Executive Summary
This report is a full presentation of our market research on Vietnamese Students’ Donut Behavior and Donkey Donut Taste & Design.
Donkey Donut is a new brand in Vietnamese market, which is founded on August 2009 by Marc Stenfert Kroese and Luyen Shell with seventy percent of staffs are disabled people. Their main product is donut and they also produce and sell “doner kebab”, bread and salad. Donkey Donut is well- known among the foreigners but they have low reputation among Vietnamese society.
The main purpose of this report is to analyze Vietnamese university students’ donut behavior to understand more about their taste and design preferences. This research will also help the manager with the decision about expanding their market.
Two research methods were used to implement the project that is focus groups and survey. There were 25 respondents in 4 focus groups and 100 respondents in the survey. The sampling plan was convenient sampling.
Donut Behavior was analyzed in terms of donut buying criteria, frequency of purchase, factors affecting donut buying decision, Vietnamese students’ favorite snacks and their attitude toward Donut as well as the price that they are willing to pay for donut.
The report also provides analysis about Vietnamese students’ donut taste preference. This topic was broken down into Vietnamese students’ favorite donut taste, their opinions about current Donkey Donut tastes, non- sweet donut attitudes and their suggestions for donut tastes.
The final analysis was about Vietnamese students’ donut design preference. Current Donkey Donut design, students’ favorite shapes and their recommended donut shapes and topping design were examine in this part.
The report ended with limitations during the research process, key findings over the research and some recommendations from researchers on further quantitative and qualitative research as well as potential development for Donkey Donut Taste & Design.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 1
1. Donkey Donut Background 9
2. Research/Marketing Problems 10
3. Research Purposes, Research Objectives and Hypotheses 10
4. Research Methodologies 12
4.1 Overview of Alternative Methodologies 12
4.2. Selected Methodologies 14
5. Sampling Plan 17
5.1 Target Population 17
5.2. Non- probability Sampling 18
5.3. Sample size and actual sampling units 18
6. Actual Sampling 18
7. Results and Discussions 20
7.1. Demographic Analysis 20
7.2. Donut Behavior 22
7.3. Vietnamese Students’ Taste Preference 32
7.4. Vietnamese Students’ Design Preference 40
8. Conclusion 46
8.1. Donut Behavior 46
8.2. Taste Preference: 48
8.3. Design Preference 49
9. Limitations 50
10. Recommendation 51
10.1. Further research on Vietnamese students’ donut taste and design preference 51
10.2.Donkey Donut Taste & Design 51
11. Reference 51
12. Appendices 52
List of tables
Table 1: Purposes, objectives and hypothesis 11
Table 2: Advantages and disadvantages of secondary data analysis 12
Table 3: Advantages and disadvantages of experimental research 12
Table 4: Advantages and disadvantages of focus group 13
Table 5: Advantages and disadvantages of in-depth interview 14
Table 6: Advantages and disadvantages of survey 14
Table 7: Focus group’s elements 16
Table 8: Survey’s elements 17
Table 9: Data analysis and sources for donuts behavior 24
Table 10: Data and sources for secondary analysis of students taste preference 33
Table 11: Comments on current Donkey Donut taste by percentage 35
Table 12 : Data and sources of secondary analysis for designs preferences 41
Table 13 : Comments on current Donkey Donuts shapes by percentage 42
Table 14: Vietnamese students’ favorite donut shapes 43
Table 15: Shape suggestion by number of respondents 44
List of figures
Figure 1: Groups of respondents based on university 20
Figure 2: Focus group students’ pocket money per month 21
Figure 3: Survey students’ pocket money per month 22
Figure 4: Weekly snack eating frequency by number of responses 25
Figure 5: Weekly snack eating frequency by percentage 25
Figure 6: Vietnamese students’ favorite snacks by number of respondents 26
Figure 7: Vietnamese students’ favorite snacks by percentage 26
Figure 8: Attitude toward donuts by number of respondents 27
Figure 9: Attitude toward donuts by percentage 28
Figure 10: Donuts buying criterias by number of respondents 29
Figure 11: Donuts buying criteria by percentage 29
Figure 12: Satisfaction level based on university 30
Figure 13: Vietnamese students’ price expectation divided by university 31
Figure 14 – 15: Most influenced factors divided by gender 32
Figure 16: Favorite tastes by number of respondents 34
Figure 17: Favorite tastes by percentage 34
Figure 18: Non-sweet donuts attitude by number of respondents 36
Figure 19: Non-sweet donuts attitude by percentage 36
Figure 20: Taste suggestion by number of people 37
Figure 21: Taste suggestion by percentage 38
Figure 22: Favorite donuts topping divided by genders 39
Figure 23: Students’ favorite shape by number of respondents 42
Figure 24: Shapes suggestion from students by percentage 44
Figure 25: Students favorite shapes divided by university 45
1. Donkey Donut Background
“Donkey Donut” was found on August 2009 with the specific goal to provide customers with the most delicious hand- crafted donuts using the best and fresh ingredients. Also, they try to gather all tastes of the world through Donuts and make taste of each Donut have unique origin. Furthermore, “Donkey Donuts” aims for the highest customer satisfaction because they believe that their success depends on customers. Thus, they make great efforts to listen to the needs of consumers as well as enhance the quality of service by providing the delivery service to them on special occasions. They always want to ensure the best value money for each customer.
On the other hand, “Donkey Donuts” is operating as Socially Responsible Company. They employ people with disabilities and help them to improve their lives through sharing, caring and learning from each other. With the ambition to prove that disabled people can be part of a competitive business environment successfully, employees are taught not only the way to bake and cook, to deliver, to sell, to serve customers and to speak English but also professional business skills like: quality control, hygiene and meeting deadlines. Their team believed that they are confident and take pride in work.
Donkey Donuts has well reputation among foreign customers. They are also the donut supplier for some international primary school in Hanoi. However, Vietnamese customers, especially university students have not known about this brand. As Hanoi is a centre of education of Vietnam, there are a lot of students studying here. Moreover, they are the ones who like to experience new and trendy stuffs such as donut. Therefore, this market segment is really potential for Donkey Donuts and it is ideal to expand their market to this market segment.
2. Research/Marketing Problems
Decided to choose university students to be the target customer, Donkey Donut’s marketing problem is that they should have more information about university students’ donut behavior as well as their donut taste and design preferences.
3. Research Purposes, Research Objectives and Hypotheses
Purpose Objectives Hypothesis
1. To find donut eating behavior of students 1.1 How many students are eating donut?
1.2 How often do they eat donuts?
1.3 How much do they spend on donuts per week?
1.4 Where do they buy donuts?
- Students prefer buying Donuts in convenient stores which are near universities, in the center of Hanoi and near entertainment center
- It is believed that they would spend 2-3 times per week enjoying Donut. Consequently, the consumption per student is forecasted to rise by 5% (around 70000-100000 per week).
- 30-35% of university students are guessed to buy Donkey Donuts.
2. To identify their design preferences 2.1 What donut shapes, designs do they like? Why do they like those designs?
2.2 Are there any other designs they want that the market have not offered?
- 85 % customers would choose more Donuts which shapes are creative and special like flower, heart, animal, number.
- 75% students would buy donuts with different facial expression designs.
- 30% recommend about star as new shape.
3. To discover taste preferences 3.1What are university students’ favorite tastes?
3.2. Why do they like those tastes?
3.3. What is the most frequent taste of donut that they bought?
3.4. Do they like salty donuts? Are there any other tastes that they like and have not been offered on the market?
- 30% of university students are estimated to prefer to eat chocolate, strawberry and coconut flavor rather than salty and bitter taste
- 60% of those would indicate that sweet food are their favorite one
- Another reason (20%) would be purposed that those tastes included more vitamins than other so it can help them to supplement more ingredients for their health and their beauty.
- There is a new taste which 20% of customers want to be offered.
Table 1: Purposes, objectives and hypothesis
4. Research Methodologies
4.1 Overview of Alternative Methodologies
4.1.1. Secondary Data Analysis
Advantages Disadvantages
- Affordable cost because data is collected mainly from Donkey Donut Official Website, online sources and newspaper, magazines.
- Researchers are familiar with this type of research method as they spend lots of time on the Internet. - Information is sometimes too general and cannot support the specific needs of the research objectives.
- Donut is a new perception in Vietnam. It resulted in a lack of information about Donut.
Table 2: Advantages and disadvantages of secondary data analysis
4.1.2.Experimental Research
Advantages Disadvantages
- High response rate because respondents will feel more eager to talk when they are motivated by donuts and coffee/tea.
- Suitable for the research purpose – Donut Taste & Design preferences because respondents can eat and see the donut. - This is a costly method as the cost for donuts and coffee/tea is considerable.
Table 3: Advantages and disadvantages of experimental research
4.1.3.Focus Group
Advantages Disadvantages
- A lot of ideas about desired shape/taste and they come directly from the target customers.
- Young people tend to give more comments (either good or bad) about a product when they are in a group.
- Take less time than the in-depth interview.
- Easy to interpret their feelings through their tone, body language.
The cost is not very high to operate. - Some young people will try to comfort the ideas of the group so the information may be bias; some are too shy to give their ideas/feelings.
- Some ideas from these people may not be realistic or they are not attractive to other customers.
- It is hard to find volunteer which suit our research.
Table 4: Advantages and disadvantages of focus group
4.1.4.In- depth interview
Advantages Disadvantages
• With sales employee:
- The sale employee communicates directly with customers; therefore, the information that provided by sale employee is clear, accurate and valuable.
- The respect of the sale employee will be enhanced; thus, he/she is willing to co-operate as the result.
- It may cost less time than applying the survey method
• With a customer:
- Easy interpreted data and reflect customer’s desired product.
- Detailed information - It may be hard to make an appointment with the sale employee as he/she has to work 7 days per week.
- The information can be incorrect or bias about their product
- Skills of the sale employee may be not well-trained
- Unstructured data
- Misleading answers
- Information may be bias due to the interviewee’s own interest or perception
- Take too much time.
Table 5: Advantages and disadvantages of in-depth interview
4.1.5.Survey
Advantages Disadvantages
- Easy to find respondents who are students because the number of students in Hanoi is large.
- Students are more willing to do survey because it take only several minutes and it’s anonymous.
- There will be more students involved so the received information will be more accurate and reliable. - Low response rate: respondents may ignore the survey paper or randomly choose the answer without looking at the questions.
- The answer may not be truth because students may not have knowledge on the subject or they don’t understand the question.
Table 6: Advantages and disadvantages of survey
4.2. Selected Methodologies
After considering cost and benefit of those above methods, secondary data analysis, focus group and survey are chosen to be conducted in this research. These methodologies are selected based on its suit with student budget, time and the research’s objective.
4.2.1. Secondary Data analysis
The research team will take the full advantage of secondary data like: minimum cost, accessible information to fulfill the objective. Although some data are not consistent with specific purpose and lot of efforts are required to seek useful information, this method is the most likely one to develop somewhat within our capabilities.
There are some sources of secondary data:
- Online research: data can be gained significantly from online source such as: online newspapers, e-books, reliable website. The team will search about not only the behavior of students toward Donuts but also the perceptions of target customers toward Donuts’ taste and design. From the results, the team tried to narrow the information to suit with the particular purpose.
- After searching the material from internet, data will be translated and categorized into the best purpose of this research.
4.2.2. Pilot Studies: Focus group, Survey
Based on cost and benefits of these methodologies, focus groups are chosen to conduct to explore deeper understanding of target customers’ opinions about Donut taste and design. To some certain extent, information can be generated effectively and avoid bias attitude of moderator. Plus, because students are considered as the main target customers, respondents will participate actively and share their own ideas together. Therefore, the understanding of students’ expectations toward taste and design will be identified and classified clearly. However, although it requires medium cost and time consuming to set up group discussion, the requirements of particular purpose is served well.
Element Focus group
Size - 4 groups
- 6-7 respondents per group
Duration - 1.5 to 2 hours per group
Participants - Invited through personal contact
- Students (18-25) from different universities in Hanoi
Criteria - Asking for Donkey Donut’s taste and design
Forms of data - Verbal expression
Data collection - Audio Tapes
- Transcript
Moderator - Each researcher is in charge of one group
- Establish and develop rapport about taste and design of Donuts
- Develop discussion about the topics
Formats of reporting - Use direct quotation
Table 7: Focus group’s elements
Based on cost and benefits of these methodologies, focus groups are chosen to conduct to explore deeper understanding of target customers’ opinions about Donut taste and design. To some certain extent, information can be generated effectively and avoid bias attitude of moderator. Plus, because students are considered as the main target customers, respondents will participate actively and share their own ideas together. Therefore, the understanding of students’ expectations toward taste and design will be identified and classified clearly. However, although it requires medium cost and time consuming to set up group discussion, the requirements of particular purpose is served well.
Element Survey
Size -100 surveys
Time frame - Conducted from 10 May to 15 May 2010
Participants -100 students from various universities in Hanoi
Topic - Donut eating behavior of Hanoi students.
Forms of data - Each sheet contained 15-20 questions
- Contained self-answered questions, yes/no, ranking.
Data collection - Face to face survey
- Internet survey: facebook, http://esurveyspro.com
Format of report - Use direct quotation
- Categorize repeating opinions of above topic
Table 8: Survey’s elements
5. Sampling Plan
5.1 Target Population
The current target market is Hanoi where the population is about 7 million at the moment. The target customers are Vietnamese university students whose age are from 18 to 24 (14% of total Hanoi population). Potential customers’ budget for snack is 200,000 vnd per month or above because donut’s price is about 15,000 vnd and it restrict people with a lower budget. Customers may be either male or female who have interest in Western food and would like to try new things. These people’s living places are in inner Hanoi so they would be able to try the Donkey donuts.
5.2. Non- probability Sampling
Due to the specific requirement of the research, the sampling method is judgment.
For focus group, respondents are chosen based on team member’s relationship. They must be university students who are confident, talkative and have some knowledge in food & beverage field (they may have good taste or have tried many kind of snack in different shop). Respondents must have tried donuts before because the focus group is conducted to gather information about taste and design so inexperienced respondents who never tried donut before will be able to give little comments and improvement for the products. The recommended number of group is 4-5 with 6-8 members each.
For survey, the requirement is lower. However, respondents must be university students who consumed donuts because the survey questionnaire is mainly about donut behaviors. Based on the team’s capacity, the estimated size of the survey is 90 to 120 people.
5.3. Sample size and actual sampling units
The research consist of 4 focus groups with 6 people in each group, respondents are mainly students who are from 19 to 23 who have experience about donuts. Prior to the research, chosen people were invited to join the research by face - to – face and phone.
The survey is conducted in two ways: print paper and online survey. The number of respondents is 100.
6. Actual Sampling
6.1. Focus Group
According to the plan, we was about to invite from 24 to 32 people to Donkey Donuts shop in Ta Hien to participate in our focus group. In fact, 4 groups have been established, with the total number of 25 students. First group includes representative RMIT students, who are very studious, so meeting in one of school classroom can save more time for them than going anywhere else. Second group consists of Foreign Trade University students; hence, a cafe in Chua Lang Street is chosen since the university is located here and it is easier for them to find the meeting spot. Other two groups are students from National Economics University (NEU), and combination of Hanoi Medical University (HMU), University of Civil Engineering (UCE) as well as Thang Long private University students. All of them are invited to RMIT to be investigated as here they have adequate facility to form focus group meetings.
The people to be invited were expected to be those have full experience in donuts. However, as donuts is a European food and does not seem to suit the taste a large number of Vietnamese people. Therefore, many customers tried donuts for few times and quitted. Consequently, the students who we invited mostly ate donuts for several times only. Besides, the most experienced respondents come from RMIT since they repeat consuming this kind of snack pretty frequently.
Finally, as we planned to utilize tape recorder during the focus groups, 3 focus group meeting have been recorded. However, for some reasons, we were not able to make it for the final group so note taking was decided to replace tape recording.
6.2. Survey
The total number of surveys we distributed were 100 (include 50 both face-to-face and 50 online surveys). Nevertheless, only 88 questionnaires were collected. Besides some basic demographic questions, each questionnaire contains 19 questions about donuts eating behavior, topping and designs preference. The full questionnaire will be showed in the appendix.
7. Results and Discussions
7.1. Demographic Analysis
7.1.1.Focus group
Figure 1: Groups of respondents based on university
In four focus groups have been implemented, Foreign Trade University and RMIT have the equally highest number of female participators which is 6. There were no female students on behalf of National Economics University, but this school has the larger number of male students in the focus group than any other ones. No girls from National Economics University and 3 female students come from other universities to be respondents. In general, there are not many male students who have enough understanding about donuts to be invited to the focus groups. Only 1 guy from RMIT and 3 from other universities came.
Figure 2: Focus group students’ pocket money per month
Most respondents have income from 1 to 3 million. In RMIT, no students in the focus group have pocket money lower than 1 million, as same as National Economics University students. On the other hand, one person from Foreign Trade University got less than 1 million for monthly spending. The largest number of people have pocket money at the lowest rate are from other universities such as Hanoi Medical University or University of Civil Engineering. There are 3 students could spend from 3 to 5 million each month are students of RMIT (2) and NEU (1). No students have pocket money larger than 5 million per month.
7.1.2. Survey
Figure 3: Survey students’ pocket money per month
There is a large number of 35 female students have the pocket money less than 1 million per month. On the other hand, only 9 male students confirm that they have such low budget. Moreover, most male estimated they have minimum of 1 million and maximum of 3 million each month to spend. While the number of female students who have the same pocket money is lower by 5 persons. Not only that, number of female students have pocket money from 3 to 5 million surpass this number of male, which are 7 and 1 people correspondingly. Finally, there is the equal numbers of 3 male and 3 female students who have extreme large pocket money exceed 5 million monthly regard to the survey’s result.
7.2. Donut Behavior
7.2.1. Secondary Data Analysis
Data Sources
• Perception of students about Donuts
It can be said that Donut’s target customers are mainly youngsters. The size of this potential segment has increased rapidly in recent years as its physical demands and needs are also enhanced. With the modern technology of the twenty one century as well as the strong development of communication, the information can be shared and spread so quickly through the media especially the Internet. According to H.T (2010), in the age group from 15 to 24 years old, almost all people have ever used the Internet and 70% of them access to the Internet every day. As the result, donuts are mainly known by the Internet through websites and discussion forum. Due to donuts are very new and processed with modern techniques, it can attract a lot of young excited customers. Furthermore, besides communicating through the Internet, word of mouth also is a very effective way to spread the information about donuts. In this case, word of mouth can be considered as more effective than the media. The story which is told from some friends is not only about their experience, but also contains the emotion and maybe advices from the teller. As long as the advices are all positive, there are more customers who will try donuts.
• Customers often go to Donut Shops with their friends
It can be seen that Donut shop is a nice place for students to hang out with their friends. Many students choose to go to Donut shop for chatting with friends, taking pictures or having a party. Only a very small number of students come to Donut shop alone or with their families. H. T (2010), “Hà Nội dẫn đầu cả nước về tỷ lệ truy cập Internet”, viewed 31 March 2010.
http://www.forum.socvui.com/archive/index.php/t-17022.html
Party at DOCO, viewed May 1 2010,
< http://docodonuts.com/>
• Current Price of Donut (from 12,000VND- 15,000VND) is acceptable
Students in the age of 18 to 23 mostly have money from their parents because they do not have their own income. However, most of students who had eaten donut think that the current price of donut from 12,000VND to 15,000VND is affordable. The reason is that they think that donut price is not only the price of donut itself but also the price of facility (shop decoration) and in- store services.
• Students prefer to eat Donut at a nice-decorated shop
Students love to go to shop where there are nice and exclusive decorations. Look at their comments on an article about a new donut shop, it can be seen that they do not care much about donut quality or how far the shop is; their most concern is the shop layout and its furniture. The strong shop- image- attraction outweighs the distance or the service.
Table 9: Data analysis and sources for donuts behavior
7.2.2. Focus Group Analysis
a. Frequency of snack eating
Figure 4: Weekly snack eating frequency by number of responses
Figure 5: Weekly snack eating frequency by percentage
According to the graphs above, the number of Vietnamese students consume snacks daily is 68%, which includes 18 people who participated in focus group. This also is the largest proportion of weekly snack eating frequency. The following largest portions are 4-5 times, 2-3 times and once a week, which are 20%, 8% and 4% respectively. Those numbers reflect 6 people have snacks 4-5 times a week, while 4 people purchase snacks 2-3 times and only 2 others eat snack once per week.
b. Vietnamese students’ favorite snacks
Figure 6: Vietnamese students’ favorite snacks by number of respondents
Figure 7: Vietnamese students’ favorite snacks by percentage
Vietnam has many different types of snack. As being shown in the chart and graph, people favor instant noodle most since 28% students being asked have this answer. This is the result of 7 out of 25 people prefer having this food as their snack. The second most favorite snacks are ice cream and che, which are cold and most consumed in summer. Both of them were mentioned by 4 students; contribute to 16% of the answer for each question. Yoghurt and breads rank third place with 12% equally. 3 students have bread and other 3 enjoy yoghurt once they have spare time. The least favorite snacks go to caramel, which is favored by 2 people; and cake, which is also liked by 2 people. Both of these kinds of food are very sweet and 2 people prefer each of them equal 8% of people being asked for each kind.
c. Vietnamese Students’ Attitudes Toward Donut
Figure 8: Attitude toward donuts by number of respondents
Figure 9: Attitude toward donuts by percentage
Donut is also one kind of snack and new in Vietnamese market. After researching, no one said they hate donuts. While the most people (64%) say they find donuts are normal and have neutral attitude toward them. In total, there are the majority of 16 people have such attitude. Further, 20% students dislike donuts, which identical 4 students. The number of people who like donuts is 2 out of 25; this number is also viewed as 12% of the students have the same attitude. Only one person reveals he loves donuts, contribute to 4% of students.
d. Donut Buying Criteria
Figure 10: Donuts buying criterias by number of respondents
Figure 11: Donuts buying criteria by percentage
Among 25 students being researched, the largest portion (40%) choose design as the most important criteria of buying donuts. Followed by 24% students buying behaviour based on price. Flavor is picked by 16% of students, 12% buy donuts because they like the decoration of the stores. Final 8% choose the location of the store before purchasing donuts.
7.2.3. Survey Analysis
a. Reasons for choosing favorite donut brands
Since this question mostly based on individual perspectives, many different causes were demonstrate. Many people mentioned they are attracted by the well-designed and good atmosphere shops when they roaming around Hanoi. Besides, three students state that they favor any donut brand which is convenient to buy; such as the location is near their house or on the way to school. A lot of students like Doco’s donuts and coffee brand since they love famous labels. One person says the price is quite cheap so she/he does not mind purchasing donuts in one shop frequently. Others seem to prefer donuts topping as many wrote eye-catching, nice and unique designs make them choose that brand. Other factors, for example, good delivery, food hygiene, various shapes are also concerned by few people.
b. Satisfaction level toward the most frequent-purchased donuts
Figure 12: Satisfaction level based on university
Among the cluster of RMIT students, the majority choose the satisfy level. The same thing happens to FTU, VNU and others universities. However, most students in NEU group are neither satisfy nor satisfy with the donuts they usually eat. Those who are very satisfy with the donuts they eat includes 1 from RMIT, 2 fromVNU and also 2 from other universities. Two persons from RMIT and NEU feel very dissatisfy and non from the rest share the similar feeling. In total of 4 persons feel dissatisfy with their frequent-purchased donuts, 2 are RMITers and 2 are students of other schools.
c. How much they willing to pay for a donut
Figure 13: Vietnamese students’ price expectation divided by university
After conducting the survey, it can be seen that a significant number of 61 are willing to pay from 5,000 to 10,000d for a donut. The mass portion of students come from VNU, NEU, FTU and other universities would like to buy at this rate. In contrast, the majority of 13 people in RMIT who filled in the survey that they will buy donut from 10,000 to 15,000 per each. While no one from VNU wants to pay at that price and only 2 from NEU, 6 from FTU and 4 from other university could purchase to such expense. If the price of one donut is higher than 20,000d, only two students from RMIT and another university want to pay for it.
d. Factors affect buying donut decision
Figure 14 – 15: Most influenced factors divided by gender
Accoding to the pie charts, both 43% of male and female students prefer donuts have good tastes and nice designs as their inportant factors. Further, 39% famale students consider quality factor when purchasing donuts but only 19% male see it as essential. With 3% of male and 4% of female, service is the aspect that least people feel it is important in their donuts buying behaviour. Price is more important for male students than female students when 19% of male choose it to be the most influenced factor while only 3% of female think so.
7.3. Vietnamese Students’ Taste Preference
7.3.1. Secondary Analysis
Data Sources
• All Donut tastes are “interesting to try” because students love to experience.
Students tend to like some different tastes of donut, not just one taste. Chocolate, strawberry, coconut, fruit jam and colorful green rice flakes seem to be students’ most favorite tastes. These tastes match the whole donut taste, easy to eat and suitable with the majority’s tastes.
• Current Donut Tastes in the market are mostly sweet tastes
Sweet taste is the original taste of donut, therefore in Vietnamese market, about 90% of donuts have sweet taste. Sour taste and salty taste like “Chanh Chua” or “Ruốc Me Up” has only a small amount over sweet tastes. Non- sweet donut is a good idea, however, there must be a match between the cake and the topping or it will cause customers disgusted feelings.
• Some donut tastes are too sweet
In some forums, customers complained that donut tastes are too sweet so they cannot eat as much as they want. They are also afraid that too much sweet can cause obesity or diabetes. This may because donuts are from western culture and their sweet tastes are stronger than eastern customers. If donuts can be less sweet, the number of customers will considerably increase. http://blog.yume.vn/xem-blog/donut-them-them-them.xukattleo.35BE4223.html
http://teenpro.hnsv.com/teens-sai-gon-hoa-mat-voi-the-gioi-donut-t4458.html
Table 10: Data and sources for secondary analysis of students taste preference
7.3.2. Focus Group Analysis
a. Vietnamese Students’ Favorite Donut Tastes
Figure 16: Favorite tastes by number of respondents
Figure 17: Favorite tastes by percentage
Figure 1 and 2 shows the opinions of respondents about their preference taste. The most preferred taste of students was strawberry with 5 people accounted 20% of all respondents. 16% (4 respondents) mentioned that their favorite taste was chocolate and it was the same number with the answers of vanilla, cream. Following a 12% commented that they preferred apple taste than other taste. Lastly, nuts are the first choice of 8% of students.
Hypothesis:
Sweet tastes refer to the taste of chocolate, nuts, strawberry, apple, vanilla and cream. Only “ruốc” is salty and can be considered as a non-sweet donut taste. From the graph, it can be seen that there are 88% of students are in favor of sweet tastes. Therefore, the hypothesis that 60% students like sweet taste Donut can be accepted.
b. Current Donkey Donut Taste
Comments Percentage
Good 28%
Too sweet 72%
Too dry 24%
Topping taste is not suitable with donut cake 12%
Bad chocolate 48%
Apple jam smells good 4%
Not as good as Doco’s Donut 28%
Table 11: Comments on current Donkey Donut taste by percentage
After analyzing data from focus groups, both negative and positive comments are cleared. First, 28% respondents agree Donkey Donuts taste good and 4% compliment apple jam smells very fine. However, many people (72%) feedback it tastes so sweet that it is hard to consume the whole cake. In addition, 24% respondents say those donuts are too dry and 12% point out the topping taste does not match the cake. Not only that, 48% of students conclude both chocolate in the center and on top seem really bad as it does have any smell and not bitter enough. They prefer chocolate which is soft and melts easily inside mouth. Finally, there were a small number of students (28%) evaluated Donkey donuts are not as good as Doco’s.
c. Non- sweet Donut Topping Attitude
Figure 18: Non-sweet donuts attitude by number of respondents
Figure 19: Non-sweet donuts attitude by percentage
Both this figures show the attitude of respondents toward non- sweet donuts. 32% of students emphasized that they preferred non- sweet donuts rather than its current taste. The main reason is supposed that the topping and stuffing of Donuts included too much saccharine. It is contradictory opinion with 24% respondents who mentioned that they strongly disagree with non-sweet taste. They stated that if Donut is not as original as it should be.
d. Vietnamese Students’ Suggested Donut Topping Tastes
Figure 20: Taste suggestion by number of people
Figure 21: Taste suggestion by percentage
These figures show the answer of students about their suggestion of taste. The majority (28%) of respondents recommended about ice-cream taste while the yoghurt taste is the suggestion of 20% students. Another taste is pointed out like: coffee, grapes which counted respectively 16% and 12%.
Hypothesis:
There are two taste suggestions that have over 20% of ideas: ice cream and yoghurt. So, the hypothesis that there is a new taste which about 20% of customers want to be offered in the market is accepted.
7.3.3. Survey analysis
a. Favorite donut topping
Figure 22: Favorite donuts topping divided by genders
The most favorite topping among female group is chocolate, which is prefered by 26 students while the number of male like this topping is 10. The next popular topping is cream, which is favorited by 14 male students and 21 other female. Hazel is not being favored much as only 1 male pick it.
b. Desired topping
Some other suggestion for topping come from the students are caramel, dried fruit, salty cream, lemon slide, butter, soft candy and honey.
7.4. Vietnamese Students’ Design Preference
7.4.1. Secondary Analysis
Data Sources
• Changes in Donut Design
In the past, Donut was simply made from wheat flour and little fine flour in the topping. Now, with modern equipment and technological innovation, in order to make the donuts softer and more delicious, donut makers also add new materials such as egg, butter, and milk in the donut dough. Moreover, donuts can be processed from various materials like cream, butter, almond, chocolate or fruits. Donut is not only delicious, but also the flavors are diverse and lovely; they are decorated with colorful topping and designs such as marshmallow, fine sugar or cinnamon powder. Donuts which are made from bakers can be spongy and friable; in order to make it fresh and soft, some donut stores have applied hand-craft method with the best and fresh ingredients.
• Donuts have various shapes
Besides the original shape that is circle with hole or without hole, some donut brands also offer square donut, flower- shape and heart shape donut. As stated before, donuts’ target customers are willing to try new things. Therefore, they are very concerned about donuts with differentiated shapes because having a good look before having a good taste is very important with customers.
• There are hundred types of topping designs that are offered in the market
There is a huge number of donut topping designs that are currently offered in Vietnamese market. All Donut Brands are trying to differentiate their products by creating more topping designs for their donuts. Look at the catalogue of some Donut brands such as DOCO, Donkey, Yumme or CanCan, it is clear to see that they all have about 20- 50 different donut designs. Even some designs are not really good, most of them are very eye- catching and attractive.
http://m.tin247.com/can_can_donuts_them_mo%CC%A3t_nha%CC%83n_hie%CC%A3u_donuts_ho%CC%81p_ho%CC%80n_teens_vie%CC%A3t-20-21496703.html
http://docodonuts.com/
http://kenh14.vn/c39/t10/2010050711103687/sai-gon-ngon-ma-la-voi-yumme-donut.chn
http://donkey-donuts.com/
Table 12 : Data and sources of secondary analysis for designs preferences
7.4.2 Focus Group Analysis
a. Current Donkey Donut Design
Comments Percentage
Heart shape looks ugly 32%
Bad color 76 %
Breaking topping 48 %
Strawberry icing looks disgusting 12 %
Looks unattractive 68 %
Yellow topping looks good 12 %
Small flakes of colorful decoration seems scary 44 %
Should be more various designs 20 %
Look worse than catalogue image 28%
Table 13 : Comments on current Donkey Donuts design by percentage
There are many contradictory opinions toward current Donkey Donut design of focus group respondents. Firstly, almost students (76%) agreed that Donkey Donut has bad color and unattractive look. It is not as fresh and beautiful as it should be. Indeed, others (44% respondents) reflect that small flakes of colorful decoration are so scary. It looks like Chinese products so they do not feel like enjoying some Donuts including these items such as: Lovingly your and Verryberry donuts. Also, in some donuts, breaking topping is often occurred which does not match suitably with Donut cake is the 48% students evaluation. Another comment is that Donkey Donut should include more various designs which is counted about 20% and it should be as good as catalogue image. However, 12% of students mentioned yellow topping of Donkey donuts seems to look good and delicious.
b. Vietnamese Students’ Favorite Donut Shapes
Figure 23: Students’ favorite shape by number of respondents
The chart shows the answer represented the favorite shapes of university students. Based on the results, there are 16 respondents to feel enjoying circle with hole shape most which is counted about 67% of all students while the proportion of favorite circle with hole is only taken about 4 respondents (16%). Square, heart shape and flower remained the last answer with small number 4%, 8%, 4% respectively.
Circle with hole Circle without hole Square Heart shape Flower Total
Male 7 (70%) 2 (20%) 1 (10%) 0 0 10
Female 10 (67%) 1 (6.7) 0 2 (13.3) 1 (6.7) 15
Table 14: Vietnamese students’ favorite donut shapes
This table also shows the different opinions of male and female toward their favorite taste. It seems that female preferred innovative shapes rather than male. While no male mentioned that heart and flower shape are their choice, about 20% of female respondents liked the lovely Donut design. The reason is given that it is more interesting to eat Donut cake with special and nice shape than the simple one. However, of all respondents, the majority of both gender students (70% male and 67% female) said that their most favorite one is circle with hole because they still like original Donut rather than the innovative one.
Hypothesis:
- 85 % customers would choose more Donuts which shapes are creative and special like flower, heart, animal, number.
-> As this above analysis, the majority of respondents stated that they prefer the circle with hole while only small amount number of customer (20%) mentioned about flower, heart shape. Therefore, the hypothesis which assumed that 85% of students would buy more Donuts which shapes are creative like flower and shape will be rejected.
c. Vietnamese Students’ Suggested Donut Shapes
Figure 24: Shapes suggestion from students by percentage
This chart shows the percentage of shape suggestion from target customers. 48% of customers recommended that they should produce more alphabetical letters shape. The number of students who suggested about star shape accounts 28%. Another shape is also what come to student’s mind with 12% is triangle. Lastly, three shapes such as: apple, lolipop and half moon is the last choice of few people (4%).
Alphabetical
letters Half moon Star Triangle Apple Lollipop Total
RMIT 3 0 3 0 1 0 7
FTU 2 1 1 0 0 1 6
NEU 1 0 2 3 0 0 6
Other 3 0 2 1 0 0 6
Table 15: Shape suggestion by number of respondents
This table shows the difference opinions between different universities in Hanoi. It seems that the Foreign Trade University (FTU) students are creative when suggesting the strange looking shape such as: lollipop, half moon. In contrast, the rest of university students like: RMIT, NEU, others has the nearly similar suggestion such as: alphabetical letters, stars.
Hypothesis
- 75% students would suggest buying donuts with different facial expression designs.
- 30% recommend about star as new shape.
Based on this analysis, it is realized that there is no suggestion about emoticon design. To compare actual result between hypotheses that draws about 75% students would suggest buying Donuts with different facial expression designs, the hypothesis is totally rejected. On the other hand, 7/25 students in focus group which makes up about 28% recommended about star shape while it is predicted that star is suggested design of 30% target customers. As a result, the hypothesis will be accepted.
7.4.3. Survey analysis
a. Vietnamese students’ favorite shape
Figure 25: Students favorite shapes divided by university
This figure shows the different opinions between students of different universities in Hanoi about their favorite shape. It can be clearly seen that circle with hole is the most favorite shape of students when it is the first choice of every student in each university including 19 respondents (FTU), 15 respondents ( RMIT and others), 12 respondents ( NEU). To compare with other shape, the rate of this design is higher than twice or three times. In addition, it seems that RMIT and VNU students feel interested in flower shapes (about 20%) than circle without holes while it is contradictory with FTU and NEU respondents because it is the preferred design of 10% of FTU customers and 20% of NEU. Finally, heart shapes are the decision alternatives of others university in Hanoi such as: HOU, HUMG, TLU which makes up about 24%.
b. Vietnamese students’ design suggestion
There are many different suggestions about design of students. Rmit students recommend that the market should include some shapes such as: triangle, drop of water, oc que, rectangle while numbering shape, star, apple, triangle is the suggestion of FTU students. NEU customers have the same opinions with both university and add some shapes like: strawberry, animal. Finally, the mix students of some universities propose some different design such as: Doaremon, sausage, ball pen or bear face.
8. Conclusion
8.1. Donut Behavior Based on the data analysis of 100 respondents of surveys, the eating donut behavior can be categorized into three aspects: satisfaction level, willingness to pay for a donut and the most influenced factors. When the factors of time, buying location and share are quite common and seems to be similar between Vietnamese people as well as their culture, the respondents’ answers are nearly true with what we expected. Usually, they buy donuts in the first opening place of donut which is DOCO Donuts store and they consume in the afternoon (after studying time) or in the evening (after dinner or in the midnight). For the factor of share, most of male respondents admit that they often buy and eat donut with their girl friend while female’s answers mainly are family and friends.
Look at the satisfaction level chart (figure 12), confidently it can be said that more than half of the total number of respondents feel satisfied with the current donuts in the market. Generally, Donut Company is relatively successful in terms of gaining the solid position in customer’s mind. However, there are still 6% of respondents who dissatisfy with the purchased donuts because of some reasons such as design, topping or sweetness. Also, donuts companies need to convince the remaining of 36 respondents due to they are partly not sure whether they are truly satisfied or not.
As be seen in the Figure 13, the majority of respondents (61%) are willing to pay from 5,000 to 10,000VND for a donut. It is normal and seems to be similar psychology of the consumer. They always want to purchase goods with the best quality but cheap price which will create an unbalance between producing and revenue. Particularly, RMIT students can be said as the most potential market for donut companies as it is the highest number of respondents willing to pay from 10,000VND to 15,000VND for a donut. On the other hand, no one in VNU afford a donut with a price above 10,000VND. The reason is still be able to concern with the income of Vietnamese students. They mostly do not have their own income; therefore, the price of 10,000 to 15,000VND for a donut is probably quite expensive when for some students, they want to eat not only one but more than two, three donuts a time. Considering to this factor, donut companies should produce a low price donut with a smaller quantity to diversify for the customer’s choices.
When students are asked about the factors that influence their purchase the most, the majority of respondents agree with taste and design as the most influenced factor for buying a donut. According to Figure 14-15, quality is the second important factor for both male and female respondents while service is the least influenced factor. One more time, these indicate that students feel satisfied with donuts through its good quality, taste and design. Distributing the locations reasonably is maybe the reason 16% of male respondents and 11% of female respondents consider location factor that is important. They can buy their favorite donuts with the facilitation that donut company offer. However, as the service is also an important factor in business as can be considered to be the image and performance of the company, donut companies should improve this in order to make customers feel the most comfortable in purchasing or differentiate from other competitors.
8.2. Taste Preference:
Due to the focus group research, there are some good comments on Donkey Donut’s products such as apple jam, but the majority agrees that it is necessary to make some improvement. Even though these people accept the fact that donuts comes from Western and they are sweet, Donkey Donut’s products are much sweeter than they expected. This is understandable because company’s customers at the moment are mainly foreigners who are familiar with this sweet. There are also some problem with chocolate and topping that need to be fixed. This has indicated that Donkey Donuts haven’t met the consumer’s expectation. It is urgent that Donkey Donut need to improve their taste because DOCO donut, the largest market share, is perceived to have a better taste.
In order to improve the taste of donuts, respondents were asked about their suggestion for Donkey Donut. It is interesting that a large number of people chose ice - cream and yogurt which are basically very difficult to follow and this should be bias due to the hot weather in Hanoi. However, this information is useful because it indicates that customers love to see some unique tastes and something they are not expected to see in a Donut shop. Moreover, this result reminds us of the environmental effect on the consumer’s taste preference.
Different from the suggestion for Donkey Donuts, when respondents are asked about their favorite taste, they chose normal and simple taste such as apple, strawberry or vanilla. The result can be explained that fancy and special taste are simply for showing and people still prefer the common one for their purchase. Company should focus on producing nice taste like apple jam which was praised.
In the focus group, research team suggested the idea about salty donut to investigate consumer’s response. Even though there are more people concurring to the ideas but company still need to reevaluate the situation and research the consumer’s behaviors. Whenever Donkey Donuts prepare to launch new features they need to look at the actual profit but not the temporary positive response of consumer.
8.3. Design Preference
Due to the focus group research result, majority of people still prefer traditional shape which is circle with holes. This shape is considered as the symbol of donuts, when people think of donuts this image would come to their mind. This is the perceived shape for people who are not familiar with donuts. However, Donkey Donuts’ customers are mainly foreigner at this time so there are not so many donuts with this shape in their shop. This is the result of the boredom of their customer with the old traditional shape. When Donkey Donuts approach the new target market which are Vietnamese university students they need to readjust this to attract new customers.
The company’s donut shapes are not convincing to the respondents. They have a lot of complaints with the current design such as the color of the topping looks bad, topping is broken, the heart shape look ugly and overall, the donuts are not as fancy as in catalogue and unattractive to the customers. There are so many problems with the donuts shape of Donkey Donuts and they need to either make it over or change it into their competitive advantage because they are able to claim that the shapes are not completely rounded or nice due to the manual baking process. If this is promoted in the right ways and show the advantages comparing to the industrial baking process, consumer may accept the current donuts.
In the focus group, the respondents suggested some interesting ideas for the company to attract the customers such as the creation of donuts with half-moon shape or alphabetical shape. The company should carefully reconsider the availability and effectiveness of these ideas and process it. As stated from the above, traditional shape ( circle with hole) is important to the new customer, however, to attract these customers back, Donkey Donuts needs more than that. The shop should show some fancy design and attractive donuts in order to invite the consumers to the shop again as they find that they haven’t tried all the type of donuts in a visit.
Finally, respondents in the focus group suggested that drawing a smiley on the donuts with the topping is a great ideas. This would make Donkey Donuts standing out when more and more shops are selling donuts yet little of them can make the distinction. Some other images such as wording or animals are recommended but the important thing is the ideas and effectiveness of this creation.
9. Limitations
Knowing the limitation of the research will provide information about the accuracy and practicability of the research result. This part will point out some limitations:
Limited resources include personnel, time and budget
Firstly, the team consists of five members who are not known to each other before. Therefore, it took the team some time of forming to perform at high level and that pushed the start point of team behind. Secondly, the research is conducted within only 3 months, which are the time limitation of a university course. This limitation has affection to the process of choosing research methods and the size of respondents because team doesn’t have enough time to conduct deep research or with a large number of respondents. The fact that project was part of university course also means teams can not start the activities ahead of time due to the lacking of market research theory. Team members are all students so team’s budget for the research is also limited, prevent the group to do some more deep research over customer’s donut behaviors
Research team had difficulty in finding appropriate members for focus group due to the unpopularity of both products and clients. The respondents are mainly students in several big universities but not the younger teenagers and young adult who are working. This limitation would lead to an inaccurate representative of target market and a less objective result.
10. Recommendation
10.1. Further research on Vietnamese students’ donut taste and design preference
As stated in the limitation part, this research is just an exploratory research on Vietnamese students’ donut behavior and their donut taste and design preferences. With a sampling size of 25 respondents for the focus group and 100 respondents for the survey, it is not statistically enough to represent the target market. In order to have better understandings about this target market, Donkey Donuts should put more efforts on doing both qualitative and quantitative researches on a larger scale. This will result in better outcomes and provide the manager more accurate data about the potential market.
10.2.Donkey Donut Taste & Design
Taking respondents’ ideas into consideration, it can be seen that the donut (without topping) is good. It smells good and looks very smooth. However, the topping is too sweet and its design is not really attractive. Therefore, Donkey Donut should think about making the donut less sweet- which will make it more suitable with Vietnamese taste; and trying to increase the variety and uniqueness of topping design so that customer will find it new and more eager to try. According to the research results, customers are very interested in donut with alphabetical letter shape and fresh ice cream topping. This will significantly increase the customer demand for Donkey Donut.
11. Reference
• DOCO Donuts and Coffee, homepage, Hanoi, viewed May 5th 2010,
• Donkey Donut, homepage, Hanoi, viewed May 5th, 2010,
• H. T (2010), “Hà Nội dẫn đầu cả nước về tỷ lệ truy cập Internet”, viewed 31 March 2010,
• Tinhvan Media, 2010, “Teens Sài Gòn hoa mắt với Thế Giới Donut”, Xa lộ tin tức,, March 28th 2010, viewed May 5th 2010,
• VC Corp, 2010, “Sài Gòn: Ngon mà lạ với Yumme Donut”, Kênh 14- Kênh thông tin dành cho giới trẻ, 8 May 2010, viewed May 8th 2010,
• Xuka, 2010, “Donut thèm thèm thèm”, Blog Yume, discussion forum post, posted 06 June 2009, viewed May 5th 2010,
