SURVEY DESIGN REPORT

SURVEY DESIGN RESEARCH MODEL

PRIMARY RESEARCH O BJECTIVE: To evaluate and test the feasibility and viability of Victorias Secret, a subsidiary of The Limited, Inc., expanding and entering a new market: mens underwear and sleepwear. SECONDARY RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: In addition to our overarching question that will describe the feasibility of a line extension launch, we have devised additional research questions to guide our quantitative research. 1) Who are the primary customers of mens underwear in our target market of ages 18 34? 2) What are the features that these customers prioritize when choosing mens underwear? 3) Should the line extension of mens underwear be related to Victorias Secret, and under what conditions is this possible, if at all? These additional questioned were formed due to our qualitative research.

SUMMARY OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Our qualitative research consisted of secondary data research as well as one focus group. We realize that there are limitations to our suggestions because of the small extent of this preliminary research. However, we have allocated time in the future to also conduct at least one In-depth Interview to have more detailed and insightful data aside from our future questionnaire. SECONDARY DATA RESEARCH RESULTS: Our secondary research gathered information from online databases (MediaMark, Global Market Information Database, Marketline, Hoovers Ibis World, and Ebscohost). In the future, we will also gather more information from Government census databases as well as Local Market Audience Analyst. The secondary data research brought to light the unfortunate reality that mens underwear holds a very small percentage of the market share in mens apparel. It is only about 2% of the $2.1 billion mens apparel industry, which is composed of large and established

competitors like Hanes. Furthermore, the underwear market has also been falling by several percentage points in the past few years. Despite this fact, the global mens underwear market has grown13% in just one year, giving us sensible reason to belief this trend might translate to the US market very soon . This appeared to be a white space in the US market, in which we could identify and target our new consumer. We were able to find characteristics of the average US consumer through our research. We determined that we were adequately targeting an adult consumer age 18-35. The most prominent consumer of mens underwear within our designated market reads more feminine magazines, consumes travel and professional media. Additionally, a significant amount of customers were found to be women who purchase mens underwear for loved ones. The global and domestic trends that we noticed have led to a growth in the market, and gave us insight into the type of consumer we want to target. The leading trends are the usage of underwear for different occasions, especially for athletic activities, as well as higher end brands, such as Calvin Klein pursuing bolder, more fashionable looks. Victorias Secret has captured 25% of the female intimate apparel market through its high-end fashion and quality products. We would like to use a similar strategy that focuses on quality underwear, as well as the well known and respected brand name of Victorias Secret to penetrate the Mens underwear market. We recorded the opinions and preferences of potential consumers within our 18-35 target market in a focus group to guide us and indicate if our strategy was on the right track.

FOCUS GROUP RESULTS: The focus group we arranged was made up of 11 participants that could fall within our target consumer market. We invited 5 females and 6 males, respecting the idea that females are a powerful customer for this male product. We recorded and concluded the following overarching ideas from the focus group PART I 1) Victorias Secret is regarded as a brand that adequately addresses womens needs. It is sexy, high quality, and leaves consumers satisfied. 2) Calvin Klein (who we thought would be a major competitor) is universally known as classic mens underwear. While it is good quality it is not high end or low end. PART II 1) The stores that were most preferred by the focus group were ones that allowed consumers to casually shop on their own while still maintaining responsive customer service and displayed their products inside and outside the walls of the store. PART III

1) Consumers agreed that they would shop for particular brands depending on the occasion. If these occasions were more formal or out of the ordinary, consumers in the focus group were willing to pay more for this type of apparel. PART IV 1) For most clothing items, the look and quality of the clothes were particularly important, especially for high-ticket items like coats and jeans. 2) However, for low-ticket items like underwear, consumers preferred convenience of item location, simplicity of the item, and price as the predominant purchasing factors. PART V 1) When asked if they would purchase a Victorias Secret Mens line, the majority of the reactions were negative when the name Victorias Secret was brought up in conjunction to mens underwear. 2) The quality and brand of Victorias Secret was respected, but the connection between a known womans intimate brand and mens underwear was thought of as strange and it seemed to break the brand equity. The overall results we acquired from the qualitative research indicated to seemingly low expectations for us to pursue a Victoria Secrets men underwear line. While womens underwear thrives in fashion forward approaches and sex appeal, mens underwear is an unimportant shopping decision for most consumers. If we were to go on with our pursuit of this new brand, we may be unable to use the Victorias Secret name as a sponsor. This may risk dissembling the brand equity VS currently holds. Our venture may have to be an entirely new brand targeting a niche consumer, who will be more likely to follow global trends..

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF SURVEY DESIGN

INITIAL THOUGHTS : After performing and completing our qualitative research, we deducted that we still had several large questions that we had to answer. Our qualitative methods narrowed our focus and changed some preconceptions we had about our product, but the results we obtained from it were pessimistic. We have realized that our quantitative research will be critical in determining the feasibility of success of bringing this product to market and what changes need to take place in our brand design and marketing strategy to do so. We thus created a more focused list of large inquiries (listed in the Research Model section) in addition to our overarching questions. We used these themes as a guide to create a series of detailed questions to form our questionnaire. Our main research questions are reiterated below, along with our logic and solutions to address them in the survey.

QUESTIONNAIRE INITIAL DESIGN: 1) Who are the primary customers of mens underwear in our target market of ages 18 35? In our focus group we had unclear answers about who purchases mens underwear. While some men were the primary customers of their own underwear, we had a couple respondents that had never purchased their own intimate apparel. To obtain more concrete answers to this question we used a selection of state of being questions, addressing basic demographics like age and gender. We also created a behavioral question to divide the responses by asking if the respondent had ever bought mens underwear. Additionally we addressed men specifically and asked them who else besides themselves buys their underwear. This was asked to gain additional insight into what type of customer buys mens underwear other than men ages 18-34. 2) What are the features that these customers prioritize when choosing mens underwear? We created this overarching question to give us feedback on both the price range we should consider for our mens underwear line, the importance of the underwear brand in men and womens eyes, as well as important physical attributes that are important to the product To address these specific issues we used several smaller questions. We used a modified Likert scale for a state of mind question about quality of the Victorias Secret (as well as to try to gauge its brand recognition) brand as well potential competitors for an extension line for men. (i.e.: Jockey International and Calvin Klein) We also used another modified Likert scale for a state of mind question to see which physical features of mens underwear were the most important to customers. Last but not least, we introduced an open-ended ratio question where respondents were given an allotted amount of money to spend on specific products, including underwear. We plan to evaluate what a good price range for our underwear would be with this question. We additionally asked, with another scale, a behavioral question about how often the respondent wore different styles of underwear for different occasions to address if the global and domestic trends found in our qualitative research pertained to our target market. 3) Should the line extension of mens underwear be related to Victorias Secret, and under what conditions is this possible, if at all? We felt that this was an important question to address since in our qualitative research we got negative responses when we associated the name Victorias Secret to mens

underwear. Victorias Secret is known for specifically addressing womens needs; we thus need to find a way to create a new image for this line extension to be able to appeal to men. To address this question we created questions that addressed opinions about Victorias secret specifically. These included: the aforementioned Likert question to analyze consumer opinions of quality of Victorias Secrets brand, a behavioral question asking what the likelihood is of the respondent buying a brand extension manufactured by an established female underwear manufacturer, as well as much more direct behavioral question that asked the respondent if they would purchase a mens line extension of the Victorias Secret brand.

4) Would the new line/brand be able to be sold in current Victorias Secret locations or would it need its own stores?

This question is also important because there would be tremendous added costs if the new mens underwear line would have to sold in its own store. Ideally, the new extension would be able to be sold in current Victorias Secret locales. However, the opinions we received from our qualitative research told us differently. We thus created to questions to specifically address the level of comfort felt at stores that sell both men and womens underwear. In another question we also presented the respondent with a series of potential modifications that retail stores selling underwear for both genders could have and asked which would make them feel more comfortable shopping for underwear. In this question we included the option of having separate underwear stores for each gender..

PRE -TEST Our pretest was performed in a controlled classroom environment and resulted in 24 completed responses. The results were anticipated for the most part. The most predominant comment received in class was that the survey looked busy and tiring to take. We determined that this was in part because of the several scales we provided and the layout of the survey. We accordingly adapted the survey to have the least number of scales possible, by turning some to ordinal ranking questions, and some even down all the way to nominal questions to make our survey easy to take. Moreover, we also reworded several of the questions for clarity, including adding examples such as in question 7, where we asked if the respondent wore different types of underwear for different occasions and we specified three specific examples of an occasion. We also decided to turn our last and probably most important question into two different ones; one asking if the respondent would buy the mens underwear extension, and the other if the respondent would wear it if given to him.

We lastly decided to make this an online survey so that we could create one survey to have easier data analysis but also to be able to block out certain questions pertaining to specific genders. The additional changes to better address our specific overarching questions are specified below. POST PRE-TEST CHANGES 1) Who are the primary customers of mens underwear in our target market of ages 18 35? After the pre-test we realized that gender and age alone would leave us short of several analyses of respondents by state of being. We also specifically added: - Participation in sports - Body build This was partly based on the type of media consumers that purchase underwear buy that was obtained from MediaMark. We also added a 5-point scale state of mind question that dealt with the persons reflection of their own fashion taste under the assumption that men and women that consider themselves to have a more modern or trendy sense of fashion will be more likely to purchase the Victorias Secret mens extension line. Lastly, we changed our Likert scale that qualified who bought mens underwear for male respondents and how often they did so to a simple nominal question to check all that apply. 2) What are the features that these customers prioritize when choosing mens underwear? To relief the busy look of these questions we changed the layout of the question dealing with brand awareness and added an option for respondents to check if they were completely unaware of that brands quality. As far as the question dealing with physical attributes of mens underwear, we modified it from a Likert scale to a simple ordinal ranking question. We also changed the scale of how often the respondent bought different styles of underwear for different occasions to a simple nominal question and added examples of what an occasion is to increase clarity. 3) Will an association to Victorias Secrets name hurt or benefit a mens line extension of the brand name?

As aforementioned, we changed the brand recognition of underwear manufacturers (including Victorias Secret) question for higher clarity. At the end of the survey, we also changed the last question asking if the respondent would purchase Victorias Secret mens underwear to two questions to address and compare consumer behavior and customer behavior. No further changes were made. 4) Would the new line/brand be able to be sold in current Victorias Secret locations or would it need its own stores? We modified the questions pertaining to this inquiry for clarity extensively by correcting diction and adding options for respondents to be as specific as possible. Our online survey design also allowed us to block out question 12 (which presents modifications to an underwear retail store to host both genders) if the respondent either feels completely comfortable buying underwear in a store where the opposite gender shops, or if they would never pursue that.

SAMPLING PLAN
POPULATION Our population will be is composed of 18-35 year old, American men and women with a modern sense of fashion and For our sample, we will try to get an equal amount of male and female respondents as we are trying to target both genders to purchase our products. SAMPLE We will be drawing a non-probability sample. We will use a heuristic sample of 200 respondents. Of the 200 responses we seek, we would like an equal division of 100 men and 100 women. Of each of those groups we knew that part of our respondents would be people that have bought mens underwear in the past, and people that have not. We used a quota based on our pre-test to have an educated guess on the percentages of people we could expect to have or have not bought mens underwear. From the pre-test we determined that 75% of male respondents had bought mens underwear before, and that 33.3% of female respondents had bout mens underwear before. We want to mirror this quota into our heuristic sample and have determined that we will thus need 75 male respondents that have bought mens underwear before, and 25 that have not. We also need 33 female respondents that have bought mens underwear and 67 that have not.

VISUAL HEURISTIC SAMPLING PLAN

Respondents Total 200

Men 100

Women 100

Has Purchased 75

Has Not Purchased 25

Has Purchased 33

Has Not Purchased 67

DATA COLLECTION Our survey will be based online and will be distributed through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. We will additionally use our personal networks and send an e-mail blast with the survey link to try to acquire more responses. Each team member will be responsible to acquire 40 responses at the least. Since we will have the flexibility of using SurveyMonkey we will be able to easily discard responses that we accumulate if we get too many of one specific heuristic. At the same time, we will be able to notice if we are lacking responses in certain heuristics, and our team members will be able to compensate to push the survey further and bring more potential respondents to take the survey through similar methods as mentioned above.