At the end of last semester, Marketing 1 students were tasked with creating a survey and answering a question of their choice. I wanted to choose a topic that I was interested in, and that is why I chose to explore student specialty beverage consumption.

Strolling through the hallways, it is difficult not to notice the popularity of drinks such as Starbucks, Dutch Bros, Jamba Juice or any other must-have beverage in the hands of satisfied teenagers. This observation inspired me to learn more about how much teens consume these types of drinks. This question is what I strived to answer: Where do people get their favorite drinks, and how much do they depend on the company?

I couldn’t tackle this challenge alone, as I was accompanied by my teammate, doolie, and friend, Caleb Lakeman. Caleb helped contribute to the collection of data, due to his freshman status. He connected with his Snapchat (and genuine) friends to learn more about their drink habits. The following assumption was the driving factor in our study. Teens (girls especially) tend to consume their favorite beverages religiously. We constructed a survey, collected/analyzed the data and proved our hypothesis.

Our sample consisted of 54 percent freshmen, 18 percent sophomores, 21 percent juniors, and 7 percent seniors, with a 55 percent female and 45 percent male population. Unsurprisingly, we found that Dutch Bros led the poll in popularity with a solid 41 percent. Starbucks followed with 37 percent, Jamba with 18 percent, and both Human Bean and Black Rock with a staggering 2 percent. The most popular drinks were, by far, frappuccinos and rebels. Again, no shocker.

Why do y’all buy these drinks? The most common answer was,‘’just because it tastes good.” Additionally, we learned that the average money spent for drinks was $9 on a weekly basis. This may not seem like a lot; however, throughout the school year, this would add up to a healthy $350. Over the course of one’s four-year high school career, a worthy $1,800 would disappear from your wallet or parents’ savings account. That doesn’t taste too good.