Target groups of breweries customers and their reality in restaurants

The diploma thesis addresses the issue of identifying the target group of draft beer customers. Its aim is to verify how the target group of customers formulated by the selected brewery corresponds to its reality in restaurant facilities. The focus of the work is on segmentation of the target group, detection of individual segmentation criteria and consumer behavior, with emphasis on preferences, lifestyle and loyalty. Based on the analysis of data, a profile of an ideal customer, a typical representative of the target group, was made. The defined problem was solved by a qualitative method and ethnographic field research was chosen as the framework design. Personal semistructured interviews, participatory observations and documents submitted by a specific brewery were used to answer the research questions. By comparing the target group formulated by the brewery with the reality found in restaurant facilities, a successful, almost 100% agreement was recorded. It was also found that using the chosen techniques it was possible to determine a balanced and meaningful typology of the customer base. An important finding of the research is that psychographic criteria, specifically lifestyle, has a higher predictive weight than other generally observable segmentation bases and overcomes the classic demographic and socioeconomic segmentation in terms of consumer behavior, attitudes to the product and its most important attributes. The research and its results made it possible to establish recommendations for the Ferdinand Brewery in Benešov regarding its strategy with regard to customer targeting and preferences.