A team of Master of Marketing Research students from the University of Georgia presented findings from a segmentation study on Gen Z coffee consumption habits. Using a survey of 400 participants aged 18 to 28, they applied factor analysis and cluster analysis to identify five distinct consumer segments. The presentation covered consumption patterns, attitudinal dimensions, segment personas, and targeted messaging strategies for coffee brands.
Key Takeaways
- For Gen Z, the question is not whether they drink coffee but when, where, and what kind, even as prices rise.
- Five segments were identified: Casual Consumer, Balanced Enthusiast, Mindful Ritualist, Devoted Home Lover, and Experimental Socializer.
- 76% of respondents drink coffee at home as part of their morning routine; drip coffee was the only drink type with a statistically significant location difference (35% at home vs. 21% away).
- Premium brands should invest early in the Mindful Ritualist and Devoted Home Lover segments, as these consumers are most willing to spend on customized, high-quality coffee.
- Casual consumers may not be the most effective direct-targeting segment for premium coffee brands.
- The study was exploratory; the team recommended follow-up qualitative research to go deeper on the highest-value segments.
Questions & Answers
- Did you look at any differences between hot and cold coffee temperature, and did that affect the segments?
- Temperature preference was included in the survey but was not a primary focus of the analysis. The team was more interested in the time and effort consumers invest in coffee rather than drink style specifics like temperature.
- How is a coffee company supposed to use these findings if there is no guidance on media consumption? (asked by Philip Moore)
- The scope of the study was intentionally narrow, focused on understanding the general shift in consumer attitudes rather than identifying specific media touchpoints. The findings are intended to provide directional understanding rather than an actionable targeting plan on their own.
- What differences were found in what consumers purchase at home versus away? (asked by Eric)
- The only statistically significant difference found was for drip coffee, which was far more likely to be consumed at home than away. All other drink types showed no significant location-based difference. Overall, the presentation was primarily oriented toward the at-home coffee experience, though the Experimental Socializer segment was more likely to go out and try new flavors.
- Were there any concerns about small sample sizes within some segments?
- Yes. The study was exploratory overall and some segments were smaller than others. The team recommended using the segment findings as a starting point and then conducting further, more targeted research, potentially qualitative, to go deeper on the most valuable segments.
Session Notes
Background and Research Objectives
The project was the final assignment in Marcus Kuna's MMR course at the University of Georgia in fall semester. The team wanted to understand how Gen Z's coffee preferences are shifting and how differences exist within the generation itself.
Two broad areas guided the research:
- Consumption patterns: frequency, timing, drink type (latte, drip, cold brew, etc.), temperature preference, and flavor variety.
- Behavioral elements: how ritualistic vs. habitual coffee consumption is, and how much time and money consumers are willing to invest in getting their coffee.
Secondary Research
Before fielding the survey, the team reviewed a Mintel report on coffee and ready-to-drink coffee in the US for 2025, and conducted an in-class focus group with fellow MMR students who are frequent coffee drinkers.
Three key insights emerged from secondary research:
- It is not a question of if Gen Z drinks coffee, but when, where, and what kind. Demand persists despite rising prices.
- There is a shift in some consumers toward treating coffee as a ritual rather than a routine, with greater intention placed on the drinking experience.
- Meaningful differences exist within Gen Z, pointing toward a segmentation approach.
Survey Design and Sample
- Survey built and fielded using AYTM.
- Comprised of agreement scales and statements covering consumption locations, brew styles, drink types, and related preferences.
- 400 participants, aged 18 to 28.
- 71% female.
- All participants drink coffee at least one to two days per week; 40% drink coffee daily.
Methodology
The team ran a factor analysis in SPSS to reduce 28 sentiment statements down to six underlying attitudinal dimensions. They then performed a cluster analysis to group respondents into segments based on shared attributes, moving beyond demographics into psychographics and behaviors.
Cross-tabulations were also run against gender, income, and similar factors. No statistically significant differences were found, so those results were not included in the presentation.
Six Attitudinal Factors
- Experimentation and novelty
- Energy and focus dependence
- Willingness to invest and try new coffees
- Home experience and routine enjoyment
- At-home identity and quality preference
- Employers (sixth factor as labeled in the analysis)
Overall Consumption Findings
Before presenting the segments, the team shared a snapshot of general consumption patterns across the full sample:
- 55% drink coffee in the early morning; 58% in the late afternoon; 39% in the afternoon; 21% in the evening.
- 76% drink coffee at home as part of their morning routine.
- Drip coffee was the only drink type with a statistically significant difference by location: 35% consumed at home vs. 21% consumed away. All other drink types showed no significant location-based difference.
The Five Segments
1. Casual Consumer: Neutral Natalie
- Persona: 28-year-old gym teacher earning approximately $45,000 per year.
- Values routine, consistency, and ease.
- No strong preference for a specific brand, taste, or coffee style.
- Coffee fits into her life when convenient but is not a passion or daily priority.
- Suggested messaging: Effortless coffee every day.
2. Balanced Enthusiast: Student Persona
- Persona: approximately 24 years old, earning $25,000 per year through odd jobs.
- Values practicality, low cost, and emotional comfort.
- Drinks coffee at home to save money; uses it for focus while studying and as a daily comforting essential.
- Suggested messaging: Affordable fuel for your classes and your day.
3. Mindful Ritualist: Ritualistic Rachel
- Persona: 26-year-old working at a creative ad agency earning approximately $60,000 per year.
- Coffee is a ritual, not a habit. She wakes up excited to make her coffee.
- Preferred drinks include pour-over, latte, and cold brew, choices that require more time and effort.
- Suggested messaging: Crafted with care, for intention.
4. Devoted Home Lover: Devoted David
- Persona: 26-year-old high school math teacher earning approximately $50,000 per year.
- Values structure, consistency, and reliability at home and at work.
- Seeks ethically sourced, locally roasted beans and uses a high-quality grinder to make his daily pot of drip coffee.
- Looks for a comforting, classic, and consistent flavor profile.
- Suggested messaging: Find your daily anchor, the trusted quality built for your unwavering routine.
5. Experimental Socializer: Curious Carolyn
- Persona: approximately 25 years old, working in healthcare, earning more than most of the other Gen Z personas.
- Makes drip brew at home with a slightly elevated machine and takes it on the road during her commute.
- Also enjoys lattes and seasonal flavors such as pumpkin spice and peppermint mocha.
- Likes to try new flavors but is also drawn to comfort and warmth.
- Suggested messaging: Find the extraordinary flavor and comfort you crave in every new cup.
Business Implications
- Coffee plays a very different role across Gen Z segments, ranging from a fun experiment to a core ritual. Targeting the specific role coffee plays for each segment will drive stronger business results.
- Premium brands should invest early in the Mindful Ritualist and Devoted Home Lover segments, as these consumers are most willing to pay for customized, high-quality coffee experiences.
- Casual consumers such as Neutral Natalie may not be the most productive segments to target directly for premium brands.
- Further research is recommended, particularly qualitative deep-dives into the two highest-value segments.
Methodological Notes
The team noted that one initial cluster contained roughly five people and was ultimately removed from the final solution. They acknowledged the overall study was exploratory in nature and that the cluster work improved through iteration. They recommended using these findings as a foundation for deeper, targeted qualitative research rather than as a definitive standalone guide.
Transcript
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I'm going to introduce our first speakers of the day who have we've been fortunate enough to have Marcus uh and his team of teams of students uh coming through and helping um you know annually effectively. So new crop of potential graduates um MMR candidates coming through and uh presenting for us. Uh we're lucky enough to have another group this year. They're going to be talking about uh coffee Gen Z segmentation that they conducted. Um, again, they have to get to class at the bottom of the hour. So, I'm going to shut up. I'm going to hand off and I'm going to let these guys get started. Marcus and team, you guys ready to go? Good morning. Hello everybody. Uh we are my name is Marcus Kuna and I'm the director of the master of marketing research program at the University of Georgia and we have our students presenting today. So I really appreciate you being here. you know the young talent that will be joining the the get started with the presentation events that we be hosting. So we will be hosting this next week the insights night at the Delta corporate office and uh Bill and Accelerant Research they're going to be hosting a watch party. The inerson event is already sold out. Uh but you can register online using the u QR code that's available on the slide. So we're going to have a really great panel uh on AI and research and also it is um being uh is being led by Lizzy Martinez from uh Delta. Uh so as I said we're gonna have like several watch parties. So if you can join in Chicago, Charlotte or uh Cincinnati uh please do it. If not uh register uh online. And one more announcement is that we are at you know peak of recruiting season. So if you're looking for top Thailand to join uh your your team uh please we have the contact information. you can contact Sherry and let us know and we'll share the position uh with the students. Right. So I'd like to uh welcome the students for the presentation of this project. This project was part of the final project in my course last fall. Okay. Well, hello everybody. We are group of MMR students like Marcus said and we did a on coffee jin segmentation. A quick introduction first. I'm Savannah Schuler. I'm Lauren Taylor. >> I'm Hayes Miller. I'm Courtney Kavanagh. I'm William Badger. >> So before we get into the Jenzie segmentation we're going to talk a little bit about how we got to and project we are talking about here today. So it's no surprise that a lot of external business environments are shifting and we specifically wanted to look at the coffee environment to see how these younger generations specifically Jenz's preferences about coffee consumptions are changing and how they are different within various groups amongst that generation. to do so we wanted to look at two broad areas which are consumption patterns in the in the sense that they consume coffee. So this could look at wondering if you wanted a coffee day or hot or cold coffee if you wanted to change different flavors or what kind of coffee whether that be a latte or a normal cup. But it could also look like some more behavioral elements such as how ritualistic you are with your coffee or if it's more of just a habit to you as well as how much commitment you're going to put into getting that cup of coffee at the start of the day or later in the day. How much time and money are you going to give up? But we didn't just guess at these objectives in these areas. We started with some secondary research first, which included a mental report on coffee and ready to drink coffee in the US for 2025, as well as an in-class focus group with some of our other MMR students who are frequent coffee drinkers to see what their experiences were. What we those secondary elements were three key insects. So primarily it's not a question of if Jenzie are going to drink coffee. It's a question of when they're going to drink it, where and what kind. So despite rising prices of coffee coming in, we're still seeing that they're going to get their coffee. We also see that in some areas there was a shift into this ritual rather than a routine. There's more intention being placed on drinking rather than it just being a habit. But primarily we see that there are differences in ratios and that's what led the team to jump into this segmentation here today. So just a quick look at our survey design. We launched and builded our survey using AYTM and it was made up of various agreement scales or statements to explore the different consumer preferences that Savannah dove into such as the consumption locations, brew styles, drink types, and more. And then a look at our sample. We surveyed 400 participants and they were aged from 18 to 28 and it was made up primarily female at 71%. And then all of our participants reported to that they drink coffee one to two days a week with 40% of our sample reporting that they drink coffee daily. >> Yeah, thanks for that background Marley. Now we're going to transition into some of our actual findings. Starting out with the methodology that we used, we conducted a factor analysis in SPSS to reduce those 28 sentiments down to just six underlying attitudinal dimensions. And then from there, we performed a cluster analysis to really segment these groups into different attributes that they shared, getting a little deeper just the demographics and getting into some psychoraphics and behaviors. We also looked at cross tabs to see if there's any differences across gender or income and different factors like that and didn't see any significant differences either way. So didn't include that in the presentation but just wanted to make you aware of that. >> Now these are the six resulting factors that we came up with. The first one experimentation and novel. Second one being energy and focus dependence. Third one being willing willingness to invest and like try new coffees. The fourth one being home experience and routine enjoy enjoyment. The fifth one being at home identity and quality preference and the sixth being the employers. >> Great. So before we jump into the segments we created um we just wanted to create a overview of what our favorite results kind of said. So coffee drinkers primarily have their coffee in the morning but um the consumption persists throughout the day. So uh 55% drinks in the early morning, 58% late afternoon, 39% afternoon um and then 21% the evening. Um so these coffee drinkers, 76% of them do drink their coffee at home in the morning as their morning routine. Um so then we also investigate the different type preferences by location and the two locations or at home um versus away. So whether it be Starbucks and Jingering Joe's like we have in Athens um to kind of investigate those different differences. So we ran a top two for the different types of coffee. Um and the only statistical significant difference we found was in drip coffee with 35% being at home and then 21% being um away. So that's kind of where um we see the difference of like if people are going to drink drip drip coffee, they're going to be drinking it at home. So moving on to our segment insights. Um so we we found five different segments. The first being the casual consumer, the second being the balance enthusiast, the third being mindful ritualist, the fourth being the devoted home lovers, and the fifth being the experimental socializers. So again, our first segment, the casual consumer. Uh here's neutral Natalie. Uh she's 28 years old, a gym teacher making around $45,000 a year. Um she values routine consistency at and ease. Um so for her coffee habits, she doesn't have a strong preference of a brand or a taste or kind of a style of coffee. Um so she's kind of that moderate coffee drinker. Um so when it does fit into her everyday life, um she will drink it, but it's not a passion or a lifestyle and it doesn't consume her every day. So kind of a quote to kind of say what she is is she's kind of a take it or leave it kind of kind of person. Um and throughout these different segments, we created different messaging to kind of target the different segments. Um, so this messaging for Natalie is effortless coffee every day. >> And now for our next segment, student. This is a balanced enthusiast segment and she's about 24 years old making $25,000 a year through odd jobs. So she values, this segment values practicality, low cost, and emotional comforter. So they usually drink coffee at home because it costs less and they also use it for focusing and studying and they do it as a comforting daily essential. And so a message that would target this segment would be affordable fuel for your classes and your >> Yeah. Now looking at ritualistic Rachel, she's 26 years old. She works at a creative ad agency making around 60,000 a year. And these are the people where Savannah hit on it earlier. They're really intentional with their coffee choices. This is a ritual. This isn't a habit. This is something they wake up every day and excited to drink their coffee. So some drinks she may prefer is like a pourover, a latte or cold brew, something that takes a little bit more effort than a drip coffee. So some messaging that might work for her is crafted with care for intention. And then we have our devoted home lovers with devoted. He's 26, making roughly $50,000 a year teaching math at his local high school. And whether it's in his home or in his classroom, he's valuing structure, consistency, and reliability. Then looking at his coffee habits, he is seeking out those ethically sourced beans that are being roasted in his hometown. And he's going home to use his high quality grinder to make his daily pot of drip coffee. And he's seeking a comforting classic and consistent flavor profile. So messaging for him would be find your daily anchor, the trusted quality built for your unwavering routine. And then our last segment is curious Carolyn. These are our experimental socializers. Carolyn's about 25 and she's working in the healthcare industry making a little more than her other Gen Z counterparts. She wakes up every morning and she makes drip brew cup with a slightly elevated machine and she has disposable um but she takes it on the road during her traffic on the way to work. She also enjoys a little latte, however, a pumpkin spice or peppermint mochas. Those are really going to get her. She likes to try the new flavors, but she also likes this aspect of comfort. And these warm flavors great for that. Messaging for her is that find the extraordinary flavor and comfort you crave in every new cup. >> And so finally for some business implications, we know that from the study that Jenzie consumers are very attached to. So for some segments, it plays a very important role in their lives. from ritual to a fun experiment. Targeting the role it plays will drive business further. And so premium brands can invest early in these key segments like the devoted David and the ritualistic RA Rachel because those are the segments that are willing to spend the money for those customized cups of coffee. And then finally, we think that for the French consumers like the neutral natalies that they might not be best segments to target directly. Thank you. Questions? Thanks everybody. We need to take questions through uh the chat uh because unfortunately our speakers are not uh functioning. So let's see if >> Yeah. And I'll try to help you guys moderate that as well. Uh yeah, so we do have a few minutes. Uh if anyone has questions for the team, uh feel free to throw those into the chat or the Q&A and we will make sure that we get them. Uh looks like Pam has a question coming in and that is >> can you all see this or do do you want me to to to ask these to >> I do believe that this was something that we had in our initial survey but not something that we really wanted to highlight through. The question was about did we look at any differences between temperature of cold versus hot and did that make an impact in our segments and that wasn't something that we were really looking at. We were more looking at like the time and effort that they put in towards the coffee um and less so of the style. But it is a question that we had in there. Well, okay. So, we'll handle the first one first. So there's a question from Philip Moore asking how is a coffee company supposed to use the findings if we don't have guidance on media consumption and we were more so trying to understand the general shift among consumers and so our scope did not include specific touch points as it was a little more narrow focus. So ideally it would be more information to use rather than a specific actual item. >> Yeah. I mean, going to Eric's question, I think the one difference that we saw on what was being purchased, whether it was home versus away, was the drip coffee that we hit on. So, if you were to purchase drip coffee, it was much more likely to have that being consumed at home. All the others, we saw no statistical difference across the board, but I would say our presentation overall was more so geared to the atome coffee experience. Um, with obviously like the curious Carolyn, she would still go out and try the new flavors, but for most of all the others, it was the at home experience. So, they were really trying to focus on them. and then I can hit on the very small uh sample size for some of them. I would say overall this was more exploratory research in general where we were using some secondary analysis to get to this and then would hope to do some further research to really dive deep in maybe potentially look at some qualitative to dive deep into the two segments that could really provide some insight and then target those more specifically. So even though they were a smaller sample size, now that we have a general idea of the people that we would want to go after, we could look to approach that with some deeper research in the future. >> And we've definitely gotten better at clustering. >> We actually had one segment that was like five people. It was very very small and we decided those can remain on the >> and then we do unfortunately have to get into class relatively soon but really appreciate all the questions coming in. We can definitely look to uh save this chat and then get back to you uh at a later point. >> Yeah. Thanks uh everybody and then um please join us on the 25th for this great uh event and thanks again to Bill and Accelerant for hosting. It's going to be an awesome. We already have um we have already 120 people uh in our soldout inerson event and we have about 80 people that will be attend one of the uh watch parties or is going to be watching online. So we really appreciate the opportunity. I've been participating in this conference since its inception. Uh you know during covid the bill reach out I present on behavior economics and since then our students have been presenting. Thank you very much and I'll hope to see you guys online or in person next week at the Delta headquarters.
