This document outlines Max Mattacks' research plan for Vans shoes. The purposes of research include learning about the brand's history, target audience, and successful advertising techniques. For primary research, Max will conduct a questionnaire about people's perceptions of Vans and hold a focus group to discuss a Vans ad. Secondary research will include analyzing existing sales data and information from books about Vans' history. Max will present quantitative data visually and qualitatively summarize key points from secondary sources on a blog, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the research.

1. Vans.
Max Mattacks

2. Purposes of Research
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Research is useful as it allows you to:
Gather information about your brand and its history
Find out who your target audience is
To learn more about your target audience and what they
like
• To spread the word about your brand and attract more
attention
• Find out what techniques are successful and work well in
advertising

3. Primary Research
• Primary Research is new research that doesn’t exist
yet, and is used to find out answers to specific questions.
• A good way to conduct primary research is by creating
questionnaires, surveys or small focus groups.
• To show variety in my primary research I plan to do both
a questionnaire and a focus group.
• These will focus on different aspects of my research, the
questionnaire will mainly be about vans in general and
the perception about the brand.
• And the focus group will be used to talk about a specific
advert I will show to try and see what is expected of vans
adverts.

4. Primary Research
• I am trying to find out what people think of the Vans as a
brand.
• Also what the target market is for people seeing the
advert.
• If I can identify these things then I can tailor the advert to
the correct audience but also try and interest people who
are new to the brand or its products.

5. Quantitative Research
• To ensure that I accumulate some quantitative research I
will compiled a questionnaire and send it out to a group
of 13 people.
• I will send the questionnaire to people all around a similar
age group to me, as this is who I think the target market
for Vans will be.
• To show the results of this questionnaire I plan to put all
the numerical research I receive into graphs and present
them on my blog.
• I also plan to do an evaluation of my results and include
what I could of done better. For example what better
question I could of asked.

6. Qualitative Research
• To guarantee that I gather some qualitative research I’m
also going to conduct a focus group based on an advert
for Vans.
• I will recorded the responses of the 3 or 4 people in my
focus group after they’ve seen the advert.
• To show the results from this focus group I will analyze
the recording and write up a transcript of the most
important points made during the discussion.
• I plan to publish these results on my blog with a link to
the advert I showed the group.
• I will then finally do an evaluation and analyze the
strengths and weaknesses of the focus group and what I
have learned form it.
• The evaluation will also be posted on my blog.

7. Secondary Research
• Secondary research is research that is carried out with
already existing research. It uses materials such as
books, magazines, newspapers etc.
• Secondary or ‘desk’ research can also be historical
research or theoretical research.
• This will be useful to me as it will enable me to find out
all the information about Vans that has already be done.
• I plan to research using different medians including books
about Vans and advertising as well as websites showing
vans sales

8. Secondary Research
• I plan to base my secondary research on data that I gather
from the book ‘Vans: Off the Wall: Stories of Sole from
Vans Originals’
• Using secondary research is the most
appropriate way to find out this
information because obviously my
primary is not going to give me the same
level of results.
• Also obviously it’s not really reasonable
for me to make a book to gather
information.

9. Quantitative Research
• To ensure that I have some quantitative secondary
research I plan to find past surveys that have been done
on Vans.
• I will also try and find some existing information on the
sales figures of Vans.
• I will present this information using graphs and I will
then analyse any mistakes or aspects I could improve
on, and write it up in an evaluation.
• I will also evaluate what I did well and how good the
research I gathered was.

10. Qualitative Research
• To ensure that I have some qualitative secondary research
I intend to read through the books I have selected and
highlight key points. I will then type this key points into
my own words and present them in a word document.
• I also then plan to evaluate the quality of my notes and
how I could improve and on this, and how I could
accumulate more data.
• I will also evaluate what I did well and how good the
research I gathered was.