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Method
Section three will present the framework and methodology that is used in this study. Further, the reliability and validity will be expressed.
Framework
Deductive versus Inductive
There are two main research approaches when designing a study, inductive and deduc-tive. The inductive approach is often implemented when the study is intended to under-stand meanings of human behavior and focuses less on generalization. This approach use qualitative methods where focus groups, interviews and observations assists the study with the right information. The structure of this approach is flexible which invite the study to be open to changes (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2011). Furthermore the deductive approach is when scholars gathers theory to create hypotheses that will be tested. The hypotheses are tested with quantitative methods, for instance with surveys and questionnaires. Deductive approach is more structured than the inductive approach and the findings are generalized (Ibid).
The setting for this paper has mainly been inductive with some elements out of deduc-tive approach with formation of propositions. Furthermore, this study focuses on human behavior. In order to understand these behaviors, the inductive approach is the best match to answer the research question conducted.
Research strategy
The formation of the purpose and research question should be the motive of choosing the right research strategy. There is three different ways of setting the strategy, descrip-tive, explanatory and exploratory (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2011). In the litera-ture it is argued that a study can be both descriptive and explanatory when the study has more than one purpose (Ibid). Descriptive studies is formulated by Robson (2002, p.59) “to portray an accurate profile of persons, events or situations”. Furthermore, explanato-ry studies on the other hand want to find the relationship between variables and wants to do so by having the focus on specific situations or problems, similar to deductive (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2011). These two strategies are mainly structured to collect data from quantitative methods. An exploratory study is said to be “what is hap-pening; to seek new insights; to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new light” (Robson, 2002, p.59). There are three different ways of conducting an exploratory study. One can use interviews, literature search or conducting focus groups.
Qualitative versus Quantitative
In qualitative research, the collection of the data is non-numeric. The focus is aimed at using more than words or numbers, instead the practice of having pictures and video clips could be implemented within the research to better collect data (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2011). Qualitative methods help scholars to better understand human be-havior. As Fossey et al. (2002, p.717) presents it, qualitative research concerns “devel-oping an understanding of the meaning and experience dimensions of humans’ lives and social worlds.” On the contrary, quantitative research is the collection of numeric measures. The data collected has to be processed and analyzed to create meaning. A sat-isfactory way of presenting this kind of data collection is to use “graphs, charts, and sta-tistics….helping us to explore, present, describe and examine relationships and trends within our data” (Saunders et al., 2011, p.414).
Since this paper conducted exploratory study the choice of method has primary been qualitative. For the qualitative method, focus groups have been the main source of in-formation. The main reason for choosing focus groups is due to the research question designed, where this paper wants to gain understanding of gender differences of celebri-ty endorsement in the fashion industry. The focus groups made it possible to divide men and women into separate groups. Discussions between the same genders could further assist this paper with knowledge and understanding of the sexes. Interviews on the other hand, would only have given answers from a specific person and a discussion would not been possible. The discussions in the focus groups are of importance to understand the main differences between the sexes.
Exploratory studies can seldom be generalized because the focus is on a specific group or person. However this paper intends to gain further knowledge to the subject, as stated in the purpose: to gain a deeper understanding of factors that affects how genders per-ceive celebrity endorsement. Hence more general answers could be of interest, and these can be collected by quantitative methods. Therefore, a questionnaire was conducted in this study. This was distributed online via social media. The different factors can de-pend on different variables, the questionnaire can help separate or include variables to be able to see a pattern for how men and women perceive celebrity endorsement.
Furthermore, this implies that this paper has made use of multiple methods with mixed-methods: where both qualitative and quantitative method has been a part of the research.
However, a mixed-model research has been implemented, which is to “take qualitative data and qualities it, that is, convert it into narrative that can be analyzed qualitatively” (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2011, p.153). This means that the questionnaire will not be presented with statistics; instead it will be presented with graphs and analyzed in similar way as the qualitative data. The main reason that the questionnaire was conduct-ed this way, was to be able to combine results from qualitative and quantitative methods and present them in a structured way.
Methodology
Focus Groups
The participants in the focus group were students from Jönköping University in Swe-den. To entice people to take part in the focus groups, personal networks were used. As compensation for participation in the focus group, coffee and cookies were offered.
The focus groups were held at four separate times at Jönköping International Business School. Each focus group was consisting of five men or five women. In total 20 stu-dents were participating in the focus groups. The main reasons for only using five par-ticipants in each focus group was to better follow what is said and let the participants feel involved in the discussion. This view is supported by Greenbaum (1998) who ar-gues that effective focus groups should contain of 5-6 people.
The questions used during the focus groups have been design through an AIDA-framework. The AIDA-framework has helped to address important steps that consumers go through when evaluating marketing strategies as celebrity endorsement. What is more, to reach a uniform observation of the opinions generated, the chosen celebrities should be from the same genre. Considering previous research, it is apparent that ath-letes are the most common endorsers (Costanzo and Goodnight, 2005; Bailey, 2007; Klaus and Bailey, 2008; Premeaux, 2009). Hence, to differentiate the study, actors were used as celebrity endorsers. The idea was to choose celebrities that are neutral, which means that media has not identified the celebrity as specific type of person. Therefore, the two actors Mila Kunis and Jake Gyllenhaal were the chosen celebrities used in the study.
Since the study is aimed to understand how the genders perceive celebrity endorsement in the fashion industry, a selection of a well-known company was made to assist the pa-per with relevant information. Hence, the apparel company H&M (Hennes & Mauritz) was selected. Two different realistic posters, one for each celebrity, were created to look like H&M advertisements (appendix 1). Two real posters with models from H&M (ap-pendix 2) was also used during the focus groups to gain a better understand the consum-er behaviour. All the posters were showed for all the participants, men as women.
Questionnaire
An online questionnaire was also designed to further assist the authors with relevant in-formation to better understand consumers and their behavior when it comes to celebrity endorsement. An online questionnaire was used and the questions design was written in Swedish to reach out to a larger amount of people and not make language a limitation for filling out the questionnaire. The authors designed the questionnaire similar to the questions used during the focus groups, with help from the AIDA-framework. The questionnaire was distributed via social media to the authors’ personal networks.
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Delimitations
1.5 Definitions of Concepts
1.6 Brief Description of Method
1.7 Disposition of Thesis
2 Frame of References
2.1 Celebrity Endorsement
2.2 Gender Perspective
2.3 Celebrity’s Impact on Fashion
2.4 Brand Equity
2.5 Brand Personality
2.6 Buyer Decision Process
2.7 The AIDA Model
2.8 Characteristics of the Spokesperson
2.9 The Meaning Transfer Model
2.10 Literature Summary and Formation of Propositions
3 Method
3.1 Framework
3.2 Methodology
3.3 Reliability and Validity
4 Findings
4.1 Proposition 1a and 1b
4.2 Proposition 2a and 2b
4.3 Proposition 3a and 3b
4.4 Proposition 4a and 4b
5 Discussion and Analysis
6 Conclusion and Research Contributions
6.1 Conclusion
6.2 Research Contributions
7 Limitations
8 Implications and Recommendations
8.1 Managerial Implications
8.2 Recommendations for Future Research
List of references
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Celebrity Endorsement A gender perspective of consumer behavior in the fashion industry
