iRWINS dIGITAL sTRATEGY
Professor Mark Durkin | gROUP 18Bronagh Mageean B00632875Ciaran Brooks B00620903Conor Grant B00588487James McKegney B00612383Niall McGarry B00618380Digital Marketing (MKT512)Word Count: 2998 |

iRWINS dIGITAL sTRATEGY
Professor Mark Durkin | gROUP 18Bronagh Mageean B00632875Ciaran Brooks B00620903Conor Grant B00588487James McKegney B00612383Niall McGarry B00618380Digital Marketing (MKT512)Word Count: 2998 |

Contents Page
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………2

Empathy…………………………………………………………………………………...2-3

Define……………………………………………………………………………………...3-4

Ideate………………………………………………………………………………...........4-6

Prototype………………………………………………………………………………….5-6

Test…………………………………………………………………………………………..6

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..7

References…………………………………………………………………………………8-9

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….10

Appendices……………………………………………………………………………..11-24

Introduction
Irwin’s Bakery has been a very successful company ever since it first opened over a hundred years ago in the year 1912. It was opened by W.D Irwin and his wife Ruth in a small bakery in Portadown, County Armagh. Irwin’s is Northern Ireland’s largest independent bakery, supplying a large variety of Irish breads to supermarkets throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Our main aim for this report will be to develop a digital marketing strategy that we feel can be implemented to target the consumers of today, focusing on each of the key sections of our chosen strategy as well as giving a detailed synopsis.
The process we have chosen to follow to build our strategy is the design school methodology. We will use the five stages, Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test, as an appropriate marketing strategy for Irwin’s so that they are able to achieve ongoing consumer awareness and loyalty in today’s ever increasingly digitised environment.
Our main objective is to create and provide an appropriate digital marketing strategy so that Irwin’s are able to take it forward and use it in future. Throughout the remainder of this report we will highlight any problems we see, working through each stage of the design school methodology to find an appropriate solution and digital marketing strategy for Irwin’s.

Empathy

The institute of Design at Stanford describes the “empathise” mode as the “Centre piece of a human-centred design process, it is the work you do to understand people within context of your design process.”
It is crucial that the digital strategy designed meets these needs as closely as possible for both parties (Irwin’s and the target consumer). The target type client will occasionally have time to browse online digital communication sources such as social media sites and mother’s blogs. She is highly likely to be a digital tourist however overtime will become a digital native which according to IGI Global describes the generation of students born into the digital age who are much more adept at using ICT than their counterparts from prior generations.
The following are an important set of needs that need considered for both parties before implementing a new digital strategy. From the target consumer point of view, the price and quality of the product are vital due to the fact the target consumer will be looking to budget for her family and seek to purchase a product that may be known as the “healthy selection”, it is useful to educate the public on the health and benefits of Irwin’s products. Increasingly people, especially the target consumer are using digital sources to purchase food on-line. From Irwin’s point of view, they must ensure sales levels and market share in Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland are not just maintained but show positive signs of improvement for future times with these new innovations.
When the information gathered in needs is synthesized, core ideas emerge. The ideal customer is intrigued in a quality product, price and value for money are important, as in ease of access to purchase the product. The ideal customer will attract importance to the fact that Irwin’s is a local company from Northern Ireland. Irwin’s are interested in ensuring customer satisfaction, hence continued and indeed increasing business combined with brand image and loyalty. According to K.L. Keller the brand image is the sum of impressions that affects how consumers perceive a brand and identify or differentiate the brand from others. Brand image can also be defined as consumer’s perceptions of a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in consumers’ memory (1993).

Define

The challenges facing Irwin’s when attracting today’s consumer include issues such as the growth in the current bakery market in Ireland, deflation reaching a new low of -1.7% due to large supermarkets focusing their strategies on offering customers the best value. Maintaining brand loyalty which according to Richard L.Oliver is a “deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronize a preferred product/service consistently in the future causing repetitive same brand purchasing” (1999). Health concerns is an ever growing challenge for Irwin’s to get the message across that the products they offer will not contain content that will affect the consumer’s health, Croll et al describes that today’s society have a “significant amount of knowledge regarding healthy foods and believe it involves moderation, balance and variety.” And that parents along with young adolescents find it difficult to “frequent healthy eating due to lack of variety and time” (2001). According to the online and mobile usage in Ireland report released by Mintel in march 2015 Laptop/desktop computers are the main devices used for online shopping in the home, with some 79% of NI, and 75% of RoI consumers using these devices over the last 12 months. Smartphones are the second most popular device used for online shopping when in the home, used by 43% of NI consumers and three out of 10 RoI consumers. NI consumers are significantly more likely to conduct online shopping on mobile devices than RoI consumers, both inside and outside the home. Across Ireland, women are also more likely to shop via mobile devices than men.
The key problem for Irwin’s is maintaining brand loyalty from today’s consumer due to vast competition from key competitors such as Hovis and Kingsmills. In order to come up with a problem solution for this issue, our group carried out primary research in which we asked a group of 100 women around the target age of today’s target consumer to fill out an online survey to help build ideas of how to counter the brand loyalty issue.
From our research we found it surprising that 84% of the target market used either their mobile or tablet to access the internet compared to only 16% using the traditional desktop and laptop computers. From our secondary research we also found that the modern Mother spends 35% more time online than the average person in the UK (Social Media Today, 2012). Also we found that 36% of mums have made a purchase online due to an advertisement on social media (She Conomy, 2012). We also found research that stated that the average mum spends 4.1 hours on the internet each day compared to 2.8 hours watching television (She Conomy, 2012). (See Appendix 1, Question 2)
Mums are increasingly more active on social media and this can be seen as 77% used social media for more than 5 hours per week and on top of this 75% felt social media was a good way to communicate to a company and the majority also felt advertisements were useful. This is also backed up by Siobhan Freegard who stated “the internet allows for conversations with brands where ATL activity is perceived to push the message” (2014). (See Appendix 1, Questions 3, 4 and 5)
Once we looked at the results and found most of the replies to be either for a website or app we were already aware that Irwin’s are launching a revamped website in early 2016, we decided that an app would be the best way to solve the problem Irwin’s have of brand loyalty and the app could have links to the website and blogs as well. (See Appendix 1, Question 6)
Lastly we asked if the respondents had any ideas on how Irwin’s could reach out to mothers as we are not in the target market and we were hoping for some really good feedback from this question, unfortunately 1/3 of respondents skipped the question on the survey. Although the other feedback gave us some excellent ideas to include in the app, for example lunchbox ideas for children, promotions and competitions. (See Appendix 1, Question 7)

Ideate

We will develop an App for Irwin’s which will be aimed at parents of young children. The app will contain recipe ideas on how to liven up your child’s lunchbox and include a shopping list of what to buy for each of the featured recipe idea.
We feel that this would be a positive feature for the company to have as parents, in particular mothers, are often lost for ideas of how to get their children to eat healthier lunches. This App could also be open to the health market, for not only parents but for the use of the general public also.
The ideas which we have for the app to develop are;
Local Deals of the Irwin’s Products
The app would have access to the locations services on the mobile device which would then allow the user to avail of the offers which Irwin’s products are on in the local area.
Discount Codes
The app would feature various special discount codes especially for the app user to use in any outlet which sells Irwin’s products.
Links to parenting blogs
The app would have links to online blogs especially targeting mothers of the target age group – 33-40 years old. The blogs would be from acclaimed parenting bloggers such as Lauren Salt of Run Salt Run.

Links to Social Media content
We will have a section which is linked to the social media content of Irwins. This will be direct links to the company’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. The user will also receive updates on the company’s social media activities – e.g. a notification of a new Facebook competition or an Instagram sharing event. Lee et all describes Instagram as having five primary social and physiological motives - “social interaction, archiving, self-expression, escapism and peeking” (2015). Having this in mind, it furthers the positive effects of using an Instagram page. The consumer and the wider social media network can use the “discover” section and simply type in a hashtag, for example #Irwins then any posts that have been made using Irwin’s produce will appear. A weekly recipe idea could be posted to boost network participation.
Links to the Irwin’s sponsored sports clubs
Irwin’s as a company, sponsor various different sports clubs. Such as St Gall’s GAC and the football academy. We will provide links to each of the club’s websites and social media pages so that the parents can receive more information on the clubs.
Handy Tips and FAQ’s
Another section of the app will be a “Handy Tips and FAQ” section. This is where we will have information such as – how to keep your bread fresher for longer, how to correctly store bread and other queries consumers may have.
Prototype
In order to help us get a better idea of what our ‘App’ would look like, we decided that it would be best to design and create a prototype. ‘‘A prototype is a design artefact for end-user testing and for communicating functionally to business and development stakeholders. It’s a low cost activity that saves you time and substantial expense over the life of a design project’’. (Smashing Magazine, 2013)
When we had the prototype created, it helped bring the idea to life. We could see the product; we could hold it in our hands as if we had the app on our phones. We could flick through each screen, delving into the different aspects of the app. With this prototype, we could now finally convey our idea to others on a more simplistic level, and show them that this app wasn’t just a tool for Irwin’s to sell their products, but to sell an idea, a community, a club for mothers to meet, to chat and to share experiences. (See appendix 3)
We decided that a focus group should be carried out in order to assess the attitudes towards the prototype. ‘‘If the purported benefits could be verified, focus groups might provide an effective technique for a variety of objectives: assessing attitudes, probing for suspicion post experimentally, doing introspective process analysis of social processes, or for exploratory hypothesis-generating research’’ (Harry T. Reis, Charles M. Judd, 2014)
For the focus group, the prototype would be perfect for holding it all together. The prototype would provide those within the group, a focus point, they would have the item in their hands, they too could look into all the different things the app is capable of doing. They could discuss the ‘daily healthy snack updates’ page of the app, they could talk about the links to parenting blogs, and the apps compatibility with social media. They could see that the app would keep them up to date with the best local deals, and any sports events, sponsored by Irwin’s that may be nearby. They could explore the app together, giving us immediate feedback on their favourite features. As well as this, the app would allow the focus group to imagine what it would be like if this was a feature on their actual phone. Most people, nowadays, when they wake up the first thing they do in the morning is check their Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and with this prototype they can visualise waking up and checking for their new healthy snack of the day, they could check for different sports events in their local area, and they can combine these two features of the app, they could make the kids the healthy snack idea for a packed lunch and head off to the match.
However, we did have to look at the app and think of any potential cons that might be raised as a source of concern. We thought that the fact that the app is solely for iPhone or android users, certain people may feel excluded, however, we feel that this is not the case. Even if a mother does not have an iPhone or android device, they can still become involved with the community through social media with the use of ‘hashtags’ via twitter and Instagram, allowing them to join the mothers club, from their laptops or computers at home.

Test

For this stage of the process we had to go from prototype to test. The institute of Design at Stanford find that the fundamental way you test your prototypes is by letting users experience them and react to them. In creating prototypes to test with users you have the opportunity to examine your solution decisions as well as test your perception of your users and their needs. We brought forward our idea and prototype to our target customer so that we could test our idea and gain feedback and any recommendations that they were willing to offer. We thought the best way to utilise this was to set up a focus group. Kitzinger (1995) states that, “Focus groups are a form of group interview that capitalises on communication between research participants in order to generate data.” The main reason we decided to choose a focus group was because we felt that it was a much more personal approach of research, allowing us to gain more detailed information from a small group in a much faster time. When constructing the group, we contacted local parents through social media, mainly friends and family, which fitted our target customer age bracket of between 30 and 44 years of age. When we had finalised numbers and received confirmation of people attending we set Thursday 19th of November as the date for our focus group.
During the focus group there was a lot to discuss, we introduced our prototype that we had put together and let them discuss among themselves for a short time (See Appendix 4). The majority of the feedback that we received was very positive, they liked the idea and were keen to hear more about it. Some of the features that stood out to them most were the discount locators, the easy accessibility of the app and also the links to social media and blogs. They stated that they were very price conscious, as a parent making lunches every day, and the discount store locator would help them to save a bit of money when they could. Some members of the focus group also stated that they have become much more interactive in the digital in recent times and they liked the fact that the app could link them to interesting blogs and also give them information about competitions being held on the Irwin’s Facebook page. This is an important area as online interaction and social media such as Facebook is becoming more and more popular. According to an article by Pew Research Centre in August 2015 “Facebook remains the most popular social media site; 72% of online adults are Facebook users”. They also offered recommendations that they felt could improve the app for them, they suggested incorporating a section within the app for children’s games. They feel that this would allow the app to become universal and it could help to keep the children entertained when out and about on shopping trips.

Conclusion

To conclude this report, our group understood the needs of today’s consumer and implemented a digital strategy using the design school methodology. The Irwin’s app aimed at parents will help raise awareness to the overall brand and encourage engagement between consumers through the use of blogs and social media networks. According to Aaker to achieve brand awareness involves being different, too many products seem alike and the communication in the product clusters is related. Therefore, it is important to differentiate the product, although the bond between brand and the product class has to exist. It is important to remember that this app has been designed focusing partly on the discount rates around Ireland to offer consumers the best value, but more importantly creating a community between parents across Ireland to discuss the challenging queries they may have for example what should their kids be eating for lunch or take part in weekly competitions with the links to the social media networks. Tilde Heding et al illustrates that brand community members have the power to influence many people to join the group and support your brand or company if you want to fully understand your target, you can easily find them, read their thoughts, and communicate directly with them. Creating a strong brand community through the use of this app is a factor Irwin’s could use to their advantage to create a competitive edge over key competitors such as Hovis and Kingsmill and help expand the current market shares in both Northern Ireland and ROI to greater levels.

References

Aaker, David A. (1991) Managing Brand Equity, illustrated edn, The University of California: Free Press, Pg.56

Colette Warren (2015) Lifestyles of Mothers, Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/insight_zones/16/ (Accessed: 15/11/2015).

Croll Dianne, Neumark-Sztainer, Mary Story (2001). Healthy Eating: What Does It Mean to Adolescents? Journal of nutrition education. 33 (4), 193-198.

David Falls (2015) Online and Mobile Usage - Ireland - March 2015, Available at: http://academic.mintel.com/display/717269/# (Accessed: 1/12/15).

Fisher, T (2012) Social media and the modern Mother, Available at:http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/social-media-and-modern-mother (Accessed: 2nd November 2015).

Freegard, S. (2014) Digital Mum and building relationships, Available at:http://www.netmums.com/ (Accessed: 2nd November 2015).

IGI Global (2012) Digital Literacy: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 1 edn. Pg.119, USA: Information Science Reference.

Harry T. Reis, Charles M. Judd (2014). Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology.: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 208.

Holland, S. (2012) Stats about digital Mums and their shopping behaviours, Available at: http://she-conomy.com/5115/101-stats-about-digital-moms-and-their-shopping-behavior (Accessed: 2nd November 2015).

Keller, K.L. (1993) “Conceptualizing, Measuring and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 57, No.1, pp.1–22.
Kitzinger, J. (1995). Qualitative Research: Introducing Focus Groups. British Medical Journal. Vol.311 (5), P.299-302.

Lee JA, Moon JH, Sung Y (2015). Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Pictures Speak Louder than Words: Motivations for Using Instagram. 18 (9), All Pages.

Maeve Duggan (2015) Mobile Messaging and Social Media 2015, Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/mobile-messaging-and-social-media-2015/ (Accessed: 01/12/15).

Plattner, H. (2015). Process Guide. Introduction to Design Thinking. 1 (1), all Pages.

Richard.L. Oliver (1999) 'Consumer Loyalty', Journal of Marketing, 66(Special Issue), pp. Pg.34.

Smashing Magazine (2013). Designing Mobile Apps — Tips and Techniques: Smashing Magazine.

Tilde Heding, Charlotte F. Knudtzen, Mogens Bjerre (2009) Brand Management: Research, Theory and Practice, 1 edn. London and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.

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Appendices

Market Research Results – Appendix 1

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3 Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Question 7

Appendix 2- Prototype

Appendix 3 – Test

Appendix 4 -Group 18 – Log of Team Meetings

Team Log of meetings: It is important to note firstly that all team members attended all meetings and carried out equal duties within the group.

Monday 2nd of November – Week 7
• Our group met to discuss what methodology we would use for our strategy
• We decided on the design school methodology Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test
• Began the introduction and empathy sections of our report

Thursday 5th of November – Week 7
• Reviewed the progress made in our report
• Created an online survey targeting today’s consumer

Monday 9th of November- Week 8
• Continued working on the report after receiving positive results from our online survey
• Introduction, Empathy and Define sections completed
• Implemented a problem solution for Irwin’s, which was the development of an app

Wednesday 11th of November – Week 8
• Our group met up again with lots of progression completed on the report
• Ideate and prototype section completed

Thursday 19th of November- Week 9
• Designed a template to use for our presentation in Week 11
• Discussed the arrangements for our presentation and what responsibility each team member was allocated
• Arranged focus group meeting with target consumer bracket

Monday 23rd of November – Week 10
• Completed our presentation with some edits still to be made regarding content.
• Practiced the presentation
• Evaluate the answers received from the focus group

Thursday 19th of November- Week 10
• Met up to practice presentation and finalise any touch ups.

Monday 30th of November – Week 11
• Carried out presentation.
• Met to continue writing of the report.

Wednesday 2nd of December- Week 11
• Met up to finalise our parts of the report and conducting the test section of the design school, conclusion, our references and appendices.

Group Members Signatures:

Bronagh Mageean -
Conor Grant -
Ciaran Brooks -
James McKegney -
Niall McGarry -

Appendix 5 - Reflection Pieces

Name: Bronagh Mageean
For this particular assignment, I was given the section of Ideate. I had to apply this to the Irwin’s strategy that we were using. I used various options for this. The main one that we decided as a team to use was the aspect of pending in on an “healthy” option app aimed at parents.
We conducted an online survey which was aimed at the target consumer women aged 30-44 year olds. The feedback that we received was that they would use an app more often than any other format; i.e. website, blog or email newsletter.
This survey gave us valuable access to the needs and wants that the modern day mother would like in an app specifically for Irwin’s.
We held both a survey and a focus group that we conducted research through, we found that the target consumer would like various different features in an app in order to find it effective. This is how we used our target market analysis. Jobber describes the target market as “a segment that has been selected as a focus for the company’s offering.” By being set the target market by Irwin’s themselves, we did not have to conduct research as to what our market was.
I wrote the section of the report on the different features that the app would entail. I described in further detail the feature would have on the app and how this would positively help Irwin’s and their target audience. Within working as a team, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of working with this group. I had not previously worked with them prior to this project. I feel that we blended well and it was easy to divulge the roles between the five of us as we all knew which sections that we felt we could perform best in. I also personally feel that we were all eager to help each other if someone for some unforeseen circumstance, could not complete the work, we all pulled together as a team and helped to complete the work.
We stayed in contact mostly by weekly meetings every Monday after class to inform each other where we were in context to the work being completed and the next steps that we needed to take. If we had any other queries with each other we had a Facebook chat which was just the five of us in a group chat. This was extremely useful as none of us live near each other so it was a positive way to stay in contact outside of University. I learnt that effective communication is the main skill that any member of a group project needs to hold in order to have an effective end result.
Group Signatures:
Bronagh Mageean-
Ciaran Brooks-
Conor Grant-
James McKegney-
Niall McGarry-
Name: Ciaran Brooks
During this assignment there were many different processes that had to take place. This varied from team meetings at the beginning to brainstorm and discover our main idea, to the test stage. I focused mainly on this area, to test our product idea and to show our prototype to the targeted customer. This section was extremely important as it allowed us to let our target customers the opportunity to examine the prototype, giving us feedback and recommendations to help us progress in the future.
Within the report I completed the introduction section for the assignment, doing research on the background of the company and giving a brief outline of the assignment. The area I concentrated on most was the test section. When it came to test, as a group we all came together and discussed what would be the best and most effective method to use. After a team meeting we decided that a Focus group would be the most appropriate option, and I got to work on the planning and organising of this. I first reached out to local parents through social media who fit the age bracket and who would be suitable to attend the focus group. I also contacted family and friends who fit the target customer description and after a couple of days of organising and figuring out what dates and times suited best, we decided on Thursday, 19th of November. As James had created and focused on the prototype, we worked closely together in this process and we used his house to hold the focus group. As mentioned in the main body of the report, the focus group went extremely well and we gained a lot of positives from the experience. All members of the team attended the focus group on this evening, but as main organiser I took main control, introducing the prototype to the attendees and having an open discussion with them about the app itself, their likes and dislikes about it and also opened the door to any feedback and recommendations that they had.
Throughout this assignment I have learned a lot and developed in many key areas. This assignment has helped me to grasp a better understanding of the design school methodology, being able to apply it and work with it first-hand. As a result of this project it has also helped me to gain an understanding of the test stage and how important it is, through gaining personal feedback and recommendations from the customer that will in turn help improve the idea. This area was important as it helped us to gain a better understanding of the target customers’ needs and wants allowing us to make changes to accommodate these. I have improved in my team working skills also, gaining a better understanding of the time and effort needed from each member for good team dynamics. We worked very well together as a group throughout this project, everyone turned up on time when meetings where planned, we worked very well together and I feel we achieved our targets.

Group Signatures:
Bronagh Mageean-
Ciaran Brooks-
Conor Grant-
James McKegney-
Niall McGarry-

Name: Conor Grant
For this assignment I was assigned with the first stage of the design school methodology which is empathise. The empathise stage of the process was all about understanding Irwin’s target consumer which was a trendy 30-44-year woman, who had a busy lifestyle and always tried to find the best value for her family. In this section I also identified the challenges that face Irwin’s when attempting to attract the target consumer to purchasing products. Once my section was complete our group came together to develop ideas on what digital strategy approach we could use, in order to capture the correct idea to fuel the rest of our project we found that the main problem for Irwin’s was maintaining brand loyalty due to the very competitive state of the bakery market in Ireland.
We began to meet up normally on a Monday to discuss what steps to take to keep the project progressing and allocate each group member with responsibilities. Our group had an important decision to make as in regards to what idea could we create that could fit our overall aim for the project which was to implement a digital strategy that could be used Irwin’s to penetrate today’s consumer, in my opinion we made the correct decision of designing an app main reason being it’s a tool that bring both consumer and brand closer together causing the brand community aspect to become stronger and loyal. For the presentation we broke up the responsibilities during one the groups meetings and began developing the slideshow through the use of a template from powerpoint presentation tool Prezi as we felt a template from that software is very attractive and more appealing than the usual powerpoint from Microsoft. I also took charge of structuring the report and from the use of our groups Facebook group chat was able to put the report in the correct format and make changes very efficiently and promptly as myself and the group were in contact daily.
As a group I felt we gelled very well, with a very strong team cohesion. Every group member conducted their roles to the best of their ability and not once did a group member miss any team meetings which positively affected the work rate of each individual. We created a very strong idea with a powerful message that Irwin’s could use to their benefit in the future. I feel that the market research we carried out helped massively in directing our group in the correct path, firstly the online survey helped our group identify communication channels we could use to reach today’s consumer and also the focus group offered our group insight into not only the positive attributes of the app but also recommendations that could attract today’s consumer even more.
Group Signatures:
Bronagh Mageean-
Ciaran Brooks-
Conor Grant-
James McKegney-
Niall McGarry-

Name: James McKegney
For my section of the project I handled the ‘prototype’ aspect. I realised that this was a vital part of the project, as having the prototype meant that we had something to show for ourselves at the focus group. It would also allow us to get a better picture, in our heads of what we were doing, and finally it would help us put forward our idea when presenting to the official Irwin’s representative and our lecturer, Mark Durkin.
As a group we all decided that we would design a prototype that looked like the app itself to present the lecturer. We thought a flip style book in the shape of an iPhone would be useful as this would allow us to demonstrate all the features of our proposed ‘app’ idea, without having to actually create the app on the iPhone, which could have been costly and taken a lot longer than the time we had available. So, I thought the best way to go about creating this ‘flipbook’ styled keyring design, would be to create each individual face of the phone on Microsoft word. I carefully selected images that would best represent each aspect of the app and I edited them on to the screen of the phone. I did this for each ‘screen’ and when I had finished I began to add the text. Creating this prototype allowed me to get back into touch with some picture editing skills that I had not exercised in a long time.
The next step was to get the prototype printed. I decided that for maximum effect, the paper would need to be thick photographic paper. This style would give the best picture quality, as well as giving the prototype some durability i.e. that it won’t be ripped or destroyed through repeated use. I went to my local supermarket called ‘Crawford’s’ that facilitates a printing section of the shop, made up of printing images, framing pictures and creating other things such as placing people’s images in keyrings or snow globes. Once the prototype was printed, I brought it home and carefully cut out each image as best I could, placed them on top of each other, drilled a hole in the bottom right corner, and attached a keyring. And just like that, we had our prototype.
From this assignment, I learned the importance of creating a prototype for a project. We held the focus group at my house, and the app proved to be really successful amongst the group of mothers. From this information, we could decide if the app would be worth pursuing for Irwin’s bread, depending on whether or not it was well received. I believe the app also proved to be extremely useful for the presentation, allowing us to really put forward our idea before the Irwin’s bread representative, and demonstrate its benefits, as well as some perceived downfalls. I do feel we were successful in what we were trying to achieve from this project.
Group Signatures:
Bronagh Mageean-
Ciaran Brooks-
Conor Grant-
James McKegney-
Niall McGarry-

Name: Niall McGarry
For our assignment we began by meeting up and brainstorming ideas against each other and deciding on which part each individual would be assigned to begin with. I was given the section of define when referring the Design School methodology and after research into the bread market we found that Irwins main problem was brand loyalty due to the vast competition within the market.
After we had found our problem I produced an online survey to send to Irwins target customer which is mums ranging in ages between 30 and 44. I was given the main responsibility of writing the questions within the survey which I believed to be a very important part of the project as if we did not ask the correct questions in the research stage we could of came up with the wrong strategy to fix Irwins brand loyalty problem. I was extremely happy and so were my piers with the quality of the questions and the responses we received were helpful when coming up with our idea which was eventually to create an app because of the growing number of the target market being digital natives. Once we reached the prototype and testing stage it was clear I had asked the correct questions in the survey as the focus group were very responsive to the idea and thought that it would work. The only problem which I would address when completing another survey would be the problem that occurred with only 2/3 of respondents answering our last question to let them tell us how Irwins could reach out to mothers. A way of counteracting this problem would be to have a statement stating that all questions in the survey must be answered.
As a group I had worked with all of the members before in previous years excluding one who became part of the team rapidly and efficiently and together we had good team cohesion. This was reinforced by having team meetings every week with all team members attending and we also made a group chat to ensure if any group member became stuck we were all there to give a helping hand.
Over the course of the assignment I have gained a wide range of skill including on how to use the Design School methodology as a method on building strategy and would be confident to use this again within a company or organisation. I also have gained the importance of team work and punctuality as when working within a group everyone depends on each to succeed and if one person does not contribute team morale is reduced and the quality of work will deteriorate. I believe our entire group has gained these skills. Finally, another key skill I believe I have improved on is presentation skills which is usually a weak point of mine but due to practice and rehearsal I have vastly improved and look forward to presenting again with more confidence which is key within our business area.
Group Signatures:
Bronagh Mageean-
Conor Grant-
Ciaran Brooks-
James McKegney-
Niall McGarry-