Investigation into the FroYo Trend – Week #1

07Dec09

A few things inspired me to cover the frozen yogurt business for my business final project. First and foremost, my best friend held her previous part-time job at Orange Tree, a frozen yogurt shop based in Hawaii. It was originally part of the Tutti Frutti Frozen Yogurt franchise, but the store my friend worked at was bought by Orange Tree. While visiting her during her shifts, I was mesmerized by the comfortable and inviting interior, self-serve system, and variety of delicious and unique flavors and toppings. But I was first introduced to the newest kind of fro-yo before that. On a spring break trip to Los Angeles last year, a friend from USC introduced me to Pinkberry, and I fell in love with a cutely designed cup filled with tarty and creamy frozen yogurt topped with flavorful fruits. Soon I discovered that although Pinkberry did not exist within 20 minutes from me, I could find other cute and hip fro-yo shops almost anywhere that could offer me something similar. And if there wasn’t a shop in any area I’d encounter yet, there would be, according to signs posted in some empty spaces. Finally, an article I stumbled across on at work one day, “S.F. Gets Live Culture from L.A.: Yogurts,” made me more curious about the business aspect of the rise in number of fro-yo shops popping up in the Bay Area. Now I want to address some of my own questions, like why would my friend’s workplace get bought out by another company just months after opening? Why did Cefiore in San Francisco close its doors? Hopefully, I’ll be able to find those answers and more, plus profile some of my favorite fro-yo shops and why each is unique.

I plan to make all of my pieces in this project relate somehow. Hopefully, I’ll be able to use the same audio for both a slideshow and the video portion. For the text story, I’d like to focus on the business and long-ter outlook of local frozen yogurt shops. My audio slideshow would include pictures of the interiors and exteriors, plus workers and customers in action at various frozen yogurt shops around the Bay Area – the audio would include sound bites from the people I interview, and I hope to interview at least one customer, one worker, and a business expert (Like a business professor at the university, or maybe someone in a high position at one of the fro-yo shops). The video would include interviews from the same people, but with new information. I want to ask questions about how business at each particular store is going, what makes their store unique, and their opinion on the long-term outlook of frozen yogurt as a business. I want to ask customers why they enjoy going to particular shops, and why they even eat fro-yo at all. I want to be able to get a consumer’s point of view as well. My graphic would be a map of the fro-yo shops I profile, as well as others that I enjoy or are popular amongst others.

I hope that all the multimedia I include will not only be entertaining and pleasing to the eyes and ears, but also informative about the choices consumers may be able to make and offer insight into what business is actually like for some of these shops. I’m looking forward to rising to the challenge. I anticipate that this will be a very fun project to complete.

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Tags: business story, final, frozen yogurt