Brooklyn Brewery

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 Table of Contents
1. Introduction 3
1.1. Objectives 3
2. Desk Research on Perception and Attitude 4
2.1. Purpose 4
2.2. Perception 4
2.3. Attitude 4
3. Research and Methodology 5
3.1. Research Design 5
3.1.1. Qualitative Research 5
3.1.1.1. Focus Group 5
3.1.1.2. In-Depth Interviews 6
3.1.2. Population and Sampling 6
3.2. Quantitative Research 7
3.2.1. Procedure 7
3.2.2. Surveys 7
4. Reporting 8
5. Timing 8
6. References 9

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 1. INTRODUCTION
The beer consumption has been decreased from 137.6 to 89.2 liters per capita over the last 39
years. The main reason for this shift is changing the relative prices while at the same time price
per liter of on trade beer has been increasing by 60%. The shift in on trade beer prices is due to
tax and excise duties of countries while the fall in off trade prices is because of the heavy
discounting of the beer products by super markets [ CITATION PRT \l 1033 ]. However the beer
industry has been widely known for its oligopolistic position due to factors such as
advancements in technology, takeovers and mergers, barriers to entry, economies of scale and
high concentrations. In 2017 the value of global beer market was $593024 million and is
expected to reach $685354 by 2025.
The increase in disposable income and in consumer preferences have fueled the consumption of
beer over the other alcoholic beverages. Despite of these factors, the adoption of western culture
has also been an important factor in driving the beer consumption in consumer especially in
youth. As per the United Nations world population prospect, the global youth population is
expected to increase the industry share to $1.3 billion by the 2030[CITATION All18 \l 1033 ].

[CITATION All18 \l 1033 ]

Today the beer industry has become a global business with many multinational companies and
thousands of smaller breweries. The global beer market is dominated by the larger brewery
companies however by introducing the variety of new beer products, smaller craft beer
companies have gained substantial market share in recent years that sell at higher price
points[ CITATION Bre19 \l 1033 ].
By regions Asia-Pacific is the largest and fast-growing beer market with a size of about 36.8% of
total global market share. Europe has been the second largest sector of beer consumption. South
America and Africa are the other developing regions with significant growth rates of beer

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consumption. However there have been decline in overall annually beer consumption rate in
North America [ CITATION Bee18 \l 1033 ].

[ CITATION Bee18 \l 1033 ]

Ales and lagers are two primary categories of beers that are distinguished from one another by
yeast types and brewing temperature. Popular types of ales include pale and dark ales and India
pale ales (IPAs). The most popular beer type used in US is a light bodied beer with moderate
alcohol levels[ CITATION Bre19 \l 1033 ]. This study is focused on the brewery industry using
the Brooklyn Brewery Company which is about to launch its new beer product in Indian Pale Ale
style.
New York based brewery, Brooklyn Brewery Corporation manufactures beers and offers its
products to the bars, restaurants and retailers. Brooklyn brewery was established in 1988 by
Steve Hindy and Tom Potter. The Hindy learnt to brew beer while during his six year stay in
different Middle East countries including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. After getting back to home
in Brooklyn Hindy joined his hands with his neighbor Potter, they both quit their jobs and
founded the brewery in 1984.
Initially all of their beers were brewed by the company named Matt brewing company with
which they had a short term contract. Later on in 1996 they established their own distribution
system that transported and marketed all of their beers to the bars and retailers around the New
York City. It serves customers through a network of distributors/representatives in the United
States and internationally.
For marketing and advertising purposes company adopted a less conventional approach that
relies more on word of mouth and brand visibility at the bars. In addition to these company also
donates and sponsors the different nonprofit organizations. Some of the organizations sponsored
by brewery include Eat Drink Local week, Desert fest and New York Harbor Restoration.

1.1. Objectives

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  The main objective is examine the customer attitude toward the consumption of IPA beer
and purchase intentions of beers customers.

 To identify attitudes towards the Brooklyn Beers - This objective would seek to discover
attitudes towards the new product among potential buyers. It will provide some detailed
information on how they perceive the product. It will also compare it with products that
are currently available in the market. This should provide producers with some
indications of the quantities that buyers are likely to purchase.

 To analyze whether the new product is perceived as being complementary with the
current product range - Considering drinks that are produced by the company, it needs to
be examined and analyzed in terms of perception.

 To determine potential buyers of the beers - This objective would seek to analyze market
in terms of who would be a potential buyer/customer. This should be helpful to determine
the price and choose the message that would be used to promote the new Brooklyn
Brewery products.

 To identify the price that buyers would be willing to pay – This would seek to determine
whether buyer would be prepared to pay higher price for the new products. This objective
will examine both prompted and spontaneous awareness.

 To ascertain the best way of promoting the Brooklyn Brewery products – This objective
will help to discover what, in terms of beer advertisements, appeal to potential buyers.

2. Desk Research on Perception and Attitude

2.1. Purpose
The search of another factors that influence the new Brooklyn Brewery products will be carried
out. The importance of market research will be explained and also linked to the beer industry.
This should help the producers to understand the importance of consumers’’ perception and
attitude in terms of the beer industry. The search will gather some valuable indication that may
be used in the next stages of the search.

2.2. Perception – a process of processing sensorial input into an understanding of how

the world works. The process consists of the combination of many different sensorial

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 inputs. The final result is complex to analyse (Blythe, 2013). For instance, people
often judge lagers by their brand.
2.3. Attitude – A tendency to respond to a product/service in a favorable or unfavorable
way. Whether a product will be purchased or not, mainly depends on the consumer’s
attitude towards it. Attitude is not directly observable. It is intangible so it is inferred
from statements of behavior. It is vital for the business to ask their customers what
they think about their products so they keep measuring consumers’ behavior (Blythe,
2013).

3. Research Methodology

3.1. Research Design

A research design is a blueprint for the collection, measurement, and analysis of data, based on
the research questions of the study” [CITATION Sek13 \l 1033 ]. Mainly there are two type of
researches are done throughout the world, following are two type of researches and they are as
follows

 Qualitative Research
 Quantitative Research

3.1.1. Qualitative Research

“Qualitative research is a generic term for investigative methodologies described as

ethnographic, naturalistic, anthropological, field or participant observer. It emphasizes the
importance of looking at variables in the natural setting in which they are found.”[ CITATION
Ame18 \l 1033 ]. Qualitative research is most widely used in the world because it yields the most
accurate results. Qualitative research provides with findings that are not determined earlier and
also with those that are applicable beyond the immediate boundaries of the study. Qualitative
research helps to understand the problem from populations’ perspective that it involves.
Qualitative research deals with understanding of people’s experience in humanistic and
interpretive ways. The qualitative research relies on respondents to provide with in-depth
responses to questions about how they have been constructed or understood their experience
[ CITATION Ron07 \l 1033 ]. In Europe 9% of all expenditures are devoted to only qualitative
research. Approximately an output of $1 billion is yielded from the qualitative
research[CITATION Ala \l 1033 ]. Qualitative research methods help researchers to understand
people, culture and social contexts within which they live. Qualitative research seeks to gain
insight into specific meanings and behaviors experienced in a certain social phenomenon with
the help of subjective experience s of participants. To study human experiences and realities,
qualitative methods use descriptions and categories. Validity of quantitative methods can be

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improved with the use of combination of data collections methods and by analysis of
data[ CITATION Cat06 \l 1033 ].
Usually open-ended questions are used in Qualitative research because these provide with more
accurate findings. Open ended questions are not supposed to be answered with yes or no instead
they are answered with explanations starting with when, how and what. These explanations make
interviewees to speak and elaborate about the nature of their experiences clearly [ CITATION
Faa16 \l 1033 ].
Qualitative research will be used in this study to explore and examine the attitudes of potential
customers of beers.

 The purpose of the qualitative research will be to find out

 Do customers consume IPA style beer or normal beers?
 How much average beer is consumed by the potential buyers and how much IPA is used?
 What kind of beers are consumed by the buyers?
 Whether the potential buyers are loyal to one brand or they switch to others?
 Do they consider price while purchasing the beers or not?
 Whether the potential buyers consider switching costs or not.

Qualitative research will be done using the following ways.

3.1.1.1. Focus Group

Focus group will be structured for open in-depth discussions with a group of selected
participants. The purpose for conducting the focus group will be shared with the group
participants. The focus group will be recorded and transcribed. The main purpose of the focus
group will be to gain the customers insights about the different brewery products including IPA.
Focus group will consist of 8-10 participants both male and female of age between 30-50 years.
The duration of the interview will be maximum one and a half hour. The focus group will include
the most American citizens who are familiar with the Brooklyn Brewery and its products. There
will be moderator present to observe the answers of the respondents. The participant will be
asked open-ended questions that will provide with detailed response from the participants of
focus group.

3.1.1.2. In-Depth Interviews

In-depth interviews will be conducted with the most potential buyers of beers and who have
excess knowledge about different beers companies and their products and are willing to share
their experience and knowledge to gain information about brewery industry. The purpose of in-
depth interviews will be to get insights about potential buyers’ attitude toward beers and their

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prices. It will be helpful in getting required information from a specific target group. Semi-
structured in-depth interviews will be conducted because they are widely used and yield the
accurate information about the experiences of respondents. The in-depth interviews will being
conducted on designed questions. The interviews will be conducted face to face and questions to
be asked will be divided into two parts, the first part will be related to the interviewee’s opinion
about the beer industry and the second part will about customer perceptions and attitudes toward
beer prices. Before starting the interview the respondents will be informed about the purpose of
the interviews. The interviews will be recorded so that interviewers can analyze them accurately
after the interview being held and to get the correct and accurate information. The respondent’s
answers will also be noted down on papers for data analysis. The duration of the interviews will
be 30-40 minutes and interviewers will try to yield as much information as possible.

3.1.2. Population and Sampling

“The population refers to the entire group of people, events or things of interest that the
researcher wishes to investigate”
“A sample is a subset of the population. It comprises some members selected from it. In other
words, some, but not all, elements of the population from the sample”[ CITATION Sek13 \l
1033 ].
For the qualitative research we will use the sample size of 50 respondents that will include both
males and females, light and heavy users of beers and with the age limit of 25 to 40.

3.2. Quantitative Research

Quantitative methods/research emphasize objective measurements and the statistical,
mathematical, or numerical analysis of data collected through polls, questionnaires, and
surveys, or by manipulating pre-existing statistical data using computational techniques.
Quantitative research focuses on gathering numerical data and generalizing it across groups of
people or to explain a particular phenomenon.”[ CITATION USC18 \l 1033 ].

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In Quantitative research deductive approach is used. Quantitative researches use numerical data
and highly objective systematic approaches. Quantitative researches deals with validity
reliability and objectivity and realities of qualitative work [ CITATION Cat06 \l 1033 ]. In
quantitative research, literature review is seen as an important data that provides researchers with
a source of material with which to revise problems and hypothesis [ CITATION HJo09 \l 1033 ].
Quantitative research test the hypothesis and assumptions instead of exploring to build up
knowledge as in qualitative research. In quantitative research, once the data has been collected
we start analyzing it. In quantitative research a sample size is determined by statistical
rules[ CITATION Faa16 \l 1033 ].
Quantitative research method will also be used because all of the researched done before on beer
industry included emphasized on the quantitative research and also because it is the best way to
get the respondents opinions about the products and is the better structured way to develop the
facts and enumeration to help in research.

3.2.1. Procedure
In order to get the respondents response survey strategy will be used. This strategy is used to
answer the questions like when, where and how much the product been consumed. In order to
find the answer to these questions survey is the best option for the research because it gives a
better trustworthy outcomes. It is very important for the investigators of the research to survey
respondents in high numbers to make sure that the respondents are the potential representatives
or buyers of the products for which they are going to be targeted. Different surveys will be
conducted to get the consumer insights about the brewery industry and its products. In addition
to these survey respondents will be provide with the questionnaires as well to gather the data.

3.2.2. Surveys
In this type of data collection questionnaires will be distributed to determine the customer
preferences and interest about beers. There will be only 15 questions in the questionnaire because
respondents get bore if questions are more than 15 or 20 and they don’t give accurate response.

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 4. Reporting
When all activities are done the final report will be prepared and will be submitted for approval.
After getting approved there will be a brief presentation of the research. The presentation will
highlight the objectives and the findings of the research.

5. Timing
A time frame will be set for the entire study before starting. Pauses between different research
phases will be highlighted in this section. The research will be undertaken in approximately 18-
20 weeks. Timeframe will help to summarize the weekly activities of the research and
modifications will be made at certain points if needed.

TIMING
Weeks Activity
1-2` Setting Objectives
3 Desk Research
4-5 Qualitative Research
6-7 Quantitative Research
8 Data Analysis
9 Winding Up Findings
10 Presentation
11 Final Report

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https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/beer-market

Biswa, S. (2018, March). Global Beer market share, size, trend and Industry Analysis. Retrieved from
Allied Market Research: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/beer-market

Breweries. (2019, January). Retrieved from Market Research.com:

https://www.marketresearch.com/First-Research-Inc-v3470/Breweries-12116984/

Faaiz Alhamdani. (2016). AN INTRODUCTION TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DATA ANALYSIS ARTISTIC

APPROACH. International Journal of Development Research.

H. Johnson Nenty. (2009). Writing a Quantitative Research Thesis.

P.R. Tomlinson, & J. Robert Branston. (n.d.). The demand for beers: estimates of long run on and off trade
beer price elasticities. Applied Economic Letter.

Ronald L Jackson, Darlene K, Drummond , & Sakile Camara. (2007). What is Qualitative Research.
Qualitative Research Reports in Communication.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2013). In U. Sekaran, & R. Bougie, Research Methods for Business. John Wiley
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