai, A.B. (2014) Research Methodology: Techniques and Trends” APH
Publishing Corporation Students. 6th Ed. Harlow: Prentice Hall

Tashakkori, A. and Teddlie, C., (2014) Mixed methodology: combining qualitative and
quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage.

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