{"title":"Snack Time with Generation Z(A)","authors":"Luca Cian, Meade Brewster","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3626120","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This case set draws on a summer internship in brand management to outline potential steps in bringing a new food product to life. While there are general guidelines to the new product (brand, grocery aisle, and target market), the rest of the product development is up to the team of marketers and research and developers. The assignment is split into three parts to give students the opportunity to suggest next steps, and then learn what the team actually did in terms of market research and overall timeline. Part A sets up the task at hand for the proceeding parts and includes the background information. This part defines the new product as a snack geared toward Generation Z, specifically teenagers, that must be branded by a cereal brand. Provided with general insights about the target population in the exhibits, the student must determine what they should do first to understand Gen Z's snacking habits and make strides toward product development.Part B begins by explaining the actual next steps that were taken—in-home focus groups with teens and their parents—as well as why this was the chosen tactic. After explaining the market research tactics, the case skips to the insights the team developed, including a job map and four functional attributes. This part ends with the question of what to do as a next step since insights have been developed, but nothing physical has yet to be created. Part C starts with additional qualitative testing to refine concepts and begin the prototyping phase. This part wraps up the entirety of the case with choosing finalists through focus group interviews. As the summer internship comes to an end, the case does as well with an outline of future steps for the team to complete prior to launching the new product (such as surveys, mock shelf simulations, test markets, and the possibility of additional research to define packaging). This case set is a great example of one of the many projects that MBA students might face during their summer internships or full-time jobs, as well as an overall learning in decision-making without perfect information to keep an idea afloat. This case is ideal for in introduction to marketing research. Excerpt UVA-M-0999 Jun. 3, 2020 Snack Time with Generation Z (A) Meade Brewster stared at her empty screen, contemplating the conversation she just had with her manager. “Where do I even start?” she asked herself. It was day three of Brewster's 2019 summer internship as an assistant brand manager in the snacking division for General Mills (GM), after her first year at the Darden School of Business (MBA '20). Days one and two were easy—HR and marketing training all day long. She now knew how to input her time and search for brands and key performance indicators (KPIs) in Nielsen. But after just being briefed on her summer-long project, she felt lost all over again. Brewster's manager, Henry, explained the project like this: “The snacking business unit is down and a major focus as we enter FY2020 (see Exhibit 1), especially since all trends in the industry show consumer preferences toward snacking increasing. As you can imagine, there's been a lot of disruption in the marketplace recently with the growth of insurgent brands due to low barriers to entry. What we need you to do is create a new growth product line to compete in the snacking aisle.” Henry paused and looked at Brewster, who must have looked like a deer in headlights as she thought of the many options already","PeriodicalId":319647,"journal":{"name":"DecisionSciRN: Decision-Making in Marketing (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"DecisionSciRN: Decision-Making in Marketing (Topic)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3626120","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This case set draws on a summer internship in brand management to outline potential steps in bringing a new food product to life. While there are general guidelines to the new product (brand, grocery aisle, and target market), the rest of the product development is up to the team of marketers and research and developers. The assignment is split into three parts to give students the opportunity to suggest next steps, and then learn what the team actually did in terms of market research and overall timeline. Part A sets up the task at hand for the proceeding parts and includes the background information. This part defines the new product as a snack geared toward Generation Z, specifically teenagers, that must be branded by a cereal brand. Provided with general insights about the target population in the exhibits, the student must determine what they should do first to understand Gen Z's snacking habits and make strides toward product development.Part B begins by explaining the actual next steps that were taken—in-home focus groups with teens and their parents—as well as why this was the chosen tactic. After explaining the market research tactics, the case skips to the insights the team developed, including a job map and four functional attributes. This part ends with the question of what to do as a next step since insights have been developed, but nothing physical has yet to be created. Part C starts with additional qualitative testing to refine concepts and begin the prototyping phase. This part wraps up the entirety of the case with choosing finalists through focus group interviews. As the summer internship comes to an end, the case does as well with an outline of future steps for the team to complete prior to launching the new product (such as surveys, mock shelf simulations, test markets, and the possibility of additional research to define packaging). This case set is a great example of one of the many projects that MBA students might face during their summer internships or full-time jobs, as well as an overall learning in decision-making without perfect information to keep an idea afloat. This case is ideal for in introduction to marketing research. Excerpt UVA-M-0999 Jun. 3, 2020 Snack Time with Generation Z (A) Meade Brewster stared at her empty screen, contemplating the conversation she just had with her manager. “Where do I even start?” she asked herself. It was day three of Brewster's 2019 summer internship as an assistant brand manager in the snacking division for General Mills (GM), after her first year at the Darden School of Business (MBA '20). Days one and two were easy—HR and marketing training all day long. She now knew how to input her time and search for brands and key performance indicators (KPIs) in Nielsen. But after just being briefed on her summer-long project, she felt lost all over again. Brewster's manager, Henry, explained the project like this: “The snacking business unit is down and a major focus as we enter FY2020 (see Exhibit 1), especially since all trends in the industry show consumer preferences toward snacking increasing. As you can imagine, there's been a lot of disruption in the marketplace recently with the growth of insurgent brands due to low barriers to entry. What we need you to do is create a new growth product line to compete in the snacking aisle.” Henry paused and looked at Brewster, who must have looked like a deer in headlights as she thought of the many options already
本案例集借鉴了品牌管理的暑期实习,概述了将新的食品产品带入生活的潜在步骤。虽然新产品有一般的指导方针(品牌、杂货店通道和目标市场),但产品开发的其余部分取决于营销人员、研究人员和开发人员的团队。作业分为三个部分,让学生有机会提出下一步的建议,然后了解团队在市场研究和总体时间表方面实际做了什么。A部分为后续部分设置了手头的任务,并包括背景信息。这部分将新产品定义为面向Z世代,特别是青少年的零食,必须由谷物品牌打上品牌。在了解了展品中目标人群的大致情况后,学生必须决定他们首先应该做什么来了解Z世代的零食习惯,并在产品开发方面取得进展。B部分首先解释了接下来要采取的实际步骤——在家里与青少年和他们的父母进行焦点小组讨论——以及为什么选择这种策略。在解释了市场研究策略之后,案例跳转到团队开发的见解,包括工作图和四个功能属性。这一部分的最后一个问题是,既然已经有了洞察力,但还没有创造出任何实际的东西,下一步该做什么。C部分从额外的定性测试开始,以细化概念并开始原型阶段。这一部分通过焦点小组访谈选择最终入围者来结束整个案例。随着暑期实习的结束,该案例也概述了团队在推出新产品之前要完成的未来步骤(如调查,模拟货架模拟,测试市场,以及定义包装的额外研究的可能性)。这个案例集是MBA学生在暑期实习或全职工作期间可能面临的众多项目之一,也是在没有完美信息的情况下全面学习决策的一个很好的例子。本案例是市场研究入门的理想案例。米德·布鲁斯特(Meade Brewster)盯着空空的屏幕,思考着她刚刚与经理的谈话。“我从哪里开始呢?”她问自己。这是布鲁斯特2019年暑期实习的第三天,她在通用磨坊(General Mills)的零食部门担任助理品牌经理,此前她在达顿商学院(Darden School of Business, MBA '20)读了一年级。第一天和第二天很容易——一整天都是人力资源和营销培训。她现在知道如何在尼尔森输入时间,搜索品牌和关键绩效指标(kpi)。但在听取了她的暑期项目简报后,她又一次感到迷茫。布鲁斯特的经理亨利(Henry)这样解释这个项目:“随着我们进入2020财年,零食业务部门正在下降,这是一个主要焦点(见表1),特别是因为行业的所有趋势都表明消费者对零食的偏好在增加。正如你所想象的那样,由于进入门槛较低,最近市场出现了许多颠覆性品牌。我们需要你做的是创造一条新的增长型产品线,在零食市场竞争。”亨利停顿了一下,看着布鲁斯特,她一定看起来像一头在车灯下的鹿,因为她已经想到了许多选择