A study into the impact of online advertising strategies

A Case Study of IKEA

Signed Statement

“This to declare that this dissertation is done by me and not already submitted for the purpose
of any other degree”

-------Name-----

--,--, 2017

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Acknowledgement

I am very much thankful to my Course Instructor---name---- for his/her kind cooperation and
suggestions for the improvement of this research project.

Moreover, I am thankful to those persons whose support and cooperation helped me to

accomplish this task properly.

Thanks again to all of them.

---Name--------

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Abstract
Online advertising strategy is a common name in today’s business world. People all over the
world are using online media in order to communicate with people and get recreation. The
business companies have found opportunities in it and have started using the online media
sites for business purpose. The companies are now advertising on these online media sites
and inform the customers about the products and services along with their new updates. The
customers are getting this information and after analysing it, they are making purchase
decision. The brand identity gets increased and it indirectly and directly increases brand
image. the researcher has investigated on a retail organisation in order to analyse the impact
of online advertising on the brand image in retail industry. The researcher has found several
online tools such as social media, website, search engine and email are used to advertise the
product. Among these, the social media contributes to the development of online advertising
strategy most. The researcher has also explored the factors that affect the brand image of a
company. He has found that the product quality, advertising status and service quality affects
the customer perception and brand image. The advertising strategies inform customers about
the product and companies meet customer requirements by the product and service quality.
These all influence the brand image and set positive brand image in the customer mind. The
researcher has wished to conduct the research using positivism philosophy. He collected
numeric data and analysed the data using statistical applications. Primary data have been
collected by questionnaire survey on customers and interview of employees. The researcher
has also collected secondary data to compare the findings of this research. Finally, researcher
applied statistical applications on the collected numeric data and showed the findings in
several figures and tables. The researcher then discussed the findings and found that the
company has effective online advertising strategy. he also found the positive brand image of
the firm. And finally, the researcher conducted regression analysis and found positive impact
of online advertising strategy on the brand image in retail industry.

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Table of Contents
Signed Statement.........................................................................................................................i
Acknowledgement.....................................................................................................................ii
Abstract.....................................................................................................................................iii
Chapter 1: Introduction..............................................................................................................1
1.1 Background of the Study..................................................................................................1
1.2 Rationale of the study.......................................................................................................1
1.3 Research Gap....................................................................................................................3
1.4 Problem Statement............................................................................................................3
1.5 Research aim....................................................................................................................3
1.6 Research objectives..........................................................................................................3
1.7 Research questions...........................................................................................................4
1.8 Research hypothesis.........................................................................................................4
1.9 Dissertation Structure.......................................................................................................4
Chapter 2: Literature Reviews...................................................................................................6
2.1 Advertising.......................................................................................................................6
2.2 Online Advertising...........................................................................................................7
2.3 Online Advertising Trends and Modern Business............................................................8
2.4 Effectiveness of Online Advertising................................................................................9
2.5 Approaches to online advertising...................................................................................10
2.5.1 Social media advertising..........................................................................................10
2.5.2 Web advertising.......................................................................................................12
2.5.3 Email advertising.....................................................................................................13
2.5.4 Contents marketing and affiliated advertising.........................................................14
2.6 Brand Image...................................................................................................................15
2.7 Dimensions of brand identity and brand image..............................................................15
2.8 Ways to Develop Brand Image.......................................................................................17
2.9 Impact of Online Advertising on Brand Image..............................................................19
2.10 Research framework.....................................................................................................20
..................................................................................................................................................20
Chapter 3: Research Methodologies........................................................................................22
3.1 Research paradigm.........................................................................................................23

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 3.2 Research Methods..........................................................................................................24
3.3 Research Strategy...........................................................................................................26
3.4 Research approach..........................................................................................................27
3.5 Research Purpose............................................................................................................28
3.6 Data collection Methods and Techniques.......................................................................28
3.7 Sampling Methods and Techniques................................................................................29
3.8 Data analysis Methods....................................................................................................30
3.9 Reliability and Validity..................................................................................................30
3.9 Ethical Considerations....................................................................................................31
Chapter 4: Results....................................................................................................................32
4.1 Demographic Characteristics of the Correspondents.....................................................32
4.2 Findings..........................................................................................................................34
4.2.1 Online Advertising Strategy of IKEA.....................................................................34
4.2.2 Brand Image of IKEA..............................................................................................44
4.3 Correlation Analysis.......................................................................................................48
4.4 Regression Analysis.......................................................................................................48
Chapter 5: Discussion..............................................................................................................51
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Recommendation..........................................................................59
6.1 Conclusion......................................................................................................................59
6.2 Recommendations..........................................................................................................60
6.3 limitations of the Research.............................................................................................62
6.4 Scope of Future Research...............................................................................................62
Reference..................................................................................................................................64
Appendix..................................................................................................................................68
Survey Form.........................................................................................................................68
Survey Questionnaire...........................................................................................................69
Interview Summary..............................................................................................................72

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Approached of online advertisement........................................................................10

Figure 2: brand identity and brand image................................................................................17
Figure 3: Different Ways of Developing Brand Image............................................................18
Figure 4: Research framework.................................................................................................20
Figure 5: Research Onion Model.............................................................................................22
Figure 6: Research Philosophy.................................................................................................23
Figure 7: Qualitative vs. quantitative research.........................................................................25
Figure 8: Inductive vs. deductive approach.............................................................................27
Figure 9: Sample Correspondents Race...................................................................................33
Figure 10: Best Advertising Strategy of IKEA........................................................................35
Figure 11: Online Advertising Strategies of IKEA..................................................................36
Figure 12: Frequency of Social Media Advertising.................................................................37
Figure 13: Best Social Media Platform for IKEA....................................................................38
Figure 14: Frequency of Website Advertising.........................................................................39
Figure 15: Frequency of Search Engine Optimisation.............................................................41
Figure 16: Frequency of Email Advertising.............................................................................42
Figure 17: Online Advertising Strategy of IKEA: Either effective or not...............................43
Figure 18: Extent of Brand Image of IKEA.............................................................................44
Figure 19: Contributors to Positive Brand Image of IKEA.....................................................45
Figure 20: Frequency of Brand Image of IKEA......................................................................46
Figure 21: Influence of Online Advertising on Brand Image in IKEA....................................47
Figure 22: Impact of Online Media Tools on Brand Image.....................................................49

List of Tables

Table 1: Structure of the Research.............................................................................................4

Table 2: Demographic Profile of Customers of IKEA.............................................................32
Table 4: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Social Media Advertising..........................38
Table 5: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Website Advertising..................................40
Table 6: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Search Engine Optimisation......................41
Table 7: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Email Advertising......................................43
Table 8: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Brand Image..............................................46
Table 9: Correlation Matrix.....................................................................................................48
Table 10: Multiple Regression Model Summary.....................................................................49
Table 11: Gantt Chart for Policy Implementation....................................................................61

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Business information- earlier provided by financial statements through tradition channels, is

no longer in the hard copies. The global business now can face the massive destruction of its
brand reputation overnight with the mobility in information present in this age of internet and
social media (Romaniuk, 2009). However, the internet and the free flow of information have
also paved up many opportunities to organizations to cross the national boundaries and do
business with global citizens with little investment on logistics or other resources.
Companies can now ensure 24 hours’ presence to its customers living any parts of the world.
The companies are now using the online advertising strategy more significantly as they used
Television and mass media advertising a decade ago. More than 82% customers stay online
and on social media in more than 6 hours in a day, Saluja and Singh (2014) said. The
companies advertise on these social and online media channels to attract the customers and
inform them about the products, services, and new updates. But several researchers have
positively supported that the companies use the online advertising strategy in order to
increase brand identity and brand image. Chen and He (2011), Ahmad et al (2007) and
Kautenburger (2010) were in the supporter list of this. But Coomber (2002) when against
them and said, the brand image is a broad issue and only the advertising has very few
influence on the brand image. Their contradictory positions have encouraged the researcher
to conduct research on this issue. Therefore, the researcher has wished to investigate the
global furniture retailer brand IKEA and investigate how the online advertising strategy
affects brand image.

However, IKEA is a global dominator in retail business selling products from furniture to
groceries across the world, a Sweden-based company that is considered to be the largest
player in furniture retailing (IKEA, 2016). It has huge customer portfolio that is well reflected
in its annual revenue and profit figures. The researcher in this particular paper wanted to
emphasis on how it has adopted online advertising and whether it makes any impact on its
brand image, particularly in the UK. It was an analytical and correlation study.

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1.2 Rationale of the study
Internet revolution came at a point when global corporations were taking dramatic
reformation in both physical structures as well as policies. They did not bother a second to
adopt the vast scope that internet unfolded. The case of dot-com bubble presents that
testimony (Protecttheforest, 2013). However, in this paper, the researcher wanted to study
how different online advertising strategies such as SEO, email marketing, the web traffic
hunting, and affiliated advertising etc. that can shape the public perception of IKEA’s brand.
A lot of researches have already been conducted on this topic but several researchers were in
contradictory positions on this research topic and it has become a research issue to
investigate.

There are many emerging and innovating toolkits being added to online marketing portfolios
and companies now are spending a considerable amount of resources behind online
marketing to develop customer association with their firms and tap more customer loyalty in
the form of brand recognition (Retrieved, 2015). However, the researcher wanted to reveal
how extensive the relationship is the online presence of retail companies and its brand image.
Companies are also increasing their investment in advertising online. The increasing
investment of the companies on online advertising has encouraged the researcher to conduct
research now. There have been substantial studies regarding branding and brand positioning
can be achieved through different popular approaches like mass media association, customer
flocking, customer pooling etc. However, the researcher thought online advertising is very
dynamic and comparatively new in the industry as said by Collins and Lauren (2011). So, he
wanted to explore how the changing situations in the market are addressed by online
advertising strategies and how they can invigorate brand image customers hold to the
companies. In addition, several researchers have provided contradictory opinions to each
other while illustrating the importance of online advertising and this has become a major
issue to investigate the research work now.

The researcher has investigated the research using primary data from the customers of IKEA.
He has tried to assess the customer perception on the effectiveness of online advertising. He
asked several questions to the customers of IKEA and tried to analyse how much this
advertising strategy affect their perception. The researcher has also investigated on whether
the advertising strategy affects the customers or not. Finally, he has worked with the factors
affecting brand image and has asked the customers how much their perception of the brand

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image gets influenced by the online advertisements. The researcher required 11 weeks to
conduct the research study.

The researcher shed the initial lights on exploring different contemporary strategies for online
marketing. He explored their scopes and potentials to make an impact on business
performance. The researcher tried to skim through how the virtual presence of companies in
the retail industry can boost up better customer association. The researcher also attempted to
come with resourceful and potential resolutions to improve brand equity of IKEA through
online marketing.

1.3 Research Gap

The researcher has intended to investigate the impact of online advertising on the brand
image in the retail industry. For this analysis, he has decided to work on IKEA, a famous
furniture retail brand in the UK. In several secondary information, the researcher found
several researcher has defined the importance of advertising in different areas. Some of the
researchers mentioned that the online advertising is required to increase the brand identity
and brand image while some researchers found no relation between these two topics.
Moreover, different researcher mentioned about different platforms as the best online media
advertising platforms. Therefore, the researcher has found a research gap and has been
intended to investigate on that research gap. He will analyse in this research study whether
there is any impact of online advertising on the brand image or not.

1.4 Problem Statement

The problem statement of this research study was to identify the online advertising strategy.
The researcher faced problems to identify what types of advertising tools are being used by
the companies in order to increase the brand image. The researcher also faced problems in
exploring the factors that affect the brand image of a firm. The researcher also faced
problems in collecting primary data from the customers and employees of IKEA and analyse
the data. In addition, the researcher applied the statistical applications on the collected data in
order to analyse how much brand image gets influenced by the online advertising strategy.
The researcher has tried to recover the problems and reduce the limitations of the study.

1.5 Research aim

The key aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of online marketing strategies on brand
Image of IKEA.

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1.6 Research objectives
The key research objectives in this paper will entitle the following;

 To unveil the present online advertising strategies followed by IKEA

 To explore the factors that affect brand image of IKEA
 To analyse the impact of online advertising strategy on brand image of IKEA
 To recommend the optimum ways to make the online advertising strategies more
fruitful and cost-effective and increase brand image

1.7 Research questions

The key research questions to be sought to answer in this paper include;

 What are the present online advertising strategies followed by IKEA?

 What are the factors of the brand image of IKEA?
 How extensive is the relationship between online advertising and IKEA’s brand
image?
 What are the recommendations of IKEA to make the online marketing strategies more
fruitful and cost-effective in order to more efficiently increase brand image?

1.8 Research hypothesis

The following hypotheses have been developed in order to help conduct the analysis,

H0: there is no substantial relationship between online marketing and brand identity and
brand image

H1: online marketing can influence people to better identify a particular brand

H2: strong brand image can be developed by adopting online advertising

1.9 Dissertation Structure

The researcher has followed the following research structure in order to complete this
research study,

Table 1: Structure of the Research

Research Chapter Name Items to be covered

Chapter
Chapter one Introduction In this section, both background and rationale of
the research have been analysed by showing the
impact of online advertising on brand image.

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 Then, the objective and question of the research
have been shown after discussing aim and
problem statement. Finally, the researcher
showed research hypothesis to conduct the
analysis.
Chapter two Literature review Different theories and practical ideas related to
the impact of online advertising on the brand
image have been assessed. The researcher will
describe online advertising tools theoretically
which are used in influencing customer
purchasing behaviour.
Chapter three Methodology The research philosophy, module, approach, and
method will be clarified properly. Sampling
techniques and sample demographic tools will
be discussed too. Then, the researcher will
analyse tools and techniques for data analysis.
Limitations of the research will also be made
clear.
Chapter four Data Analysis The collected data will be analysed and
discussed in this section under the each
dimension or components of the research
framework. Finally, the findings of the data and
research will be compared with the previous
research in the same research field.
Chapter five Conclusion and The researcher will show the objectives have
recommendations been met after the completion of the research.
The researcher will provide some
recommendations in this section for the firm to
make a significant impact on the brand image
through effective online advertising strategy.

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Chapter 2: Literature Reviews
In this part, the researcher has described several literature thoughts on the online advertising
and brand image. Advertising is an important area of marketing and in this age of
globalisation, the use of online advertising has helped the companies build strong interaction
with the customers. Later, this interaction creates a strong relationship with the customers.
The customers love the features of the product seeing those online and spread the information
to other parties. As a result, the brand identity and image also gets influenced. In this part, the
researcher has theoretically analysed the effectiveness of online advertising and how this
advertising strategy helps to increase brand image.

2.1 Advertising
Advertising is a marketing tool which is more effective and efficient than any other tools
used for marketing purpose. Espejo (2010) said that advertising has become a part and parcel
in this modern business world. In supporting him, Fagerstrà and Ghinea (2010) said, every
company needs to use advertising strategy to become successful. Advertising is considered as
a promotional activity of any organization. Sheth et al. (2008) added that advertising is a
technique to introduce products and services to its customers. Advertising provides various
information about the products and services of the company and so potential customer can
evaluate the products and can take purchase decision. Fagerstrà and Ghinea (2010) stated
that customers are now getting more cautious about their purchasing decisions. They try to
level best to make a better decision through gathering knowledge of the company and the
products and services. Tuten (2008) said that advertising is just used to introduce the new
products and services to its potential customers. Supporting to Tuten’s (2008) statement,
HANSSENS (2009) added that besides introducing in the market, advertising influences the
customers’ mind to take the buying decision. Advertising is a more helpful tool for new
products as well as for established products to increase its brand value. Sheth et al (2008)
agreed, organizations try to increase their sales through proper advertisements. Improper
advertising may create a negative impact on their customers’ mind which can decrease the
amount of sale of the products, Delta (2016) agreed. For this reason, the organization should
do a cost-benefit analysis before making any advertisement that can make the purpose of the
advisement successful. After completing a research Sheu et al., (2008) showed that
organization needs to keep in mind some essential points before planning and designing any
advertisement. Advertising must provide the information regarding the products features and
some benefits which make the products unique. Rathod (2011) said the companies to provide

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attractive advertisements. He argued, customer perception and the decision may change
through attractive advertisement. Roblek (2015) said when the company launches new
products and services, advertising inform people about these and they may be influenced and
take purchasing decision which is the main purpose of advertisement besides another
purpose. When an established company wants to add any new features or any addition to their
old products, advertising is needed badly. O'Barr (2007) stated that after making a good and
relevant advertisement, the company needs to select appropriate media to make it available
for its potential customer. Media can be more than one like print media, television, radio,
internet etc. television advertisement is costlier and effective than any other advertisement.
According to David (2014), in this modern business world, advertising plays a very
significant role to continue business organization effectively and efficiently.

2.2 Online Advertising

According to Chen and He (2011), Global business conglomerates like IKEA are thriving for
more secure and sustainable strategic assists like the brand image that can deliver a
competitive edge for a longer period of time. On the other hand, Coomber (2012) said, brand
identity is something that is considered as the most crucial and most strategic element in the
business world. However, Kautenburger (2010) argued that this is something that has the
potential to worth billions of dollars having physical assets literally nothing. Naturally, it has
long been the attention of policy makers how a firm can accelerate sustainable brand image
and how can be extended. However, David (2014) showed that online marketing is a diverse
concept and has kept rolling from the inception of use of the internet for commercial purpose.
Mainek (2014) said, The key concept behind online marketing is to use the virtual public
networks like the “internet” and mobilize the presence of the parent company irrespective of
constraints of time, geography etc. So, apparently, Delta (2016) said, online marketing is no
different than traditional marketing approach but it has broader scope and potentials to reach
people faster, smarter and cheaper.

Mainek (2014) agreed Global business scenario is getting more complicated every single day.
Big corporations are struggling to keep the tempo of profitability and productivity where
substantial risks are also emerging from the growing business ventures (Kautenburger, 2010).
On the other hand, Collins and Lauren (2011) pointed that revolution in information
technology has paved up a new era of business and changed the whole dimension of business
and business models. The ease of information by wider spared usage of information
technology, access to the internet, the emergence of more public virtual gathering platforms

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like social media etc. have proved how information can do to business and why it is
important to cope with the challenges to sustaining. So, Delta (2016) considered the
objectives of massive adoption of internet channels to promote, distribute even operate the
business, are twofold. The first objective is to sustain in the changing environment and face
the challenges unfold by the information revolution. Raisa (2014) also added the second one
is to take the opportunity and make a positive impact on business. If the needs of mobility,
transparency, flexibility can be addressed through internet marketing, it can endow
companies with sustainable competitive advantages to outperform the competitors. People are
getting engaged more in internet day by day. Online advertising is just a different form of
traditional advertising that is more effective and efficient for modern business organizations
(Nithya, 2012).

2.3 Online Advertising Trends and Modern Business

After completing a research on online advertising, Akoni (2013) found that today’s internet
and technology-based business world enhance the tendency of online advertising rather
traditional advertising. In the 19th century, Doerner (2014) found, online advertising strategy
has been introduced first through UK’s major advanced companies. He added people spend
much time on the internet for various purpose like office work, e-book, social networking etc.
Delta (2016) agreed and said, for these increasing engagement on the internet make the
online advertising more powerful tool of marketing. According to Doerner (2013), modern
organizations have changed their advertising strategy to take advantages of changing the
environment. As people engage much time on the internet, the online advertisement can fulfil
marketing related purposes of modern organizations more effectively than a traditional
advertisement. Raisa (2014) added people are now more conscious about their fashion and
trend. They always try to grab the best products so that they collect information about various
brands and then take purchasing decision. In that case, online advertising is more useful and
easy access for the potential customer as they spend much time on the internet for various
purpose. Supporting to Doerner, Frazer (2015) added that potential customers can easily
reach the online advertisements of their desired products of various brands and can evaluate
and take the better one. The modern business world mostly depends on new technology.
Frazer (2015) considered emerging internet provides various strategies which facilitate
traditional business problems and introduce a new form of business. Online advertising is one
of them. Even online advertising has become more popular because people can reach
products from other than home country. With respect, Moorey (2015) oppose Doerner’s

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statement and said that organizations have not changed their strategy rather upgrading their
strategy by adding the new form of advertising which is known as online advertising. Global
organizations cannot easily spread their business over the world without online advertising
(Harvey, 2010).

2.4 Effectiveness of Online Advertising

Some few articles are not enough to give a proper explanation on the effectiveness and
efficiency of online advertising. The Internet makes the whole modern advertising business
dependent on it. Gotham (2014) said that customers and suppliers can easily communicate
with each other through the internet. He also added that geographical distance cannot be a
barrier to spread the businesses. Delta (2016) said all party engaged in business come closer
to each other and can continue the business properly over the world through internet. For
these reasons, the modern business organization tries to incorporate online advertising as
their marketing strategy. Solomon et al (2012) mentioned online advertising has become the
most popular and useful advertising strategy for its effectiveness and efficiency. After
completing a survey on online advertising, Hervey (2010) found that implementation cost of
online advertising is low compared to another traditional marketing strategy. He added that
potential customers prefer online advertising over traditional advertising because it is very
easy to access for all type of people. Planning, designing and implementing online
advertising is not time-consuming. He further added organizations can prepare effective
online advertisements on their products or services within a short period of time. Supporting
to Hervey’s survey result, Majumdar (2013) added that the information about the
organization and its products and services are reached to its potential customers quickly. On
the other hand, suppliers can get feedback from their potential customers who spend most of
the time on the internet for various purpose. Stewart (2014) oppose the statement of Harry
and said that free or low-cost advertising way may carry lower standard than other traditional
advertising which may add no or small value in their organization. Apart from this argument,
Desa (2009) said online advertisement has taken a strong and significant place in the modern
business world. Now, online advertising is considered as a main advertising strategy in the
modern organization because it helps to spread the business around the world more
efficiently and effectively (Homer, 2015).

2.5 Approaches to online advertising

According to Chen and He (2011), there are different approaches adopted by marketers to use
internet platform for their marketing purposes. He added that there are several ways available

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which are used to incorporate the online advertising in the modern business world. From
these approaches, email marketing, social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) Marketing and web
marketing are popular approaches through those organizations can grab their expected
outcome effectively and efficiently, said by Delta (2016). The scopes and approaches are
being enriched every day with newer and better innovations and technologies. However, the
key approaches can be delineated in the following directions as noted by
Schwerpunktausgabe (2013);

Figure 1: Approached of online advertisement

Source: (Schwerpunktausgabe, 2013)

2.5.1 Social media advertising

According to Clifton, Simmons and Ahmad (2013), Social media marketing is a mechanism
to use the platform of virtual social gathering as commercial purpose. However, how and to
what directions the purposes can be attained have a greater degree of variations. On the other
hand, Coomber (2012) argued that different social media platforms like Facebook, twitter,
LinkedIn, YouTube etc. can be used for promoting customer intimacy with the parent
companies. Companies can adopt strategies to make better customer association with firms
by giving those floors to communicate directly with the firms. At the same time, Roblek

10
(2015) showed that different privileges can be offered to customers as a reward to their
patronage. So, different non-commercial contents are also incorporated to revitalize customer
awareness and to shed the light of positive perception in consumer minds. According to
Schultz (2009), social media marketing is a process of implementing marketing purposes
through content, image, video sharing etc. on the social network.

Organizations try to gain the attention of their potential customers through providing
advertising in a social network like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube etc. In supporting of
him, Social media marketing influences customers’ mind more intensely than any other
advertising. Cohen (2015) said that social media channels are used to communicate with the
customers and this way of marketing is known as social media marketing. This
communication helps the customer to choose their desired products and services, Delta
(2016) added. Now, this modern world person frequently uses various social media like
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn etc. so that it is so easy to communicate these people
within a short time with a little cost. Supporting to Cohen’s statement, Vanden (2010) added
that Facebook has become an effective social media marketing platform because of its huge
number of the user. Facebook advertising can increase organizations number of sale because
customers easily reach the advertisement and can take the buying decision frequently. Delta
(2016) further said, the global business world mostly depends on these social media
marketing to spread their business over the world effectively. At first, he added, organizations
need to design the advertisement which is based on the selected social media platform. For
example, YouTube prefers video content advertising where Facebook can provide both image
and video advertising. According to Perker (2014), customers can collect information about
various products brand from these social networking sites more easily than other online
advertising. Then they take their purchasing decision considering this information. He also
added that these social sites are designed in such way where customers can give feedback
after using the products which are bought by seeing the social media advertising. Chow and
Amir (2016) said people are now more concern about their products and services and the
market is more competitive. For this reason, the organization needs to more conscious about
their advertisement provided in the social networking sites because people collect data and
then analyse properly before they take any buying decision, they clarified. In this technology-
based world, social media networking has become most effective and efficient online
advertising which can fulfil the marketing related purposes of the modern organizations
(Harvey, 2010).

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2.5.2 Web advertising
Web advertising is a reliable and effective platform of online advertisement. Hasanabad et al
(2014) every modern organization develop their own website where they provide all
information about their company and offered products and services. They added, when
organizations design advertisement and publish it on their company’s own website, this
marketing approach is known as web marketing. Tinkham and Weaver-Lariscy (2013) said
that before taking any purchase decision, customers collect information regarding products
and services from the company’s own website first. Customers consider the information
provided in the website more reliable than any other source of the information about the
products and services. Supporting to Tinkham and Weaver-Lariscy, Moorey (2015) added
that all modern organizations should develop and maintain a well-designed website which
must be updated regularly. Delta (2016) mentioned the website will be well-developed and
designed in such way where potential customers can give feedback after using the company’s
products and services. A company’s website should be attractive through which customers
are influenced to take the products and services, Hasanabad et al (2014) said. After
completing a small research on web marketing, Feng and Xie (2011) found that company’s
own website can enhance the brand value of the company and can help to increase the sale of
the products and services. Wendell (2011) opposes the statement of the statement of Feng and
Xie and said that an unattractive website has also a negative impact on the brand value and
profitability. He added that it is mandatory to take care and makeup to the date of the website
otherwise customers can misinterpret their products and services related information which is
provided on the website. Petrovic (2014) stated that global organizations can take benefit
from a well-developed website where they can communicate with their global potential
customer and can establish their products market globally. He added that a website provides
not only about their products and service features but also provides the location and other
information about their all available outlet through which customers can easily find their
desired products selling the place and Delta (2016) supported. Through a company’s personal
website, customers can buy their preferred products by ordering online. Wilson (2011) do a
survey on various customers regarding web marketing and found that all well-developed
websites have the option through which organization can generate customers’ feedback can
help the company to mitigate their faults and can make them competent to fulfill their
customers’ requirements which make the customers satisfied and add value to the company.

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2.5.3 Email advertising
According to Saluja and Singh (2014), Email advertising is one of the mostly adopted
approaches of online advertising. Companies now frequently send general and tailored
message to their target customer waking them about different offers and addition of the
parent organization. On the other hand, Wendell (2011) argued that email marketing works as
a tailored marketing approach that can build a better one to one communication with
customers with lower ambiguity and costs. Heaston (2015) added it is often an associated
mechanism to for brand positioning and customer retention as they don’t let the customers
away from the organization and even bother of switching. However, marketers should be
conscious that it holds something of value to customers and does not end up in the spam files
of customers. In providing the definition of Email, Gotham (2014) said, email marketing is a
way of delivering emails which contain various features about the products and services of
the organization. Vanden (2010) thought that the purpose of sending mail is not only for
providing information regarding company but also for building a strong relationship with the
customers. Organizations mainly follow the email marketing approach to increase the
relationship with the current and previous customers. Supporting to Vanden’s statement,
Roblek (2015) added that modern organizations also send mail with advertisement about their
products and services to acquire a new customer. Email marketing is a standard way of
approach which can add value to the organizations. According to Nithya (2012), email
marketing is a direct marketing approach through which a company can build trust, loyalty ad
brand awareness. This approach is much cheaper and faster than any other online
advertisement. Gotham (2014) said, before sending any email to the potential customers, the
company should take care of that the mail does not violate the spam law. If the company
violate the spam law, it can negatively affect the company’s brand value and customers’
loyalty. Heaston (2015) said, email marketing is more effective online advertising than
traditional advertising. He added it has a high response rate that indicates its effectiveness
and efficiency. Customers are highly influenced through email marketing to take the products
and services. Hasanabad et al (2014) also said organizations send mail to their current and
previous customers about their products new features or any new addition or benefit provided
from their organization. After completing a successful research on email marketing, Chen and
He (2011) found that email marketing cannot be implemented broadly like social media
marketing but it works directly and more effectively than any other online advertising.

13
2.5.4 Contents marketing and affiliated advertising
Petrovic (2014) stated that companies also frequently adopt contents marketing that attract
customers to the website or outlets of the parent company by publishing attractive contents in
respect of different issues affecting customers. He added, the contents should be something
attractive as well as informative that customers care about. It can take both the direct
approach and indirect approach. However, Wilson (2011) showed in this study that indirect
contents that stimulate the image of particular firm or intrigue the demand of particular types
of product offered by the firm are more effective and perceived as trustworthy. On the other
hand, Saluja and Singh (2014) argued that broad consumers scales based companies (like
retailing, consumer electronics, automobiles etc.) also make affiliation with different popular
websites frequently visited by their target customers to boost up traffic to their respective
websites. At the same time, Lee et al (2013) said sponsored advertisement offered by
different search engine companies like Google, Yahoo, and Bing also offer such facilitates to
promote specific companies by advertisement shown in websites and search results.
However, they added, such methods of advertising are on rampant move; companies
irrespective of industry can reach the highest number people adopting the strategies.

On the other hand, Roblek (2015) showed in his study that there are debates over what or
which strategies work best. The approaches of intent marketing and its effectiveness depend
on circumstances; one approach can provide greater rate of return where others can just be
waste of money following the same paths, Heaston (2015) agreed. So, the approaches should
be selected with precaution as ignorance of the force of intrinsic natures such as types of
business, customer behaviours, customer demography, customer location, structure of
industry, types of products, industry profitability etc. can make the whole mere waste of
resources. Thereby, he further said, there should be complete guidelines and plan to select
internet marketing approach and implement it. Naturally, the process should start with the
analysis of company. However, Petrovic (2014) thinks that necessary measures should be
taken to spot the weakness, strengths, threats and potentials of the company. Specially, the
abilities of company to render the project, to absorb possible risks etc. should be considered.
Nature of products, business and the customer behaviour’s (degree of awareness, attitude
towards technology etc.) should come next. On the other hand, Uhlmann (2015) stated that
internet marketing can benefit all companies irrespective of industries but the rate of return
can vary to a great extent.

14
2.6 Brand Image
According to Haley et al (20014), brand image refers the customers’ view about any brand.
Brand image is the impression in the customers’ mind regarding the brand. They mentioned,
a brand’s current position is considered as brand image. In this competitive business world,
every company tries to develop a positive brand image which can help them to compete
successfully with their competitor and make a strong position in the market. O’Barr (2007)
said, Brand image basically consists of brand reputation, customers’ emotion, belief, and
customers’ impression regarding the brand. Supporting of him, Uhlmann (2015) added that
brand image is just a perception of customer about the products and services of the
organization. He added, an organization need to take a position in the market considering
other competitors and that is defined how the customers take the organization and its
products. Nithya (2012) said that positive brand image refers that the customers have a strong
positive about the brand. On the other hand, negative brand image makes the organization
aware and influences to improve their product quality. Uhlmann (2015) thought positive
brand image can make a strong position of the organization in the market and negative brand
image can throw back the organization from the market as the market is more competitive.
He added that if the customers are benefited and satisfied after taking the products and
services, a strong positive perception is made which helps to develop a positive brand image.
Wendell (2011) also said, the organization need to offer better quality products and services
at a reasonable price which can make the customers more satisfied and increase customer
loyalty. After doing a survey on brand image, Wilson (2011) found that brand image can be
increased through various activities of the organizations like attractive packaging,
advertising, good manner of sales persons, different promotional activities. Besides quality
products and reasonable price, he added, these activities of the organization can strength the
brand image of the organization.

2.7 Dimensions of brand identity and brand image

According to Saluja and Singh (2014), Brand identity is how the marketer wants to identify
his company in the crowd of many competitors which attributed by its unique name, logo,
tagline etc. However, Petrovic (2014) thinks that how a company can stimulate these
attributes to be recognized in the consumers remain the vital part of the game. Companies use
its uniqueness in respect of cost, quality, and reliability to differentiate through these tools.
So, strategies for making the perfect combination are a must. On the other hand, Saluja and
Singh (2014) argued that in case of branding, customer communication is vital. So,

15
approaches that can effectively communicate with customers can meet the purpose. After
establishing a company, they need to give it a proper tangible identity which helps all to
identify the brand from other competitors and then the organization offers different products
or services which create an impression in customers’ mind that is known as brand image
(Uhlmann, 2015). Online advertising got its significance in that direction and suggested by
global marketing experts to rapidly and cost effectively promote these attributes. On the
other hand, Petrovic (2014) argued that whether a company is cost leader or the differentiator,
brand identity is a must to sustain in the business and for retail industry, the importance has
been replenished. In short, brand identity is the attribute of the brand which makes the brand
unique from other competitors and brand image is the customers’ perception about the brand,
Wendell (2011) found. It is easier to make a unique brand identity than create a strong brand
image because acquiring customers’ satisfaction, trust, loyalty etc. are related in case of
developing brand image (Wilson, 2011).

However, Schwerpunktausgabe (2013) added that brand image is how people perceive the
brand of a company and there is a substantial difference between brand identity and brand
image. However, Wendell (2011) thinks that positioning a brand to be perceived positively
and distinctly, requires differentiation at least in four factors namely, reputation, emotion,
impression and belief. He added, these four personal attributes of customers affect their
perception towards a brand and it is the duty of marketer to analyse them and position his
brand using the optimum approaches; either offline or online marketing.

16
nd identity and brand image

Source:( Wendell, 2011)

2.8 Ways to Develop Brand Image

There several models available to develop a brand image. Five stage model of developing
brand image is very popular. Most of the company this model to develop their brand image.
According to Coomber (2012), there are five stages which are used by the company to
develop a strong brand image. Explanation of these stages is given below,

Tearing
Down the
Developing
Focusing on wall
Consistent
Building Clarifying Choosing between
look for
Band the Value Right Media Electronic
Consistent
Identity and
Image
Traditional
Marketing

Figure 3: Different Ways of Developing Brand Image

Source: (Ghosh et al., 2013)

According to Ghosh et al (2013), firstly the company needs to establish a brand identity
which refers not only the brand name but also the overall identification of the brand. Without
focusing brand identity, the company cannot develop any brand image in the market, they
added. In the second stage to develop the better brand image, the company should maintain a
consistent look for the consistent image. Supporting to him, Romaniuk (2009) added that
some companies think that a well-developed brand identity, the standard layout will be
enough for a consistent brand image but it is not true. The company should provide better

17
quality products and services for a consistent look which helps the company to maintain a
consistent brand image (Kautenburger, 2010). Besides maintaining a consistent look, the
company should express clearly what value they want to add in the market through delivering
quality products and services. Sakkthivel (2012) said that the company can make a strong
perception in their customers’ mind through clarifying the value which they want to bring.
Proper advertising needs to provide information about the brand to the customers. Proper
advertisement needs proper media to deliver. The company should choose an appropriate
media where they can implement advertisement (Wilson, 2011). Selecting right media is the
fourth step to develop a brand image. In the last stage of developing a brand image, the
company has to mitigate the difference between the electronic and traditional marketing as
the market has become competitive and modern. Roblek (2015) mentioned that traditional
marketing is now almost obsolete and it has become mandatory to incorporate digital
advertising and marketing tools and activities in all sector of the company.

After successfully completing these five stages, it can be said that the company can found a
strong brand image. Not only the brand image but also overall branding strategy of the
company will be stronger through these activities involved in these stages.

2.9 Impact of Online Advertising on Brand Image

The researcher has found that companies use the online advertising strategy in order to
facilitate the branding strategy. Chen and He (2011) showed that most people remain online
in current ages and it has become a common trend to track the customers online by the
companies. Companies are using the online channels for attracting the customers. Roblek
(2015) added and mentioned, companies advertise on the online media channels like in social
media, websites, email conversations and customers get attracted to see those while browsing
the specific web pages. Saluja and Singh (2014) investigated on the social media attraction of
people and found more than 82% people stay online for more than 6 hours in a day and they
browse the social media network at that time. The companies have pursued as an opportunity
and have been trying to attract the customers on those channels. Romaniuk (2009) said,
companies are now advertising on these online media sites and customers get attracted to
these. He added, customers talk about these products and spread the brand identity to other
customers. Since more customers get attracted, the brand identity gets increased. Along with
this, Romaniuk (2009) added, the increasing brand identity increases brand image as well.
People talk about the brand and its attributes to other customers and as a result, the brand is

18
being got established and its brand image also gets increased. And thus, the companies try to
increase the brand image by using the online advertising strategy.

2.10 Research framework

The researcher has developed the following research conceptual framework in order to
facilitate the analysis,

Online marketing

 Email marketing
 SEO marketing
 Affiliated
 Positive customer
marketing
perception
 Sponsored
 Brand awareness
marketing Sustainable
 Strong Brand
 Social media Brand Image
identity
marketing
 Content
marketing

Figure 4: Research framework

The research conceptual framework has shown that companies use social media, Email,
Search Engines, and content Marketing etc. as the online media advertising channels. The
companies advertise on those channels in order to inform customers about the products and
services along with their new updates. Since customers remain online every time in a day,
they easily get attracted to these advertisements. The customers also obtain information from
these advertisements and after analysing these, they nurture positive perception for the brand.
The brand awareness gets increased as soon as the customers are informed of the product and

19
service. It develops a strong brand identity as well. The customers also spread the
effectiveness of the brand to other customers. The company tries to meet all the required
things that they show in the advertisements. When the customers find similarity in these two
things, in advertisements and in reality, they increase their positive perception. Their positive
perception gradually increases the positive brand image of a firm. And thus, the online media
advertising helps increase the brand image of a company.

In this literature review, the researcher has tried to theoretically describe the effectiveness of
online advertising. The researcher has described five important online advertising tools that
the companies use to advertise and market their products and services. The researcher
discussed why the companies use the online advertising strategy. He has linked to advertising
and branding. The conceptual framework and research paradigm has helped the researcher to
describe the analysis clearly.

20
Chapter 3: Research Methodologies
Research is a systematic approach to studying into facts and get to a conclusion based on
scientific facts and evidence (Saunders, 2013). On the other hand, the tools and techniques
pursued by researchers to attain so are called research methodologies. Research methodology
is an important part of research paper where the researcher mentions the research strategies
and methods that he follows to conduct a particular research study (Willian et al., 2014). In
this methodological part, the researcher has mentioned the followed methods, strategies,
philosophies etc. in conducting the research study. Researchers always follow the research
Onion model in order to get adequate support in selecting the philosophy and strategy for a
research paper. Research Onion model was first developed by Saunders (2013) and the
developer mentioned this research model will help the researcher to choose the appropriate
research methods and strategies. This model is really helpful for the researchers who don’t
have much knowledge about the research strategies and philosophies and their usefulness
(Saunders, 2013). In this research, the researcher also followed the research Onion Model in
order to conduct the research. He followed the research onion model in selecting the
philosophy and approach for this study. The researcher followed Onion model for selecting
the sampling and data collection method. The research Onion model also helped the
researcher choose appropriate research strategy for conducting the research work.

Figure 5: Research Onion Model

21
Source: (Saunders, 2013)

3.1 Research paradigm

To conduct a research, the very first thing that research should concern is on which
philosophy he wants to concentrate his study. There are different philosophies classified
across different features based on ontology and etymology. Ontology is the philosophical
study of nature that deals with the existing things only. The researchers who follow the
ontology philosophy uses the existing market data for conducting the research. Here the
current scenario is not intended to focus rather the researcher focuses on the traditional issues
to analyse a research topic (Collins, 2010). The researcher is not allowed to apply his
personal observations as well. The difference in research Ontology and research
epistemology is in the human participation. In Ontology, human participation is not allowed
rather the existing market information is used as input. On the other hand, in epistemology
research philosophy, the researcher is allowed for using human participation in doing the
research work. Existing market information is collected but to compare with the current
scenario in epistemological philosophical work. There are two types of epistemologies and
these are, positivism, interpretivism (Lancaster, 2015).

Research
Philosophy

Epistemology Ontology

Interpretivism Positivism

Figure 6: Research Philosophy

Source: (Collins, 2010)

22
interpretivism is an idea that depicts that facts that are observable should be incorporated into
the study. On the other hand, positivism school of thought emphasizes on adherence to
objectives and argues that reality is always relative never absolute; it is the observation that
makes us close to reality to understand. The more the observation the more is the accuracy to
understand the reality (Collis and Hussey, 2013). Researchers believe that the positivism
philosophy can imply the real epistemological thoughts in the research. In the positivism
epistemology, the researcher can apply the statistical applications.

However, in this particular study, the researcher wished to work under positivism philosophy.
The researcher wanted to cut lower degree of error and wanted to afraid from any substantial
degree of conflict in his research findings. Positivism fits the objectives as it incorporates
facts only observable with accuracy and also curbs degree of freedom of researchers to
misinterpret facts. Since positivism philosophy suggests the researchers to use statistical
applications, the chances of occurring mistakes reduce. The researcher needs to collect
numeric data in order to do the calculations. Positivism philosophy has been chosen in this
research study in order to have human participation. Researcher intended to investigate the
online marketing strategy of IKEA and its impact on brand image and hence the researcher
required information from the employees of IKEA. He needed to collect IKEA information
from its employees to assess how IKEA uses advertising strategy. He also required
investigating the brand image of the company and hence he required information from the
customers to see how they perceive the IKEA products. Therefore, the human participation
was essential for conducting this research and hence Ontology research philosophy was not
followed.

3.2 Research Methods

The researcher also requires selecting on which method he wants to collect data from the
facts presents in this entitled research circumstances. There are two broad categories of
research methods namely, quantitative strategy and qualitative strategy (Franco, 2013).
However, quantitative method is the method to incorporate only the facts expressible in
numeric figures where, the qualitative method permits to incorporate complicated human
behaviour into study not expressible in numeric scales (Gill and Johnson, 2012). In the
quantitative method, researcher requires collecting data in the numeric form. This method
actually works well under the positivism philosophy where the researcher intended to do
statistical calculations. In order to apply the statistical analytical tools, the researcher needs to
follow the quantitative method. On the other hand, the qualitative method is followed when

23
the researcher intends to explore a case or describes any theoretical issue (Denk, 2015). The
researcher collects data in the descriptive form and conducts the analysis based on those data.
Apparently, there are loopholes in each dimension as spotted in figure 5 as well.

Figure 7: Qualitative vs. quantitative research

Source: (Gill and Johnson, 2012)

The researcher wanted to conduct the study based on mixed method, a method that combined
the two strategies. The researcher observed that there are both straight cut facts like figures of
sales, a number of customer visits, and worth of business etc. easily identifiable numbers.
However, some complicated facts require more narratives to skim the big picture like multi-
dimensional impacts of a particular fact like that of online marketing on business reputation,
efficiency in procedures etc. that could hardly be interpreted by numeric figures. So, the
researcher wanted to follow the mixed method and incorporated both phenomena into his
study to get a strong insight regarding the research issue. It was a persuasive research in the
end. The researcher felt unable to conduct the research following one kind of research
methods. The researcher collected a lot of information from the customers and employees of
IKEA. Most of the information he has collected has been converted in numeric form.
However, some information was unable to get converted and hence the researcher needed to
discuss those descriptive data. But the quantitative method doesn’t allow to conduct research

24
using non-numeric data. In addition, the researcher wanted to analyse the impact and hence,
the statistical application had to get incorporated and hence he couldn’t choose qualitative
method either. And hence, the researcher has chosen the mixed research method in
conducting the research study.

3.3 Research Strategy

There are different strategies of research namely experimental research, survey research, case
study etc. In the experimental research, the researcher collects information based on two
major variables and compare between these two variables (Gobo, 2014). In the case study,
the researcher finds a case and he explores additional required elements from the case. A case
study is applicable only when the qualitative method is followed. In a case study, the
researcher investigates the case very well and after analysing the case, he identifies a couple
of variables and elements for further analysis (Franco, 2013). In the survey strategy, the
researcher develops a questionnaire survey and based on the survey, the researcher collects
numeric data. In the survey strategy, the researcher can also collect descriptive data
depending on the requirement of the researcher. However, it helps to implement human
participation in the research study. In the positivism epistemological philosophy, the
researcher is allowed to use the survey to collect the research data (Willian et al., 2014). In
ontology, the case study works well. But the experimental study can always be used but its
purpose is limited to make a comparison between variables.

The researcher in this research study followed survey design as part of his positivism
philosophy where, a representative data must be collected from the facts existed as stated by
(Collis and Hussey, 2013). Survey strategy facilitated the researcher to collect the data in
systematic ways ensuring a higher degree of accuracy. A survey design was structured by a
questionnaire entitling different aspects of the issue that were applied to collect data from the
respondents. The survey respondents are the customers of IKEA and they were provided a
survey form to fill. The correspondents filled the survey form and provided back to the
researcher. The researcher converted all those data in the numeric form to apply the statistical
applications to conduct the research. The researcher had no other way to follow other two
strategies. The researcher wanted to analyse the impact of online marketing and to do so he
needed to apply statistical regression model under quantitative method. Therefore, the case
study strategy was not used. The case strategy was not used for another reason that it
provides existing information and hardly reflect the current scenario. The researcher didn’t
follow experimental strategy because he didn’t require any comparison between online

25
marketing and brand image. Therefore, the survey strategy was the best strategy left to follow
for this research study.

3.4 Research approach

Research approach also plays a big role in study in terms of accuracy and reliability. There
are two kinds of approaches namely, inductive approach and deductive approach (Gill and
Johnson, 2012). In inductive approach, researchers need to develop theories first based on
their observation and hypotheses that are later applied on research ground. However,
deductive approach is the mirror image of inductive one; so it grabs the established theorems
that are rather used to assess whether the research arena can be explained by them. In
inductive approach, researcher is bound to use his personal experiences and judgements for
conducting the research. Under this approach, the researcher needs to investigate a research
topic and he should conduct the information using his personal observations (Franco, 2013).
On the other hand, in deductive approach, the researcher can collect market information from
several sources. Using these market data, the researcher can conduct the analysis. However,
in deductive approach, the researcher can incorporate his personal judgements as well. The
market data is sometimes found unclear and hence the researcher needs to clarify what these
data mean (Gobo, 2014). And thus the deductive approach incorporates full human
participation in conducting the research.

Figure 8: Inductive vs. deductive approach

Source: (Gill and Johnson, 2012)

The researcher in this study wanted to adopt deductive approach as there have been already
some well-grounded studies regarding branding and online marketing; it was wise to assess

26
how successfully these could explain the dynamic retail industry by online marketing that is
also on rampant evolution. The researcher analysed the impact of online marketing strategy
on brand image. The researcher has wished to assess the market thoughts on that issue and
hence he required incorporating market information. In addition, the researcher couldn’t be
able to identify the online marketing strategy of IKEA and he required information from the
employees of IKEA. IKEA employees provided him with adequate information that the
researcher later clarified to show via several findings. The current market data can also imply
the current market scenario and hence the researcher has followed the deductive research
approach rather than following the inductive one.

3.5 Research Purpose

There are different purposes for which a researcher conducts any research work. Based on his
purpose, the researcher designs any research study. In a research work, the purpose of the
researcher might be exploratory, explanatory and analytical (Goddard & Melville, 2015). In
an exploratory research, the researcher explores the elements of the research from any case.
the researcher develops exploratory purpose when he conducts the research using the case
study strategy. In explanatory research, the researcher explains the research elements. In the
explanatory purpose, the researcher wishes to identify and explain the research elements
(Mao et al., 2015). In the analytical purpose, the researcher explains the research findings and
results. The analytical purpose helps the researcher using numeric data to conduct statistical
analysis. Moreover, the quantitative method suggests the researcher develop analytical
purpose. Under the analytical purpose, the researcher analysed the research topic and explains
the findings found from the analysis (Franco, 2013).

In this research, the researcher has developed the analytical purpose. His purpose was
analytical since he followed positivism philosophy to apply statistical applications. He
needed to collect data in numeric form and analyse those data to show in several figures and
tables. The researcher had to analyse whether there is any impact of online marketing or not.
The researcher has explained the findings found from the statistical applications. For these
things, the researcher had no choice except developing the analytical purpose of conducting
the research paper.

3.6 Data collection Methods and Techniques

Data collection is the most vital part of methodologies. The researcher collects data from
either primary sources or secondary sources or both (Saunders, 2013). Primary sources

27
provide raw data that has been collected for the first time solely for a particular research
purpose where secondary data is the data collected already for another research purpose, yet
gives substantial insight regarding the research issues (Lancaster, 2015). However, due to
constraints in the primary data sources, the researcher wants to take support from rich sources
of secondary data sources that help spot any outliers if exist in the data set. Collecting
primary data requires much time and money to invest because the researcher needs to
personally meet with the correspondents for collecting data (Willian et al., 2014). However,
there are several advantages of primary data too. The primary data can be used according to
the researcher’s wish because it is not already modified, unlike the secondary data. On the
other hand, the secondary data is already collected and modified and hence the researcher
can’t modify the data again. The secondary data can be collected from several journals,
website, academic research papers etc. (Saunders, 2013)

In this research, the researcher has intended to collect primary data. Although the primary
data required more time to collect, the researcher followed this data collection method to
conduct the researcher according to his own wish. Moreover, the secondary data provides
already established information and can’t focus on the current scenario and hence the
researcher has followed the primary method to analyse the current impact. Human
participation was essential for this research because the researcher needed to collect customer
information to assess the brand image of the firm. He also required information about online
marketing strategy from employees of IKEA and so he has chosen to collect primary data
rather than choosing the secondary data for this study.

3.7 Sampling Methods and Techniques

The researcher conducted the research using his information of IKEA. He analysed the online
marketing strategy’s impact on brand image. Brand image is the customer perception towards
a product and hence, the researcher thought it better to collect information from the
customers of IKEA. But IKEA is a globally reputed brand and it has millions of customers
but collecting information from all the customers was not possible for the researcher and
hence selected a sample for collecting the data. He had several methods of selecting the
sample such as; simple random sampling method, stratified sampling, systematic sampling,
convenience sampling etc. (Collins, 2010). The researcher selected customers using the
probability sampling method that because he didn’t personally know the customers of IKEA.
Simple random sampling method (SRSM) is used in selecting the sample where all the

28
correspondents in a population have an equal opportunity to get selected in the sample
(Saunders, 2013).

The researcher collected data from 80 customers of IKEA visiting directly in different outlets
of IKEA in London. At the same time, the researcher conducted a personal interview with 20
employees of IKEA asking different open-ended questions regarding their observation on
online marketing and the subsequent impact on customers. The employees provided
information about the perception of the company describing what customers desire from the
company. The researcher has collected information too about the online marketing strategy in
IKEA and has tried to incorporate this information to analyse how much online marketing
strategy influence the brand image of IKEA.

3.8 Data analysis Methods

The researcher followed mixed analysis method in conducting the research. The researcher
analysed data using qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques. Under the
qualitative method, the researcher has used several pie charts to show the findings.
Quantitative data were analysed by statistical tools and theorems. Data have been sorted out
firstly by their averages namely mean, median, mode etc. and dispersions like standard
deviation. The researcher has wished to analyse the impact of online advertising on brand
image and hence he required applying the regression model to find the impact. Data have
been further analysed applying correlation coefficients, multi-linear regression and other
sophisticated analysis like ANOVA test etc. Technical support from SPSS, STRATA, MS
excel etc. has been used in this regard.

3.9 Reliability and Validity

Every research work requires ensuring validity and reliability of its findings. In a research
work, the researcher tries to ensure that the data are valid and reliable. The researcher in this
research has also tried to ensure the reliability of the research work. The researcher selected
sample and collected information from the customers of IKEA and conducted the analysis.
He didn’t force the customers to provide specific research data. In addition, the researcher
applied the statistical tools on the collected data and ensured reduced mistakes to take place.
These all have increased the reliability of the research work.

The researcher has also tried to ensure the validity of the research work. The researcher
wanted to analyse the current impact of the online marketing strategy on the brand image. To
ensure the validity, the researcher collected information from primary source to help assess

29
the current scenario. The secondary data providers already established data that might not
reflect the current scenario and can be considered invalid for this issue and hence the
researcher collected data from the customers. The researcher has also ensured that the data
has been collected from the customers and employees of IKEA that ensures that the research
data reflects the current market scenario. In addition, the researcher applied statistical tools
and ensured that he has reduced mistakes. These all have ensured that the research work has
been valid and reliable.

3.9 Ethical Considerations

The researcher has also ensured to meet all the ethical issues in conducting the research work.
He has selected customers for the sample based on random sampling method. He didn’t force
the customers to get selected for the sample. He didn’t force the customers to provide specific
data too. He personally didn’t know any correspondent and it represents all data collected
haven’t been influenced by the researcher. The researcher has ensured that the researcher has
been conducted for academic purpose and the research work wouldn’t negatively affect the
customers and the company. The researcher has also ensured the correspondents that their
information wouldn’t be transferred to any other party. The researcher has ensured he didn’t
modify the research data to get any specific research findings. Finally, the researcher has
followed the plagiarism issues while conducting the research work. And thus he has ensured
he has met the ethical issues and conducted the research work.

The researcher followed mixed research methods, meaning both the quantitative and the
qualitative method in doing the research. He followed deductive research approach under
survey strategy. He collected the research data using the survey from a sample of customers.
He applied statistical analytical tools on the collected research data and conducted the
research study. However, at the end, the researcher has ensured the reliability and validity of
this research. He ensured the ethical issues have been met in this research work. And that’s
how he has followed the research Onion model in selecting and applying these research
strategies and approaches.

30
Chapter 4: Results
In this research, the researcher has analysed the impact of online advertising strategy on the
brand image of IKEA. For this, the researcher has collected primary data from the customers
and employees of IKEA. In this part, the researcher has applied the statistical applications on
the collected data and showed the findings in several graphs and figures. Finally, the
researcher discussed all the findings at the end of this chapter.

4.1 Demographic Characteristics of the Correspondents

The researcher collected information from 80 customers of IKEA. Followed simple random
sampling method and hence he didn’t weight on any issue while selecting them. However, he
categorised the customers of IKEA in some areas.

Table 2: Demographic Profile of Customers of IKEA

Demographic profile Frequency Percentage

Male 45 0.56
Gender Female 35 0.44
Total 80 1
Below 20 8 0.1
20-29 28 0.35
30-39 30 0.38
Age
40-49 10 0.12
50 and above 4 0.05
Total 80 1
UK 32 0.4
Other European 14 0.18
Asian 18 0.23
Race
North American 11 0.13
Others 5 0.06
Total 80 1
Student 14 0.17
Profession Job Holder 39 0.49
Business 21 0.26

31
 Others 6 0.08
Total 80 1

The researcher categorised the customers of IKEA in four areas. He identified the gender,
age, race and profession of the IKEA customers. He found 56% customers of IKEA are male
customers. 44% female customers also regularly visit the company. Since this is a furniture
retail company and women strongly participate in designing the room, they also like to see
the furniture in the showroom to judge which furniture will suit their decoration most. The
researcher found more customers having age between 21 and 40. These customers mostly get
the concern over the room decoration and hence they visit more in the showrooms. The
researcher also tried to identify whether students visit the IKEA showrooms and found very
few number of students come to the retailer to see and purchase furniture. However, the
researcher found more businessmen and job holders among the customer list.

Race
of Correspondents
UK Other European Asian North American Others

13% 6%
40%

23%

18%

Figure 9: Sample Correspondents Race

The researcher also investigated whether all the customers visiting IKEA is from the UK or
not. The researcher has investigated the analysis of online advertising on the brand image.
Brand image depends on how the customer has a perception of the product of IKEA and
hence he required analysing the global view regarding the impact. And hence, the researcher
decided to categorise the customers according to their racial background too. The researcher

32
found more customers from the UK and other European nations. However, he found 23%
Asian customers of IKEA in the UK and 13% were North American customers. All their
contribution has helped the researcher to assess the global view on the impact of online
advertising.

4.2 Findings
In this part, the collected information has been analysed using the statistical applications. The
researcher has applied the statistical applications and calculated mean, mode and standard
deviation. He has also applied correlation and regression model on the collected data. The
researcher has shown all these findings in several graphs, figures, and tables.

4.2.1 Online Advertising Strategy of IKEA

Online advertising is one of the important marketing or advertising tools in business
industries. The retail and manufacturing industry mostly use the advertising strategy in order
to introduce the products to the customers. However, the retailers inform the customers about
the products and services to be provided via the advertising strategies. Lee et al (2013)
mentioned that more than 82% customers remain online in social media and the number of
people staying online on several media is not less than 90%. He argued people visit the
website and online sites for more than 6 hours in a day. And for the strong attraction of the
customers to the internet, the business companies are trying to utilise their online resources to
attract the customers. In this research, the researcher has investigated the online advertising
strategy and its impact on brand image. Since most of the companies are using the online
advertising now more than other advertising strategies, the researcher has tried to analyse its
worth and conclude why these companies follow the online advertising strategy.

In the personal interview of the employees of IKEA, the researcher tried to identify the best
advertising strategy. Most of the employees mentioned online media advertising as the best
advertising strategy for IKEA. IKEA is a global furniture retailer and hence it has worldwide
customer reputation and to communicate all those customers the company has chosen the
online media platform for advertising its products and services. The researcher has found
55% employees of IKEA agreed that the company has been using online media channel as

33
 Q1. Which Advertising Strategy IKEA uses most
to attract the customers

Others Television Media

10% Advertising
Newspaper 20%
Advertising Billboard Adver-
10% tising
5%

Online Media
Advertising
55%

the best advertising strategy. However, newspaper advertising, television advertising etc. are
other major advertising strategies used by IKEA. 20% employee of IKEA said IKEA uses
television advertising strategy as the best advertising strategies. However, it actually depends
on the customer feedback provided to the employees. The 20% employee who said about
Television advertising has been communicated with the customers having age between 40
and 60 and these age old customers hardly use online networks and they see television and
newspaper and find the IKEA advertisements. Therefore, the employees have weighted
television advertising more than online media advertising. However, the company also
follows billboard advertising and 5% employees of IKEA said, the company also uses
billboard advertisements. The researcher has selected employees of IKEA from different
retail shops of IKEA in London and these customers belong to that area where the company
has invested much on billboard advertising. However, there are some people who consider
money as the ideal tool to determine the focus of the company. Since Television advertising
requires more money to advertise products, some employees consider company has more
focus on the television media advertising. But the majority employees of IKEA have
supported online advertising strategy as the mostly focused advertising strategy of this
company. And therefore, the researcher has also agreed that the company mostly focuses on
the online media to develop its advertising strategy.

34
Later the researcher wanted to identify the major online advertising tools of IKEA and found,
IKEA uses four advertising tools to advertise the products online. Researcher asked the
employees in the personal interview about their online advertising tools and found the
following findings,

Q2. Which online advertising strategy affects

the customers and their perception most?

Social Media Advertising

Web Advertising
5% 10% Email Advertising
15% Search Engine Optimisation

70%

Figure 11: Online Advertising Strategies of IKEA

The researcher investigated and found IKEA uses social media platform, website, email and
search engine in order to advertise the products online. 70% employees of IKEA think that
the company mainly uses social media in order to advertise the product. More than 82%
customers stay online on social media sites and therefore, the companies are using the social
media advertising strategy as the focused advertising strategy. The company also uses the
search engine in order to advertise the products. 15% employees said the company uses a
search engine as the best advertising strategy. Additionally, some employees also said about
the website and email advertising strategy as the best online advertising strategy.

35
 Frequency
55
45
35
25
15
5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SMA1 0 0 1 3 18 46 12
SMA2 0 0 0 7 7 49 17
SMA3 0 0 0 5 14 47 14
SMA4 0 2 0 8 10 46 14

Figure 12: Frequency of Social Media Advertising

The researcher investigated on the social media advertising strategy of IKEA and asked four
questions to the customers of IKEA. The researcher found that the employees are satisfied
with the company’s social media advertising strategy. The researcher asks the customers
whether the company advertises in social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or not.
46 out of 80 customers of IKEA agreed with the researcher that they find advertisements of
IKEA in Facebook, YouTube etc. Another 12 customers of IKEA strongly agreed with the
researcher that the IKEA advertises in social media. In another question, more than 60%
customers agreed with the researcher that the social media channels help them find the
advertisements of IKEA. Some of the customers strongly agreed with the researcher’s point
on this issue. 58% customers of IKEA said they find IKEA in at least one social media
channel and they do advertisements on that media channel. 56% customers agreed with the
researcher that they get updated about new products and services from Facebook, Twitter,
Google Plus, YouTube etc. Products are advertised on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus
with a photo where features are mentioned. On the other hand, the video advertisements are
posted on YouTube. Less than 10% customers were neutral and didn’t either agreed or
disagreed with the researcher. Only 2 customers out of 80 customers disagreed with the
researchers in one question only when they were asked whether they find updates or not.

36
 Q3. What is the best social media platform for
advertisements for IKEA?
10%
5%

40%

45%

Facebook YouTube Twitter Google Plus+

Figure 13: Best Social Media Platform for IKEA

The researcher frequently found the contribution of social media in advertising products. The
researcher asked the employees of IKEA about their best social media advertising tool and
they mentioned that they use Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google Plus+ in order to
advertise the products on social sites. Maximum 45% employees of IKEA agreed that IKEA
is a furniture retailer and hence, it posts video advertisements most to show the designs and
features to the customers. 40% employees also believe the company posts photos and videos
on Facebook and it also uses Facebook as one of the best advertising channels. One employee
was found to say that IKEA advertises more in Facebook that on its own website and other
published media. 10% employees said, IKEA also uses google plus+ as one of the best
advertising channels to advertise products on social sites. However, only 5% employees
believe the company advertises on Twitter and it is supposed to be the best social media
platform for advertisements. But the researcher has investigated and found IKEA mainly uses
Facebook and YouTube in order to post advertisements on social media channels.

Table 3: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Social Media Advertising

Social Media Advertising SMA1 SMA2 SMA3 SMA4

Mean 5.81 5.95 5.88 5.75
Mode 6 6 6 6
SD 0.78 0.81 0.77 1.03

37
The researcher collected the data in a numeric form from the survey and also converted the
descriptive data collected in the interview. From the survey questionnaire, the researcher
found data and calculated mean, mode and standard deviation of those data. The average
value ranges from 5.75 to 5.95. This result has supported the researcher to say about the
social media advertising strategy. Most of the customers agreed with the researcher that
IKEA has better advertising strategy. The standard deviation of the data ranges from 0.77 to
1.03. This result is very lower and it means, the customers considered all the questions
similarly and provided answers in a similar view.

Frequency
55
45
35
25
15
5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
WA1 0 5 1 5 10 47 12
WA2 0 2 4 3 12 49 10
WA3 0 2 2 9 9 39 19
WA4 0 2 3 9 11 42 13

Figure 14: Frequency of Website Advertising

Another online advertising strategy of the company is the website advertising strategy. The
company advertises on its own website and customers visit the website to see the information
provided there. The researcher asked four questions to the customers of IKEA and they
positively replied all the questions to the researcher. The researcher found customers are very
much satisfied with the website advertising strategy of this company. 60% customers agreed
that IKEA has a lucrative website and its colours are very good to look. The colours attract
the customers to frequently visit the websites. More than 60% customers agreed that they
visit the website first or looking for any advertisement of IKEA. The customers visit social
media, online other media, search engine etc. but its firsts comes to the company website to
see the advertisements. Although the employees of IKEA didn’t focus on the website
advertising strategy, the customer information strongly supports that the company has

38
effective website advertising strategy, Zuvela (2012) also showed in an independent article.
45% customers agreed that they find the advertisements of IKEA in its websites and don’t
need to go another site to search advertisements. The customers are very happy to see the
advertisements on the website since they don’t need to visit the shop only to see the features
of any product. Another important feature its website has is that the company allows the
customers to order products online. It has different payment making strategies while ordering
online. It requires 50% advance payment via banking account and the rest is paid as soon as
the product gets delivered. More than 50% customers agreed that the company website helps
successfully deal with the customers and conduct a business transaction. Customers can know
the features of the website and can decide easily whether to purchase the product. If they like,
they can place an instant order and can get the product staying at home. And thus, the website
advertising helps the customers make purchase decision staying at home and hence, the
customers are preferring the website advertising as one of the best online advertising
strategies.

Table 4: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Website Advertising

Website Advertising WA1 WA2 WA3 WA4

Mean 5.61 5.65 5.73 5.59
Mode 6 6 6 6
SD 1.23 1.08 1.17 1.15

This figure shows that the average value ranges from 5.59 to 5.73. This result is also
satisfactory to address web advertising as one of the strongest online advertising tools. Most
of the customers agreed with the researcher in all the points. The standard deviation ranges
from 1.08 to 1.23. However, this result shows the customers didn’t similarly view all the
questions. The variation among their marking is very high.

39
 Frequency
55

45

35

25

15

5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SEO1 0 4 2 6 22 36 10
SEO2 0 0 0 5 12 50 13
SEO3 0 2 3 13 12 35 15
SEO4 0 1 0 6 15 45 13

Figure 15: Frequency of Search Engine Optimisation

The researcher, therefore, started asking about the search engine efficiency of the company
and found the customers of IKEA remained strong about the use of search engine
optimisation. More than 60% customers agreed with the researcher when they were asked
whether Google directs them to the IKEA website and their advertisements. The customers
added in a face-to-face conversation that when they search for the best furniture product in
the UK, Google shows the furniture prepared by IKEA. They added, not only Google but also
Yahoo and Bing show that IKEA is the best furniture brand in the UK. Whenever the
customers look for advertisements of furniture products in the search engine such as Google,
Yahoo or Bing, the engine shows the furniture of IKEA and recommend them to its website.

Table 5: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation SEO1 SEO2 SEO3 SEO4

Mean 5.43 5.89 5.50 5.78
Mode 6 6 6 6
SD 1.19 0.75 1.22 0.90

The researcher also calculated the mean, mode and standard deviation of the collected data
that represented the efficiency of IKEA in search engine optimisation. The researcher found

40
that the mean value ranges from 5.43 to 5.89. Most of the customers agreed with the
researcher that the company has effective search engine optimisation for advertising the
products. The standard deviation ranges from 0.75 to 1.22. This result shows that the
customers perception didn’t differ much on the questions asked on the search engine
optimisation.

Frequency
42.5
37.5
32.5
27.5
22.5
17.5
12.5
7.5
2.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
EA1 0 2 3 10 12 37 16
EA2 0 3 6 11 12 34 14
EA3 0 1 1 10 14 40 14

Figure 16: Frequency of Email Advertising

The researcher, therefore, went to the following section for collecting information about the
email marketing of IKEA. The researcher has found that the customers were somewhat
satisfied with the email advertising strategy of IKEA. The researcher has found that 45%
customers of IKEA agreed with the researcher that IKEA provides email to the customers and
they enclose advertisements either in video or picture to the email. Moreover, 50% customers
agreed that IKEA rechecks whether all the emails have been seen or not. If the customers
don’t check the emails and don’t provide feedback, the company frequently provide
advertisements to the customers via the emails. However, in this question, there were some
customers who have doubt on the effectiveness of email advertising. The researcher found,
more than 10% customers remained neutral and couldn’t support the email advertising
strategy of IKEA.

41
Table 6: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Email Advertising

Email Advertising EA1 EA2 EA3

Mean 5.59 5.38 5.66

Mode 6 6 6

SD 1.20 1.33 1.03

The researcher found the average value ranges from 5.38 to 5.66. Although most of the
customers positively agreed with the researcher while asking them the questions about the
email advertising. However, the markings of the customers differed significantly. The
researcher found the standard deviation ranges from 1.03 to 1.33. This high result shows that
the customers have different perception regarding the email advertising. The customers didn’t
support that the email marketing strategy is the best online advertising strategy of IKEA.
However, the finding has provided adequate evidence that the company provides emails for
advertising the products.

Q4. Do employees think IKEA has effective online

advertising strategy?

Yes
No Answer No
10% No Answer

Yes
90%

Figure 17: Online Advertising Strategy of IKEA: Either effective or not

The researcher then tried to assess the company’s perception about the online advertising
strategy of IKEA and found that the employees are happy with the advertising strategy. 95%
employees were found satisfied for the online advertising strategy of IKEA. The employees

42
agreed that the customers like the IKEA online advertisements. The employees further said
they take surveys of the customers visiting the retail outlet and ask them how they first
learned about the company. Most of the customers reply that they visit the IKEA outlet to see
products advertised in several online media channels. They want to practically see and choose
the product of IKEA and hence they visit the shop. However, 5% employees think that the
company has been yet to develop the online advertising strategy. They showed their negative
opinion while being asked to describe whether the company has effective online advertising
strategy or not.

4.2.2 Brand Image of IKEA

The researcher has also investigated the brand image of the company. The researcher asked
both the customers and employees what is their perception regarding the brand image of the
firm. The collected information has been analysed and in the later areas, the researcher has
shown the findings that showed the brand image of IKEA.

Q5. What is the brand image of IKEA to

customers?
No Answer

Negative

Positive

Figure 18: Extent of Brand Image of IKEA

The researcher wanted to assess the company’s perception about the brand image of IKEA.
The employees were asked how they see the brand image of the company. 90% employees of
IKEA said that IKEA has a positive brand image. The company has been trying to provide
various additional services so that the customers nurture positive perception towards the
brand. The employees of IKEA think that the customers have positive perception towards the

43
brand and hence, they mentioned the company has positive brand image towards IKEA.
However, the researcher also found 5% employees who said the company has a negative
brand image. They said the company needs to ensure fulfilment of more customer
requirements. The customers need more and IKEA should produce their product so that the
customer requirements should be met. When the customer requirements will be met, the
customers will nurture positive perception towards the brand. And so the employees said
there is still negative brand image of the brand. Another 5% employees remained neutral and
provided no answer regarding the question. But since 90% employees believe the company
has a positive brand image, the researcher further asked researcher what are the reasons that
they consider for the positive brand image of the company.

Q6. What are the reasons behind IKEA’s posit-

ive brand image?

10% Effective Advertising Strategy

Better Quality Products
30% Better Customer Services
None of these
25%

35%

Figure 19: Contributors to Positive Brand Image of IKEA

The researcher has asked the employees what do they think which are the reasons of the
positive brand image of IKEA. 90% employees who previously said IKEA has positive brand
image have provided some reasons for which IKEA has been able to develop the brand image
of the company. 35% employees of IKEA think they provide better quality products to the
customers and this is the reason why customers have positive perception towards the brand.
30% employees agreed that the advertising strategy of IKEA has helped develop the positive
brand image among the customer mind. Additionally, rest 25% employees said about the
better customer services provided to them. The employees of IKEA are trained to provide
better services. The company sells products collected from best manufacturing companies. It
also sells own furniture that has better quality. However, 10% employees said nothing as the

44
influencing tool for the positive brand image because they think the company has been yet to
develop positive brand image among the customer mind.

Frequency
47.5
42.5
37.5
32.5
27.5
22.5
17.5
12.5
7.5
2.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
BI1 1 1 1 8 12 44 13
BI2 0 1 1 15 19 29 15
BI3 0 0 3 5 11 38 23
BI4 0 2 2 7 13 41 15

Figure 20: Frequency of Brand Image of IKEA

To fulfil the objective, the researcher also investigated the brand image of the company. The
researcher asked four questions to the customers to IKEA and found that the customers are
very much satisfied with the brand. The customers said IKEA has better quality products.
More than 50% customers agreed that IKEA provides better quality products to the
customers. More than 40% customers said they get better services in IKEA. The customers
agreed that they prefer better quality products and services from IKEA. This shows that the
company has positive perception towards the brand. The researcher also investigated and
asked the customers about the contribution of advertisements of IKEA on brand image. More
than 45% customers agreed with the researcher where 25% customers more strongly agreed
that IKEA provides advertisements on the online network and customers get influenced to see
the advertisements. These increase the customer expectation more and hence the positive
brand image also gets higher. And finally, more than 50% customers agreed they have a
positive brand image for the brand. Only 2 customers said the company needs to provide
more services to develop their positive perception.

Table 7: Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation of Brand Image

Brand Image BI1 BI2 BI3 BI4

Mean 5.66 5.49 5.91 5.68

45
Mode 6 6 6 6
SD 1.11 1.11 1.01 1.11

Finally, the researcher calculated mean, mode of the data that represented the brand image of
the company. The average value ranges from 5.49 to 5.91. Most of the customers agreed with
the researcher in all the questions. The standard variation ranges from 1.01 to 1.11. In three
question, the customers were found to have a standard deviation of 1.11. In those questions,
the customers marked the questions in different views. Whatever the standard deviation is,
the mean value and frequency can successfully show the company has a positive brand image
in the customer mind. customers agreed that they prefer better quality products and services
from the company. The customers also agreed the advertisements have increased their
positive perception and developed the positive brand image.

Q7. Does the online advertising strategy affect customer

brand image in IKEA?

Yes No No Answer

Figure 21: Influence of Online Advertising on Brand Image in IKEA

At the very last, the researcher asked the employees what is their perception of the influence
of online advertising. The previous findings have provided adequate evidence that the
company has effective online advertising strategy and positive brand image. In this section,
the researcher asked the employees what do they think about the positive brand image of

46
IKEA. 90% employees of IKEA replied that they think the online advertising strategy has
helped IKEA develop the positive brand image. Only 10% employees didn’t say anything
about the impact. No employee negative thing regarding the impact. This information shows
how much company believes that online advertising has been positively increasing brand
image of the company.

4.3 Correlation Analysis

The researcher has applied the statistical scientific tools on the collected information and has
applied the correlation application. The researcher tried to determine the relationship among
the online advertising strategies and brand image.

Table 8: Correlation Matrix

SMA WA SEO EA BI
SMA 1 0.3727 0.3188 0.2885 0.3895
WA 0.3727 1 0.2073 0.2985 0.3379
SEO 0.3188 0.2073 1 0.2442 0.3862
EA 0.2885 0.2985 0.2442 1 0.1175
BI 0.3895 0.3379 0.3862 0.1175 1

The correlation coefficient matrix shows the positive relation among the strategies. The
researcher has found that there is a positive relationship among the online advertising
strategies. All the tools for the online advertising have a positive relationship with the brand
image. It means as soon as the investment in online advertising will increase, the brand image
of the company will positively increase. The finding has shown that both the social media
advertising and search engine optimisation are 39% related to the brand image. Web
advertising is related by 34% where the email advertising is 12% related to the brand image.

4.4 Regression Analysis

The researcher has used the MS Excel in order to conduct the regression analysis. The
researcher applied the multiple regression models on the collected numerical data and found
the following finding,

47
Table 9: Multiple Regression Model Summary

Regression Statistics

Multiple R 0.377009

R Square 0.142136

Adjusted R Square 0.125275

Standard Error 0.621044

Observations 80

The researcher has applied the multiple regression models and found that the R-square is 0.14
and the adjusted R-square is 0.1252. The result shows that there is a positive dependency of
the brand image. the researcher has found 62% standard error in the regression analysis while
he conducted the survey on 80 members. However, the result very much shows that the
company has been efficiently using the online advertising in order to increase the positive
brand image of the company.

16%

14%

12%

10%

8%

6%

4%

2%

0%
SMA WA SEO EA

Figure 22: Impact of Online Media Tools on Brand Image

The researcher showed the multiple regression models via this table. It shows that both the
social media advertising and search engine advertising have a positive impact on the brand

48
image. Website advertising also has an impact on the brand image. the email advertising also
has an impact on the brand image. This discussion has successfully described that the online
media advertising has a positive impact on the customer brand image. As the company
invests more in online advertising strategy, the customers get more information and they
increase their expectation. As a result, the positive brand image increases. Analysing all these
findings, the researcher has assessed the positive impact of online advertising strategy of
IKEA on its brand image.

49
Chapter 5: Discussion
The researcher worked on the impact of online advertising on the brand image of IKEA. The
researcher collected information from the customers and employees of IKEA and has
investigated on the collected data. The researcher has shown the findings earlier to this
chapter in several graphs and charts and here in this chapter, the researcher has discussed the
findings.

The researcher worked with the primary data collected from the customers of IKEA and he
selected a sample for collecting the data. He selected 80 customers of IKEA and provided
them with sample questionnaire. The customers filled the questionnaire and sent back to the
researcher. The researcher followed simple random sampling method in order to select the
sample since he didn’t know any of the correspondents of the entire population and hence all
the customers had an equal opportunity to get selected. However, he found more male
customers because male customers visit the shops in order to purchase the product. More
customers from the UK have been found in the sample. Job holders and businessmen are the
major customers of IKEA.

In the first objective, the researcher wanted to investigate the online advertising strategy of
IKEA. The researcher found the company has effective online advertising strategy backed by
its efficient use of online media platform. The researcher has found the IKEA employees
agreed the company mostly develops and follows the online media advertising for advertising
the product to the customers. Wilson (2011) said, today, both the customers and companies
are getting attracted to the online media channels and they are now following the online
media both for business and communication. He further added companies are advertising
most in the online media in order to communicate with a large number of people without
costing much. In this research, the finding supports the statement of Wilson (2011) since the
employees believed the company uses the online media advertising most and communicates
with the customers using these media advertisements. Furthermore, Lee et al (2013)
mentioned that more than 82% customers remain online in social media and the number of
people staying online on several media is not less than 90%. He further added, the use of
online media sites by the customers is encouraging the companies to emphasise on
advertising on online media. Lee et al (2013) also added, the use of online media gets
facilitated due to the very reduced cost associated with the online media advertisements. The

50
researcher has found the same attitude here since the finding shows that IKEA mostly uses
the online advertising media in order to efficiently advertisement product. The employees
also believed that IKEA is trying to reach the customers all the time. The financial statement
of IKEA also shows that the company has reduced expense over advertisements. These have
been supported by the finding. The employees believe the company has been following the
online advertising strategy because it needs lower expense to incur, helps communicate most
of the people at a time etc. And for these things, the company uses the online media for
developing the best advertising strategy.

Various types of online media channels are used to advertise the products and keep
communication with the customers. The researcher has found mainly four types of tools are
used as online media. IKEA uses social media, website, email and search engine optimisation
advertising strategies in order to develop the online media advertising strategy. Nithya (2012)
write a journal article in 2012 and mentioned the use of social media is rising day by day and
the business companies can explore opportunities to shine by using the social media platform.
Further investigation from Gotham (2014) shows that more than 92% companies in the UK
follow the social media marketing and advertising strategy and this has been the trend in
western culture that companies will find and communicate with the customers on social
media sites. The finding of this research has supported the statement since it shows that 70%
employees consider the company follows the social media advertising strategy more most.
However, the company also follows the website advertising. Nithya (2012) said people visit
the website first to see whether the product is in the market or not. This finding shows the
company also follows the website advertising strategy. However, the use of social media
advertising strategy has been gigantic to the use of other online media. Almost all UK
companies use social media advertising strategy.

Social media include a lot of tools that are used for the advertising purpose. Facebook,
YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus+ etc. are the popular social media sites. Gotham (2014) said,
the use of Facebook is very common to the people all over the world and hence the
companies are following the Facebook advertising strategy most. The finding of this research
also supports the concept of Gotham (2014) since, 40% employees consider the company
follows Facebook advertising strategy most. However, Gotham (2014) didn’t focus on the
YouTube advertising strategy. Since he investigated on the retail companies and retailers
don’t usually post videos on YouTube, he didn’t much emphasised on the YouTube
advertising. But this research finding shows IKEA uses the YouTube most for developing an
51
advertising strategy. 45% employees have agreed on a point that IKEA uses the YouTube
advertising strategy most. The company also follows Twitter and Google plus advertising
strategy but these two advertising strategies have been developing the entire online
advertising strategy of IKEA. Delta (2016) investigated and found while the companies start
using Facebook and YouTube for advertising, the customer feedback never lets them wait to
advertise on Facebook or YouTube first. Most of the companies have been following the
Facebook and YouTube advertising strategy and whenever they start these advertising
strategies, they see other strategies not prior to it, he said. This research finding also supports
the statement of Delta (2016) since the company mainly uses the Facebook and YouTube
advertising strategy to develop the social media advertising strategy and strengthen the online
media advertising. The company first started using Facebook advertising in 2007 and has
never invested reduced interest on this advertising site. YouTube has been being used by the
company since 2008. Since then, the company has been efficiently using this advertising
strategy. the efficiency has been expressed with the increasing number of customers the
company is obtaining year after year. Chow and Amir (2016) said, the efficiency of the
advertising strategy can highly get reflected by the customer attraction and feedback. Since
the company has been experiencing more customers to visit the outlets and purchase product,
the advertising strategy of the company must be applauded. And the effective two social
media advertising strategy has benefitted the company to develop the online media
advertising strategy.

As mentioned earlier, the company uses social media, website, search engine, email
advertising strategy, the researcher investigated how customers react to these advertising
strategies. The researcher has asked the customers about their perception on the online
advertising strategies of IKEA. The researcher has investigated the analysis of the impact of
online advertising on brand image. Brand image is the customer perception of a brand and it
shows how customers look a brand. Therefore, he has collected the information from the
customers to assess how their perception got influenced by the online advertising strategies to
determine the impact on the brand image.

The researcher investigated and found social media advertising as the best online media
advertising of IKEA. He has asked several questions to the customers of IKEA and customers
replied positive answers to almost all the issues. The researcher wanted to assess whether
IKEA advertises in Facebook and YouTube or not. The customers also showed positive
replies as the employees of IKEA did. The finding shows that IKEA advertises most in
52
Facebook and YouTube and customers are happy to get informed about updates by these
sites. Delta (2016) said, customers always keep scrolling Facebook pages and when they see
any advertisement, they start analysing the information presented there. He further added
customers like to get updates on Facebook and this statement is supported by the findings
found here. The customers of IKEA agreed that they remain online in Facebook and
YouTube and love to see and analyse the advertisements. The customers have also agreed
that they stay Facebook all the time and like to get updates on Facebook. The customers have
mentioned that IKEA has a community group on Facebook where all the customers have
been added and IKEA posts advertisements on that community group to inform the customers
about the existence of products in the market. Hasanabad et al (2016) said Facebook groups
are now playing an important role in advertising an entire community. He added the
businesses don’t have much time to advertise products on everyone’s timeline on Facebook
and posting advertisements to everyone’s page will require many expenses to pay Facebook
authority. And therefore, the companies open Facebook group to advertise their products. In
this research study, the researcher has found the same finding where the employees agreed
they also pay Facebook for providing advertisements to everyone’s page. This incurs much
money for the company. However, the employees decided they also keep Facebook groups
for people living in different areas. For example, IKEA has Facebook groups for the
customers of UK, Scotland, Ireland, Netherland etc. countries. The company also pays
Facebook for direct advertisements to be posted on everyone’s page and also keeps group
advertising strategy and this has shown the strong Facebook advertising strategy of the
country. Delta (2016) said, the country that has been developing the social media advertising
strategy has also been following the Facebook advertising strategy. This finding has
supported the statement of Delta (2016) since the findings show that the company uses the
Facebook advertising strategy in order to develop the social media advertising strategy.

Majumdar (2013) further described the YouTube advertising strategy and his discussion has
been totally different from the thoughts of Delta (2016). Delta (2016) focused on only
Facebook advertising while he has focused only YouTube advertising. Companies post
videos containing advertisements of different products and customers see the videos while
browsing on YouTube. He said the companies need to follow the YouTube advertising
strategy in order to develop the social media advertising strategy. The finding of this report
supports this discussion since the company has effective YouTube advertising too. The
customers agreed that they see videos posted by IKEA and evaluate whether to purchase the

53
products from it or not. The customers agreed that the social media advertisements help to
find the preferred products from IKEA. Majumdar (2013) said when a video is started on
YouTube, the advertisements come to the home screen and the viewers click on those
advertisements to see the products. The employees of IKEA also believe that the customers
do the same thing. The customers feedback provides strong support that they evaluate the
YouTube advertisements more than they evaluate the Facebook advertisements. However,
some customers like the Facebook advertisements too. The other findings also support that
the company has been using Google Plus, LinkedIn sites to provide advertisements to the
customers Twitter is another important social media platform used by IKEA and thus the
company has been able to develop the social media advertising strategy by using these social
media sites. Petrovic (2014) when the company develops the social media advertising
strategy, the online strategy gets automatically upgraded and the finding of this research also
supports the concept. The company has effective social media advertising strategy and the
employees have also agreed the online media advertising has been developed. Therefore, it
can be said the development of online media advertising has been contributed by the
development of social media advertising.

The researcher has investigated on identifying the online advertising tools in furniture retail
industry and has found IKEA has been using website, email and search engine along with the
social media in order to develop the online advertising strategy. The company has been found
to utilise the website as well. The customers agreed that they search the website of IKEA in
order to see the advertisements. The finding shows that the lucrative colour in the website
attracts the customers and this finding has supported the statement of Doerner (2013) while
he mentioned that the website of the company must be attractive to look at and the company
must develop the website with various ingredients. The finding has shown evidence that
IKEA considered the statement of Doerner (2013) carefully since it offers the customers a lot
of things via the website. The customers can make a purchase order and online payment by
using the company website. The company provides advertisements on the website since they
are also alarmed that some of the customers visit the website in order to see the
advertisements and get information about the new updates and products in the market.
However, the customers are satisfied with the website advertising strategy of this company
that has been supported by the findings of this research.

Researcher also found the activities of IKEA in search engines and the customers also agreed
that the company has effective search engine optimisation strategy. Customers have agreed
54
that when the look for any furniture products online, the search engine either Google or
Yahoo or Bing shows the advertisements of IKEA. Gotham (2014) investigated and found
that the investment on search engine benefits the organisation in all the aspects. It increases
the brand identity and brand recognition. More customers are also attracted when they
frequently see the advertisements on search engine. The research finding supports the
statement of Gotham (2014) since it shows that the customers happy with the search engine
optimisation strategy and the employees also believe the company is getting positive benefits
by the use of the search engines. The company has been able to increase the customers with
their wide popularity in search engines. And thus, it can be said that the company has
effective search engine optimisation strategy.

Finally, the researcher found the company also uses the email advertising strategy. the
company updates the database including the customer email addresses. The findings show
that the company provides advertisements and updates of the products in their email
conversation to the customers. But Delta (2016) said the use of email has become old
fashioned since the customers don’t usually see the emails and they react very low to the
email conversations. The researcher has found the same findings in this research since the
customers disagreed with the researcher and showed they usually don’t wait for emails from
the company. Rather, the customers agreed they search for the products in social media and
search engine to see the advertisements. But there are some customers too who like the email
conversations followed by the company. Some of the customers agreed that the company still
sends emails to them to inform them about the updates and new products. These customers
also provide feedback to the company via the email conversation and hence the company can
improve their products as per the customer requirement. And for these types of things, the
company still continues the email advertising strategy.

The researcher has investigated the factors that affect the brand image of retail companies.
IKEA has been investigated and the researcher has found IKEA has a positive brand image.
Romaniuk (2009) said, the brand image is the customer perception of the brand and it shows
what customers wish from a brand. The researcher has found same findings in this research.
The customers agreed that they positively perceive the brand IKEA and wishes good quality
products from IKEA in all kinds of situations. This shows the positive brand image of the
brand. Romaniuk (2009) related the issues customer perception with brand image and this
finding has supported his arguments. Since the customers believe and show they are happy
with the brand, the researcher has declared the positive brand image of the brand. Moreover,
55
the concept has been further developed by the employees’ interview where most of the
employees agreed they think the customers have a positive brand image and the advertising
strategy has been considered as the best factor for influencing the brand image.

The researcher more specifically identified the factors that affect the brand image of the
company. The researcher found, the better quality product, effective advertising strategy, and
better customer service contribute to the positive brand image. Roblek (2015) said the
companies need to improve the product quality and if it gets able to improve the product
quality, it will be surely increasing the positive brand image of the brand. Delta (2016)
recommended the companies to improve the advertising strategies to improve the branding
strategy of a company. On the other hand, Lowrey et al (2015) said, companies should
improve the customer services in order to develop the brand image of the company. This
finding has supported all these statements since the employees think all these issues
positively affect the brand image of the brand. The researcher has further asked the
employees of IKEA and 90% of the employees positively agreed with the researcher that the
advertising strategy affects the brand image of IKEA. Although only 30% people said
advertising strategy affects most, the other employees also agreed advertising strategy has an
impact on the brand image and this finding has successfully described the issue that the
advertising strategy positively affects the brand image of the company. The further findings
show that IKEA mainly uses the online advertising strategy in order to develop the
advertising strategy and therefore the researcher mentioned that the online advertising
strategy affects the brand image of the brand.

The researcher used the SPSS data file in order to conduct the statistical analysis for this
research study. Saunders (2013) said, the impact on any subject can successfully get
determined by the use of regression analysis. The researcher here has conducted the
correlation and regression analysis. The researcher has found there is strong relationship
existing among the variables and brand image of IKEA. The researcher found, the social
media advertising, search engine optimisation, and web marketing have more impact on the
customer brand image. the correlation analysis has presented that the online advertising
strategy is 38% related to the brand image. However, the regression analysis has shown that
the adjusted R-square is 12.53% that shows that the online advertising strategy positively
affects the customer brand image. the employees have shown that the brand image gets
influenced by product quality most and the advertising strategy affects next to it. This
regression analysis has shown that the online advertising strategy affects the brand image of
56
IKEA. Although the rate is less than 15%, the impact is not less significant. The finding has
supported the statements of Coomber (2002), Chen and He (2011), Saluja and Singh (2014)
etc. And this analysis has further encouraged the researcher to conclude the discussion saying
that there is the positive impact of the online advertising strategy on the brand image of
IKEA. The further findings have shown the better contribution from the social media
advertising and search engine optimisation while the email advertising has very few impact
on the brand image of IKEA.

57
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Recommendation
In this part, the researcher has concluded the entire research work providing a short summary.
The researcher conducted the research work in order to obtain four major objectives and he
has also discussed those objectives and their fulfilment. The researcher has also provided a
short list of recommendations to the management of IKEA.

6.1 Conclusion
The researcher work has been conducted in order to analyse the impact of online advertising
on the customer brand image. The researcher has set four objectives and to fulfil those, he has
conducted the research work. In the first objective, the researcher has tried to investigate the
online advertising strategy of IKEA. The researcher found, the company has been following
the online media platform in order to develop the advertising strategy. IKEA uses the social
media, website, search engine and email in order to provide the advertisements on the online
network. Social media advertising is a mechanism to use the platform of virtual social
gathering as commercial purpose. There are different social media channels and all these
social media tools are being used for the advertising purpose by the company. IKEA has been
found to use Facebook and YouTube most in order to develop the social media advertising
strategy. The company posts photos and videos of the furniture on the Facebook page and the
customers see the advertisements. But the most known site is the YouTube channel where
the customers said they focus more on looking for advertisements. In addition to the
Facebook and YouTube channels, IKEA also uses the Twitter and LinkedIn along with
Google Plus sites in order to advertise the product. The browsers of these sites look the
advertisements and start analysing the information that helps them evaluate the products and
make a purchase decision. Several researchers have said, the use of social media has been
increased over a couple of years and the companies use the social media advertising strategy
in order to attract these increasing customers. In addition to the social media sites, the
company also advertises on the website, email and search engines. The company has its own
websites and the customers are found to visit the website to collect information about new
products and services and updates. The attractive colour of the website also attracts the
customers to visit frequently. This also is used as the advertising strategy of IKEA. IKEA has
been found to focus on the search engine optimisation strategy for advertisements. The
researcher has found both the employees and customers have agreed that the company has
been following the search engine optimisation strategy. There are different search engines

58
such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. popular to the people all over the world. More than 80%
people search in Google to find their most desired things. The customers agreed that
whenever they look for furniture products and services, Google and Bing always direct the
customers to the advertisements of IKEA. In addition, the Yahoo engine also suggests IKEA
as the best furniture retailer. And these findings have helped the researcher to assess that the
company uses four online platforms to improve the online media advertising strategy.

In the second objective, the researcher wished to assess whether the brand image of IKEA is
positive or not. The researcher analysed the customer and employee information and has been
able to identify the extent of the brand image of the company. The finding from either the
customers or researcher supports that there is a positive brand image of IKEA. Several factors
have affected the brand image of IKEA and these are the product quality, improved
advertising strategy, superior customer service etc. In the third objective, the researcher
wished to determine the impact of online advertising on customer brand image. The
regression analysis helped the researcher define the dependency. The social media advertising
strategy affects the brand image most. Customers see the advertisements and analyse the
information presented there. The customers also expect the same things to get while using the
products as they have been informed by the advertisements. These advertisements help
customers develop their concept to get better products in future and customers can expect
specific things. Customer perception gets improved and they gradually expect better products
from the company that increases the brand image of IKEA. In addition, considering the
regression analysis, the researcher found the company has a positive impact on the online
advertising strategy and therefore the researcher has concluded the research saying that there
is the positive impact of online advertising on the customer brand image in the furniture retail
companies. Moreover, the social media advertising and search engine optimisation strategy
has a better influence on the brand image of IKEA.

6.2 Recommendations
The fourth objective of the researcher for conducting the research work was to recommend
the management of IKEA ways to improve the online advertising strategy to better influence
the brand image.

 The researcher has found that the company has been using the social media
advertising strategy and search engine more. But the company has been found losing
their interest in an email conversation. But the email conversation can assure the

59
 company whether the customers have been informed of the product or not. Therefore,
the researcher has recommended the company to increase their focus on email
advertising strategy. It will definitely increase the brand image more significantly.
 The researcher has found the company has been using social media advertising as the
best online media advertising strategy. But the company was found to focus only on
Facebook and YouTube advertisements. But several researchers such as Delta (2016)
said the use of Twitter has been increasing significantly and companies should also
provide advertisements there. The researcher has recommended to management to
increase their focus on Twitter advertisement as well.
 The company has been found to provide website advertisements but the company
hasn’t increased the scope and opportunities in the website. The researcher has
recommended the company to let a section shared with the customers where the
advertisements will be kept. Moreover, the customer care officials must be linked to
the website in order to provide answers for customer query on the website. If they can
increase the opportunities on the website, more customers will get attracted to the
website and the website advertising strategy will get improved.
 The researcher has recommended the company to conduct market surveys and collect
customer information about their expectations from the company. If the company can
meet all the expectations, their relatedness with the company will increase. Moreover,
they will expect more things from the company in future and therefore, the brand
image of the company will also get increased.

The researcher has specified a timeframe to show the recommended policies and their
implementation time requirement. However, the company will require 8 weeks to implement
the policies,

Table 10: Gantt Chart for Policy Implementation

Recommended Policies Timeline

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Personalization of communication

Embrace Versatile and Non-conventional

60
advertising strategies

Developing android application & High-tech

software for effective communication

Respond to negative feedback

Development of online media customer

groups

Market Competitor's Analysis

6.3 limitations of the Research

A researcher might face limitations in a couple of issues. The researcher in this research has
tried a lot to reduce the limitations. He could incur more mistakes to manually analyse the
research and hence he has applied the statistical tools to reduce the mistakes. However, he
faced a couple limitations in doing the research work, firstly, constraints to the data access
specifically to the primary sources. Researcher needed to depend on a greater extent on the
voluntary cooperation in collecting data from IKEA and the customers. Constraints of time,
logistical supports and knowledge are other issues to be considered. Yet, being sincere to use
maximum use of available resources with academic prowess, the researcher believed to curb
the obstacles to a tolerable extent and come with fruitful result. However, his personal
constraints are another limitation to the research study.

6.4 Scope of Future Research

Every work may include the limitation that the researcher faces in conducting the research. In
this research, the researcher has tried a lot to reduce the limitations. But indeed, there are a
couple of constraints remaining in the research work. But the topic is considered a very acute
issue in the business industry and so the result should be found more accurate and specified.
Hence, more researches need to be conducted to get the accurate result on this topic.
However, the following recommendations are made to the researchers who will conduct the
future researches.

 The future researchers could include more correspondents to get adequate findings.
The more the research correspondents will be, the more the research result will be

61
 accurate. The future researcher could also investigate on more secondary sources like
other research papers, journal articles to get a better comparison.
 The future researchers could incorporate more related questions regarding the online
media marketing strategies and brand image. If the recommendations are followed, it
is anticipated that the future result will be more reliable.

Online advertising has become a common issue to the retail companies in the UK. Since a lot
of customers stay online every time in a day, the companies try to inform them about the
products and services on the online platform. They provide advertisements and the customers
evaluate the information presented there. As a result, the brand identity increases resulting an
increase in customers. Moreover, the customer expectation gets specific by seeing the
advertisements that result in a positive brand image of the company. And these types of
discussions have encouraged the researcher to conclude the research project by saying that
the online advertising strategy increases the brand image and it has a positive impact on the
brand image in the retail industry.

62
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66
Appendix

Survey Form
Serial Number:

TITLE OF THE RESEARCH: “A study into the impact of online advertising strategies on
brand image: A Case Study of IKEA”

Dear participant,

This is an academic research project which is based on the impact of online advertising
strategies on the brand image in furniture retail industry. The researcher has used IKEA as the
research topic. I hope you will support the research with your kind responses. The researcher
is strongly bound to the ethical framework.

Thank You

Socio-Demographic Profile of the survey

1. What is your Gender?

 Male
 Female

3. What is your age group?

 Below 20
 20-29
 30-39
 40-49
 50 and above

3. What is your nationality?

67
  UK
 Other European
 Asian
 North American
 Others

4. What is your profession?

 Student
 Job Holder
 Business
 Others

Survey Questionnaire
Strongly Disagree Somewha Neutra Somewha Agree Strongly
Disagree t Disagree l t Agree agree

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Codin Questions strongly Disa somewh neutr somew agre strongl

g of disagree gree at al hat e y agree
Questi disagree agree
on
Section 1: Social Media Advertising (SMA)
SMA1 IKEA advertises in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
social media channels
such as in Facebook,
YouTube
SMA2 Social media 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

68
 advertising of IKEA
helps me find my
desired product
SMA3 I follow IKEA at 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
least in one social
media platform
SMA4 I can get update about 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
different services
from Facebook or
Google or tweeter
Section 2: Web Advertising (WA)
WA1 IKEA’s website has 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
lucrative colours and
attract me much
WA2 I always search IKEA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
advertisements on its
websites first
WA3 I easily find the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
information of
products and offers of
IKEA on the
homepage of IKEA
website.
WA4 07 I can order IKEA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
products on its
website.
Section 3: Search Engine Optimisation
SEO1 I always find IKEA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
advertisements in
search engines.
SEO2 I find Google easily 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
directs me to IKEA’s
product

69
 advertisements
SEO3 I also find IKEA’s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
products in Yahoo
and Bing engines
SEO4 I think IKEA is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
efficiently using
search engines to
advertise their
products
Section 4: Email Advertising (EA)
EA1 The email sent by 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
IKEA makes sense to
me
EA2 IKEA provides 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
advertisements and
promotional offers
via emails.
EA3 IKEA frequently 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
checks whether we
are informed by
emails or not.
Section 5: Brand Image
BI1 I think IKEA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
provides better
quality products
BI2 I get better services 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
from IKEA
BI3 IKEA has increased 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
my positive
perception by
providing online
advertisements
BI4 I think I have a 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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 positive brand image
for the brand.

Interview Summary
The interview questions have been asked to 20 employees of IKEA and they were required to
answer all the following questions.

Q1. Which Advertising Strategy IKEA uses most to attract the customers?

Answer:

Q2. Which online advertising strategy affects the customers and their perception most?

Answer:

3. What is the best social media platform for advertisements for IKEA?

Answer:

4. Do you think your company has effective online advertising strategy?

Answer:

5. What is the brand image of IKEA to customers?

Answer:

6. What are the reasons behind IKEA’s positive brand image?

Answer:

7. Does the online advertising strategy affect customer brand image in IKEA?

Answer:

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Consent Form

 I confirm that I have read and understand the Participant Information Sheet
 I have had the opportunity to ask questions and had them answered
 I understand that all personal information will remain confidential and that all
efforts will be made to ensure I cannot be identified (except as might be required
by law)
 I agree that data gathered in this study may be stored anonymously and
securely, and may be used for future research
 I understand that my participation is voluntary and that I am free to withdraw
at any time without giving a reason.
 I agree to take part in this study

…………………………

Signature

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