Research proposal Online advertising activities

In domestic market, the increasing competition on Hanoi Ho Chi Minh route makes domestic airlines seek a way to introduce their products (flight timetable) to their target customers. An advertising program is considered successful when delivering clearly the message to the right customers with an acceptable cost. According to that trend, Vietnam Airlines has researched and continuously innovated its product (flight schedule, new aircraft modern) to suit the target customers. Besides, advertising activities on the benefits that new products bring to customers is also very necessary.

Student’s name: Truong Van Dung (Mr.) Teacher: Assoc Prof Dr Le Thi Lan Huong Topic: Online advertising activities on the route Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam Airlines Rationale Advertising has been always a very important tool of connecting people who want to sell something with ones who have the means to use those products or services Traces of advertising can be found even in ancient times and various ads were used in ancient Egypt, Babylon and Greece The development of media and high availability of media channels boosted advertising From 1704 when the first newspaper ad appeared till now, advertising messages have constantly developed into various interesting, original and even controversial issue After a year 2016 of many advantages, the world aviation market is going to face new difficulties such as political instability in European countries (between Russia and Ukraine), oil prices rise again The business situation of airlines are difficult The world airlines must find out the right solutions to cut costs, improve the efficiency of operating the fleet In domestic market, the increasing competition on Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh route makes domestic airlines seek a way to introduce their products (flight timetable) to their target customers An advertising program is considered successful when delivering clearly the message to the right customers with an acceptable cost According to that trend, Vietnam Airlines has researched and continuously innovated its product (flight schedule, new aircraft modern) to suit the target customers Besides, advertising activities on the benefits that new products bring to customers is also very necessary According to IATA report, Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh is in top five busiest routes on the world Lot of high revenue passenger who considering Vietnam Airlines’ target customer, usually flight between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh Research objectives The objectives of this research are as follows: - To identify the steps that create the advertising program Evaluating the effect of advertising campaign for innovation on the route Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh; - To evaluate the advertising program on the route Hanoi - Hochiminh City of VNA in order to find out the strengths and weakness of its advertising program Finding out the way to adjust ad campaign (if any); - To define the lessons learned and to propose solutions that improve the next advertising program on the route Hanoi - Hochiminh City of VNA Propose solution to improve the next ad campaign of Vietnam Airlines Research questions In this study, some important questions are given as below: - Message of advertising campaign awareness (how target customers understand about the campaign?) What are the steps that create the advertising program? - What is the situation (strengths, weaknesses) of the advertising program on the route Hanoi - Hochiminh City of VNA in 2016?How customer feel about frequency of Vietnam Airlines’ ad is it? Literature review Advertising has various roles in a business, among which the most important are: informing the potential target group (or target customer) about appearance of new product/service in order to persuade customer to buy some specific good or service A lot of research has been conducted in order to analyze or find out the effectiveness of advertising program “Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor” – Philip Kotler In order to measure the effectiveness of advertising activities of Vietnam Airlines, I will apply 5M model (Marketing management - Philip Kotler) Besides, research analyzing and evaluating Vietnam Airlines advertising campaigns can be reflected in two important aspects: Firstly, the performance of the advertising activity is determined by the level of awareness of the customer Secondly, in the thesis I measure the impact of the advertising on customer’s awareness and decide based on that which channel is more effective Teo etal (2003) proposes a research model in order to investigate the influences of interactivity level on web user’s attitude towards commercial websites Afterwards, the model has been tested and the results reveal that the increased level of interactivity has positive effects on web user’s perceived satisfaction, effectiveness, efficiency, value, and overall attitude towards on website In the article of Bezjizn-Avery et al (1998), the authors discuss that there are two ways that can measure the effectiveness of interactive media One of them is the persuasiveness of the media which indicates that whether consumers are positive in affect, preferences, and purchase intensions The research also provides practical suggestions on how to design effective online ads to fully utilize the advantages of the online medium Meanwhile, Dees W (2004) evaluated the effectiveness of commercial sponsorship which is one of marketing tools, of an elite intercollegiate football program by Cognition – Affect – Behavior model This model which was adapted from AIDA (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action) model and the Persuasive Hierarchy Model, allow the author to analyze the constructs of awareness, favorable disposition, goodwill, fan involvement, and purchase intentions The results of the study indicated that, with the exception of awareness, all of the constructs positively and significantly impacted consumers’ attitudinal and behavioral responses to commercial sponsorship By reviewing some previous research, it could be seen that a great number of researchers have discussed the subject of advertising management, from advertisers’ perspective However, this research tried to focus on how advertising management influences advertising effectiveness on the route Hanoi - Hochiminh City which could help VNA to draw lessons learned and plan to correct and complete the next advertising program Theoretical Framework 5.1 Concept of advertising Advertising is a central element of marketing communications mix program which allow firms to link their brands to other people, places, events, brands, experiences, feelings, and things However, advertising is defined differently by various authorities and the institutions dealing with its subject.: In the opinion of Motavali (1993), advertising is the demonstration of systematic process of appropriate information about goods and services to encourage and persuade buying behaviour of consumers Taflinger (1996) said that: "Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media." P Kotler (2006) and The American Marketing Association (AMA) defined advertising as “any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor” From these definitions, advertising can be generalized as a marketing vehicle and is useful for giving information, drawing the attention, creating awareness and influencing the buying behaviour of people (prospects) towards a particular product or service Thus by using advertising, firms can have strength in introducing new products or services, creating new demand, increasing the effectiveness of personal selling and building brand image, reducing cost of production and facing competition Moreover, the benefit of advertising are not limited for firms but also for consumer because of providing information and guidance, acting as a reminder, raising standards and the efficient product use and removing the misunderstanding There are types of advertising media which are presented in the following table: No Types of advertising media Examples Print Magazines, Newspapers, Journals, Periodicals, Broadcast Satellite TV Channels and Radios Non-broadcast Cinema, CCTV, local cable TV, Outdoor Hoardings or Billboards, Posters, Neon light sign board, Transit or vehicular Railways, Public transport buses and Tramps, The point of purchase Hangings on stores, Banners, Pamphlets, Stickers, Window Display, Painted signs, Specialty media Calenders, T-shirts, badges, caps, keychains, Diaries, Virtual media Online Blogs, forums, social media websites, email ads, Miscellaneous Direct mail advertising, Trolleys at the airport, Carts in departmental stores, Each advertising media has its unique features, merits, limitations and suitability so they can be used parallelly in a program Advertising management is a career path in the advertising industry Advertising managers may work for an agency, a PR firm, a media outlet, or may be hired directly by a company to develop branding for the company's product or service According to Zeinab (2014), advertising management incorporates various specialized subfunctions like media strategy, message strategy, media planning, media buying 5.2 Research framework Since advertising plays an important role in business, it is important to understand its effectiveness There are various models and theories that provide a framework for studying how advertising works 5.2.1 The 5Ms model The firms handle their advertising in different ways In small companies, advertising is handled by someone in the sales or marketing department, who works with an advertising ageny A large company will often set up its own advertising department or else hire an advertising agency to the job of preparing advertising programs However, evaluation and broad decisions need to be taken in regard to steps while organizing an advertising program These five steps are known as the “5Ms” of advertising: Mission, Money, Message, Media, and Measurement (Kotler and Keller 2008) Figure: 5Ms model of advertising Table: Checklist of the 5Ms model of advertising Dimensions Mission Money Message Media Checklist items  What are the objectives?  What is the key objective?  How much is it worth to reach my objectives?  How much can be spent?  What message should be sent?  Is the message clear and easily understood?  What media vehicles are available?  What media vehicles should be used? Measurement  How should the results be measured?  How should the results be evaluated and follow up? Evaluating the effectiveness of the advertising program is very important as it helps prevent further wastage of money and helps make corrections that are important for further advertisement campaigns Researching the effectiveness of the advertisement is the most used method of evaluating the effectiveness of the advertising program Research can be in the form of types that are communication-effect research and sales-effect research There are two ways of measuring advertising effectives including pre-testing and post-testing In this study, the author focused on the Measurement step by using post-testing combined with the analysis of the 5Ms implementation process in order to get the research objective above 5.2.1 Hierarchy of effectiveness model The hierarchy of effectiveness model has been proposed by Robert Lavidge and Gari Steriner in 1961, and has been applied as a widespread beneficial pattern for organizing and measuring the advertising objectives This pattern is consisting of six stages which indicate the hierarchy of responses and is known as “the hierarchy of effects pattern” These stages are as following: · Awareness · Knowledge · Liking · Preference · Conviction · Purchase 5.2.3 Traditional advertising vs online advertising (integrated marketing communication) => IMC tiến trình tích hợp công cụ marketing, truyền thông k phải model để đo lường! On the marketing field, there are two type of advertising: traditional advertising and online advertising Compared with traditional advertising, online advertising changes a lot, for instance, channels of communication, manifestation mode To determine exactly the level of customer awareness and the relationship between consumer’s behavior and effectiveness, the author will use the model below: Consumer’s behavior Conative Purchase Conviction Affective Cognitive Preference Liking Knowledge Effectiveness Conversion and conversion rate Frequency on search engine or online shops Hits on web of specific brand Click-through rate Interactive advertising, Hyperlink After looking into these two models above, the authors of this study find that there is a very close relationship between them; the most influential factor is interactivity Thus, in this paper, the author developed three main hypotheses describing the relationship between these two models and then tested hypothesis by questionnaires, aiming to find out how advertising management influences the effectiveness of advertising program on the route Hanoi - Hochiminh City of VNA H1: Good management will improve cognitive degree of consumer behavior H2: Good management will improve affective degree of consumer behavior H3: Good management will improve conative degree of consumer behavior 6.1 Research Methodology Research process This study will be researched with the following steps: Literature review & Secondary data In-depth interview & Survey by Questionnaire To indentify factors that may affect result of advertising campaign To find them result of advertising program in detail Suggestions for the next campaign Source: The author, 2017 6.2 Data collection: 6.2.1 Secondary data: The secondary data will be collected from both internal and external sources: - External source: Use the materials provided by market research companies, sources on the internet in order to find a right way to evaluate Vietnam Airlines’ advertising programs The result of online advertising (online channel); - Internal source: Annual reports of Vietnam Airlines in st quarter, 2017 compared with same period 2016 (information of turnover, revenue, market share…) Primary data: 6.2.2 The primary data for this study will be collected through in-depth interview and customer survey:  Customer survey: - Preparing questionnaire in order to find out my research objective; - Questionnaire distribution: Questionnaire will be delivered directly at the branch’s counters Totally 150 questionnaires will be sent directly at the counters of BIDV Thang Long => lý dó?  In-depth interview: will be used to make clear the result of customer survey => vấn ai? 6.3 Data analysis: The author will conduct exploratory data analysis Secondary data will be summarized by textual writing-up in tables Primary data collected from in-depth interview and survey will be captured and analyzed by SPSS EFA, Cronbach’s alpha, descriptive mean, and regression analysis will be used to analyze result of advertising program and customer awareness From those analyzed data, it will be able to draw some results Based on them, it will be possible to formulate some conclusions and recommendations for Scope of research - Research object: focus on the result of Vietnam Airlines’ advertising program and experience what will be apply on the next program of Vietnam Airlines - Geographical scope of this research: The survey will be conducted through ticket agents and subsidiary of Vietnam Airlines throughout the country - Scope of time: survey will be conducted from November, 2016 - February, 2017 In-depth interview will be taken after finding out the draft result of survey Research structure - Chapter 1: Introduction + Overall advertising activities, definitions, roles and purposes of advertising; + Classifies kind of advertising; + Factors may affect result of advertising campaign; + Procedure of a standard advertising campaign - Chapter 2: Overview of Vietnam Airlines’ advertising campaign + Overview about Vietnam Airlines; + Domestic routes and the route between Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh; + Vietnam Airlines’ marketing activities, especially advertising activities - Chapter 3: Research finding of the result of Vietnam Airlines’ advertising campaign (innovation on the route between Ha Noi - Ho Chi Minh) + Traditional and online advertising channel; - Chapter 4: Recommendations to improve the result of the next Vietnam Airlines’ campaign REFERENCES Philip Kotler - “Marketing management, Millennium edition”, tenth edition (2000), custom edition for University of Phoenix; Philip Kotler - “A framework for marketing management” (2001); Dr Nguyen Thuc Anh - “Promotion and selling” (2016); For further reading on marketing organization, see Nigel Piercy, Marketing Organization: An Analysis of Information Processing, Power and Politics (London: George Allen &Unwin, 1985); Robert W.Ruekert, Orville C Walker, and Kenneth J Roerting, “The Organization of Marketing activities: A Contingency Theory of Structure and Performance” Kotler, Gregor, and Rodgers, “The Marketing Audit” For further discussion of this instrument, see Philip Kotler, “From Sales Obsession to Marketing Effectiveness”, Harvard Business Review, NovemberDecember 1977, pp 67-75 Asubonteng, P Mccleary, K.J., And Swan, J.E (1996) SERVQUAL Revisited: A Critical Review Of Service Quality The Journal Of Services Marketing, Vol 10 No 2, Spring Rosenberg, L.J And Czepiel J.A (1983) A Marketing Approach To Customer Retention Journal Of Customer Marketing Vol 2, Pp- 45-51 Spreng, R A., Mackenzie, S B., and Olshavsky, R W (1996) A Reexamination Of The Determinants Of Consumer Satisfaction The Journal of Marketing, 15-32 10 Keller, K.L and Kotler, P (2006) Marketing Management Published by Dorling Kindersely Publishing Inc 11 Zeinab S Mirhadi and Ali A Farhangi (2014) Pathology of commercial advertising management in Iran New York Science Journal 2014;7(9) 12 Dees W (2004) Measuring the effectiveness of commerical sponsorship in intercollegiate athletics Univerity of Florida  ... of types that are communication-effect research and sales-effect research There are two ways of measuring advertising effectives including pre-testing and post-testing In this study, the author... degree of consumer behavior 6.1 Research Methodology Research process This study will be researched with the following steps: Literature review & Secondary data In-depth interview & Survey by Questionnaire... study will be collected through in-depth interview and customer survey:  Customer survey: - Preparing questionnaire in order to find out my research objective; - Questionnaire distribution: Questionnaire