IORPart4

Running head: I O R PART 4 1
I O R Part 4
Daisy Gomez, Dustin Weatherly, Jacob Parry, & Zuly Chihuahua
March 23, 2016
Consumer Behavior 3350
Spring 2016- Stanger

I O R PART 4 2
I O R Part 4
Executive Summary
Recently our team, consisting of Daisy Gomez, Dustin Weatherly, Jacob Parry, and Zuly
Chihuahua, set out to find a local company and help them grow their business.
In the small town of Sandwich Illinois is a bakery called Angie’s Sugar Buzz Bakery.
The owner is Angie Davis, and she like many startup companies wears a lot of hats in the
business. Angie is not only the owner, but the manager and the baker. Our goal was to help the
company through a three part assessment of the company.
Our initial goal in the beginning of the project was to understand the status of the
company. We developed a persona for the owner, Angie, the current market, and the target
market. In our initial study we planned to develop a strategy to find out how to gain more female
consumers. After looking into the bakery we developed surveys to gain insight of the current
consumers. Attached at the end are the survey that were developed to analyze the current clients.
Our third part was to create a focus group and develop a strategy to help Angie’s Sugar
Buzz Bakery. Through conducting three separate focus groups that focused on the Gen Z’s, as
high schoolers male and female. We also conducted a study for the Gen X’s, through a
combination of male and females. The focus group helped us understand the consumer’s beliefs
towards the bakery in a nonbiased way.
After we completed our focus group we developed a strategy that through perceptual
maps that highlight the company’s strengths and weakness. We also developed a blue ocean
strategy that could help to make the bakery uniquely different from all the other bakeries near the
area. Some of our plans included a change in appearance to the logo outside of the business. We
also developed a plan on how they could increase revenue by creating a drive thru.
Through our research we found that the female consumer are very much needed in the
bakery. Our findings from each our research helped us to develop a plan that will help increase
the traffic of the bakery.
Summary of Persona’s
To understand every aspect of the project, we must break down every persona that we
uncovered for this project.
Angie Davis
Angie Davis is the owner and sole proprietor of Angie’s Sugar
Buzz Bakery. She took over and made it Angie’s Sugar Buzz Bakery 2
years ago, after working as a baker in the BP gas station that stood in the
same building for the past 20 years. She has many connections in the
community, as she has lived in the area her whole life, as well as she had
many, many connections having worked in the BP for 20 years. Her two
decades here have helped her out immensely, as when she opened the
company, she had many connections and was able to have a good sales
base as soon as she opened shop.
While Angie is the owner of the bakery she also wears many hats
when running the company. Angie’s bakery is small staffed which
makes her the owner, manager, and baker.Angie knows very clearly

I O R PART 4 3
what her strengths and weaknesses, as well as her competitors, which is something that not too
many small businesses have at the start.
Frequent Fred
For the current customer persona, we used
“Frequent Fred”. “Fred” is a frequent customer of Angie’s,
and have been coming to buy product since the store was a
BP gas station. “Frequent Fred” is a blue collar worker,
who has a median income of around $50,000-$75,000 per
year. “Frequent Fred” is a member of the baby boomer
generation, as well as Generation X. “Fred” finds that he
often support local businesses instead of major chains
whenever he can. “Frequent Fred” also finds himself
frequenting the business out of loyalty to the company.
Athletic Alex
For our target clients, we have three different
personas. The largest group we found was the group of
“Athletic Alex”. We were able to interview 50 people in this
demographic. “Athletic Alex” was a 14-18 year old high
school male, with a large focus on sports, who works 20--30
hours per week at minimum wage. He was willing to spend
his discretionary income on snack foods and coffee, as it is
nice for him to have after his morning workout for sports, or
as a quick stop after practice. He also likes places where he
can go hang out with his friends, which is what Angie is
aiming for.
Joyful Jessica
We also have “Joyful Jessica”, who is a 14-18
year old high school female who spends 20-30 hours per week
working at minimum wage as well. We were able to interview 37
people similar to “Jessica”. “Jessica” often find themselves
frequenting coffee shops, as they are places she can hang out and
relax. This also an age group that finds themselves spending their
discretionary income on products such as coffee and snacks, as it
is cheap and quick, something they can get after work or school.
Healthy Heidi

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Lastly, we had “Healthy Heidi”. “Heidi” is a
20-35 year old female, white collar worker, who makes a
median income of $55,000-$70,000. She is very healthy,
but also recognizes the need for breakfast every day, which
lets her stop for coffee and some food every day. She likes
supporting small businesses. She will take her discretionary
income, and spends most of it splurging on different foods
and stuff like that. She is the main target of Angie’s, as this
demographic has the most spending power.
The demographics help us get a good understanding
of what is currently frequenting the company, as well as what could help the company most.
Women
Industry and gender information is necessary for the success of our project. For that
reason, we did a large amount of secondary research to prove the importance of women as the
target audience with special emphasis on mothers. We gathered together sources that gave us an
array of statistics that covered information on the baking industry,and gender differences. Some
of that information is as followed.
Market research reports from 2014 showed that households with children are the best
customers within the baking industry. It was easily noted that households with children spend
around 60% more than average households without kids, on cakes, cupcakes, cookies, prepared
desserts, coffee cakes and doughnuts (1. Bakery Business 2014,Report, 2014). The demand for
sweets by children can make a difference in the buying patterns of the adults who have the
purchasing power to actually fulfil their child’s demand.
Also, women in particular account for 85% of all consumer purchases, and within that
percentage, they account for 93% of all food and grocery shopping purchases (2. Byron Stanger,
Lecture Slide 22, February 26, 2016). Therefore, women are the ones who are mostly in charge
of getting children sweets. Targeting women would be perfect for Angie’s.
Mothers would be the ideal target market not only because of their purchasing power but
also because of their networks. Research points out that 70% of moms with children under 12
years old make recommendations on brands to other moms (3. Byron Stanger, Lecture Slide 87,
February 26, 2016). By targeting mothers, Angie’s would not only receive their business but also
receive a lot more brand awareness without having to spend any additional money. Targeting
women is the best way for our client to take advantage of that powerful clientele.
Forbes had a female written article about women consumers that stressed how a lot of
times, gender is overlooked, therefore businesses unconciously drive female consumers away (4.
Bridget Brennan, Forbes,January 21, 2015). Women tend like a friendly design, an enjoyable
shopping experience, attention to detail, reliance on human services, and relationship oriented
advertisement (5. Byron Stanger, Lecture Slide 23, Feb 26, 2016). Focusing on all aspects when
making our future suggestions to better fit the needs of women will be beneficial for Angie’s to
make women comfortable in the store and push them to spend more.
Keeping in mind that genders do shop differently we discovered that women tend to have
a shop from noon to 1pm which is around lunch time and also when kids are in the middle of
their school day (6. Byron Stanger, Lecture Slide 26, Feb 26, 2016). That one hour when women
are out running errands allows for a higher female traffic to be driving by the store. Women tend
to have a consistent shopping pattern throughout the week but less on the weekends (7. Byron

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Stanger, Lecture Slide 30, Feb 26, 2016). Weekends are already highly trafficked days therefore
focusing on bringing women in during the week at their shopping peak will bring more sales to
the bakery.
Additionally,women also tend to purchase more smaller ticketed items but at a more
frequent rate (8. Byron Stanger, Lecture Slide 29, Feb 26, 2016). Because Angie’s carries a
variety of smaller ticket items, we wanted to target that group of people to bring in more frequent
sales. On average, women spend four minutes longer to complete a purchase as compared to
men (9. Byron Stanger, Lecture Slide 27, Feb 26, 2016). Turning women into frequent buyers by
purchasing small items and then having them stay in the store longer can give Angie’s more time
to introduce their higher ticket items to them like pre-ordered cakes.
The final factor we thought was important was that research shows that 53% of women
use technology to help them plan special occasions (10. Byron Stanger, Lecture Slide 78, Feb 26,
2016). That can be a great opportunity for our client as special occasions usually require some
form of cakes or pastries which our client offers.
By using research from different sources to know more about the industry and gender
differences, we grasped a better idea of what we can do to help in the success of Angie’s
.
Expected Consumer Behavior
A change in the expected consumer behavior is the most important thing in our project.
We wanted to change the initial reaction women had when entering the bakery, from a bland and
insignificant stop, to the highlight of their day.
Women as we know are the most powerful group of people in terms of their purchasing
power and we wanted to make sure that that group of people loves Angie’s. Through a variety of
tactics and suggestions, we believe that we would be able to bring in more females. Some of
those suggestions include a change setting to add more family seating in the mornings, daily
sales during peak female shopping hours, increase social media and website presence to make it
easy for moms to share their love for the bakery, to make the store more visually appealing
through a new sign to attract not only mothers but children's desire to stop in, and finally to make
the atmosphere more friendly efficient to bring busy mothers in during the morning.
Those changes will not only enhance the experience of this target audience but also
completely change the way they see Angie’s from a negative way to a positive and exciting way.
What You Learned From The Research & Compares With Your Expectations
From our research we conducted in order to formulate a plan for Sugar Buzz, we learned
a lot about the current and target audience of the business. We also learned some very useful data
about those who are classified as gen-z.
Over the process that was this IOR project we conducted research in two ways. The first
type of research we did was conducted on the those that were shopping at Sugar Buzz already.
We did this so we could better understand why consumers choose to go to Sugar Buzz over the
competitors. What we learned from this research was that people choose Sugar Buzz because of
the quality of the product and the exceptional customer service. Being that Sugar Buzz is a small
local business this was about what we expected. Meaning that to be a success small local
business especially a bakery one must have strong local loyalty, and that is what Angie has built
thru her service and quality.
Our second type of research we did was a focus group of the target audience for Sugar
Buzz, which was high schoolers or those classified as gen-z. Our focus groups consisted of 87
high schoolers, 37 of which were females and 50 were males. From these focus groups we

I O R PART 4 6
learned a few things that were what we expected, but most of what we learned was actually
unexpected. What we learned that was expected was that most of the high schoolers preferred to
go to a bakery that has a relaxed coffeehouse atmosphere. What we learned that was unexpected
was a bit more interesting.
What we learned that was unexpected involved social media use and store awareness or
lack thereof. Given that Angie has tried so hard to get Sugar Buzz to become a popular local
business. It quite a surprise to learn that a majority of the panelist had no idea about where Sugar
Buzz was located. Aside from this startling revelation we also learned some important
information about gen-z social media use that we believe is not only interesting, but could also
help out fellow marketers trying to reach those classified as gen-z. What we learned was that the
most popular social media platform used by gen-z is not Facebook as we expected it to be, but
instead was Snapchat. This is quite important mainly because as of right now Snapchat does not
charge business owners to use the platform for advertising. Meaning that if your business is
trying to reach gen-zs, a free ad campaign can be started on Snapchat and it will reach the target
audience.
Marketing Tactics and Implications For Your Client
As our research has shown, Angie is in a good spot, but does have many many ways in
which she can improve her stores place in the market as well as their presence in the market.
(11. Exhibit 11, Team Research Signs, April 12, 2016) (12. Exhibit 12, Team Research Signs, April 12, 2016)
What we were able to discover about Angie’s Sugar Buzz Bakery was that a lot of people
did not know where Angie’s was located. Once we explained to them the location, almost
everyone remembered the location, but as the BP that was there for 20+ years, run by Angie’s
parents. To change this, we must take Angie’s and make it more visible to the community. As
seen in Exhibit 11, and Exhibit 12, we can see how we plan to make these suggested changes.
Exhibit 11, really shows all the signs that consumers see when they are driving to work. In the
right hand corner we can see Angie’s original sign and how it does not stand out. For this, we
plan on having Angie change her sign to something like Exhibit 12, which currently is in the
shape of a barn, into a cupcake. This would fit right in with her business, being a bakery, and

I O R PART 4 7
would also allow people to know that it is a bakery there, and not something like a farmers
market. Also, we suggested that Angie get something cheap to light up the sign, such as Solar
Lights. This would allow her to get cheap lighting for the sign, which would make the sign more
visible once dusk hits.
When we interviewed the students at Sandwich High about what draws them to go places
such as Starbucks, and a decent amount of the students responded that what they liked was the
allure of Starbucks, and roughly 20% said that they liked the fact that the cups had logo’s on
them. This showed where they went, was free advertising for the company, and also let people
know, “hey look, I got starbucks”. Every year, Starbucks sells around 5 billion cups (13,
Adweek, 2014).This could benefit Angie’s. Many people in the town have probably had
something from Angie’s, as she sponsors different events, but due to the lack of logo’s on her
cups, and packaging for her food, they may not even know. Had they enjoyed the product, and
were able to put together where the product came from, this would increase the repeat business
to Angie’s. People would be able to put a face to the product which often allows for increased
return to the same company.
The number one thing students said would bring them into a bakery/coffee house, would
be the ability to hang out and do homework there. This can be made possible by free wifi. The
students said they would gladly go there if they had free wifi. Well Angie’s already has free wifi,
but she does not have any signs letting them know of this. This is a huge draw for people,
especially those who are of this age group and are doing homework on a regular basis.
Companies such as Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Panera all have free wifi. This keeps the
consumers in the store, which causes them to buy more products, as they stay in the store for
extended periods of time. The repeat business will help Angie increase her sales. On average,
after free wifi is added into a restaurant/coffee house, there is a 62% increase in time spent in the
store, and a 50% increase in money spent by these customers (14, Smallbiztrends, 2014).
(15. Exhibit 15, Team Research Blue Ocean, April 12, 2016)
With the free Wifi that Angie would promote we also suggested to change the layout of
her bakery. Many individuals that we surveyed and interviewed suggested adding more seating
to the bakery. In Exhibit 15, was a setup for the bakery that we came up with given that more
individuals are looking to sit at table or booths with friends. Angie has said that she wishes to
expand and allow more individuals to come and sit. So the chart above highlights how she can

I O R PART 4 8
plan those changes. We also noted that she should also include a seating arrangement for outside
her bakery. As many individuals can enjoy the weather by sitting outside as well.
These changes to the marketing tactics will allow Angie’s to flourish, increase her sales,
and increase her marketing image.
Additional ResearchYour Retailer Could Conduct
Our project is over we have conducted sufficient information to formulate a marketing
plan to help Sugar Buzz prosperous, but to make sure that what we are suggesting will work
extra research is recommended.
What we recommended Angie do to help Sugar Buzz was to create a Snapchat ad
campaign, personalize her coffee cups, and advertise her already free wifi. To make that all of
these suggestions workout specific research on each suggestion must be done. For the Snapchat
ad campaign we would suggest putting a key word in the Snapchat ad campaign and then
tracking who all uses the particular keyword to track how many customers are seeing the
Snapchat ads. For the personalized cups, research needs to be done to find the cheapest most
effective option whether that is having personalized cardboard sleeves to go around the cup or
personalized cups as a whole. The last suggestion we had was to advertise the already free wifi
offered at Sugar Buzz. The additional research that could be done on this is to track the number
of dine-in customers that use the free wifi and maybe even put up a welcome page for the wifi
that contains an advertising for the special of the day, and then track who all uses this to get
whatever the special is.
While this project is over what we developed for Sugar Buzz is just beginning there will
always be more research to do, but as long as Sugar Buzz can keep up with the times there is no
reason why the business should not flourish.
Conclusion
Our groups local business, Angie’s Sugar Buzz Bakery, has a unique situation in the fact
that their current audience is mainly male Gen Y’s.
Our main focus was to increase the female target market in Angie’s Sugar Buzz Bakery.
This was our main goal because the female clients are the ones that tend to drive more sales to a
business. Females are consumers that tend to make greater purchases and some of the main
purchases within a family.
Through our surveys, interviews, and focus groups with different consumers our research
discovered the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the bakery. We found that
many consumer want Angie’s to expand her seating, offer free Wi-Fi, and have more eye
catching logos. From our research we were able to develop perceptual map and a blue ocean
strategy that would help Angie’s bakery separate itself from other bakeries.
After collecting all this data we presented it to Angie and she was thrilled to learn
everything that we had discovered. Angie was aware of some of the weaknesses and threats that
her bakery faces. To our surprise Angie loved our ideas to help her bakery and really wants to
incorporate our ideas like creating a Snapchat and even changing her sign that is located outside
her store. Angie has also asked if we would be willing to continue to work with her in expanding
her business in Sandwich.
Our group believes that if Angie incorporates our ideas like creating a snapchat, changing
her sign, and adding a photo album with all her cakes, she will increase her repeat business and
attract more female consumers.

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Bibliography
1. SBDCNet: Bakery Business 2014, Retrieved April 23, 2016, from
http://www.sbdcnet.org
2. Byron Stanger: The Importance of Women Consumers, February 27, 2016
4. Bridget Brennan: Top 10 Things Eeryone Should Know About Women Consumers,
Retrieved April 23 2016 from http://www.forbes.com
11. Exhibit 11, Team Research Signs, April 12, 2016
12. Exhibit 12, Team Research Signs), April 12, 2016
13. Robert Klara, How a Topless Mermaid Made the Starbucks Cup an Icon, September 29,
2014. adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-topless-mermaid-made-starbucks-
cup-icon-160396
14. Anita Campbell, Study: Yes, There Are Benefits of Offering Free WiFi, June 29, 2014.
smallbiztrends.com/2014/06/benefits-of-offering-free-wifi.html
15. Exhibit 15, Team Research Blue Ocean, April 12, 2016

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