Legends of Notre Dame is a restaurant, bar and club that serves as a gathering place for the Notre Dame, Saint Mary's and Holy Cross communities. On March 8, the Legends marketing team held a focus group at Saint Mary's for students to voice their opinions and concerns.
Catherine Flatley, a Notre Dame junior and marketing research manager of Legends, is in charge of coordinating focus groups.
"We try to get a better insight to specifically what students want to see at Legends," Flatley said. "Focus groups and surveys are held for Notre Dame, Saint Mary's and Holy Cross students so that we can find ways to better serve our customers' needs."
By holding a Saint Mary's focus group, Flatley hoped to learn how Saint Mary's students looked at Legends differently from Notre Dame and Holy Cross students, she said.
"By acknowledging the needs of the Saint Mary's students, we will be able to modify the experiences they have at Legends to make it more enjoyable," Flatley said.
JoLynn Williams, Saint Mary's senior and Legends' branding manager, also assisted Flatley in holding the Saint Mary's focus group.
"I am the only Saint Mary's student on the marketing team at Legends, so we felt that my presence in this focus group would be very important to maintaining our goals," Williams said. "A big part of my job is to make sure we can extend the olive branch to Saint Mary's students and remind them that while Legends is on Notre Dame's campus, we cater to the whole community of students."
Over the past four years, Williams noticed there has only been one promotion driven by handing out flyers, as opposed to posting them in dorms, for a Legends event on Saint Mary's campus.
"There are usually three to four members of the marketing team on campus [Notre Dame] who hand out promotions for our events happening each weekend," Williams said. "Saint Mary's has not seen this much."
Williams said this type of promotion can help bring people to events.
"The one time I saw this type of promotion for an event at Legends, it struck me so much that I actually went to the event and enjoyed myself," Williams said.
By holding the Saint Mary's focus group, Flatley and Williams hoped to gain constructive criticism to make changes where needed.
"We use more of guideline questions to steer our focus groups so that the participants have a chance to get the dialogue really flowing without being pushed in different directions," Flatley said. "This is what leads to the constructive criticism, which is what we are looking for."
When building the focus group, the participants tended to be juniors and seniors, Flatley said.
"The most common thing we heard was Legends being compared to other bars around town and the differences between Legends and other go to places in the community," she said.
To maintain the constant input from Saint Mary's students, Williams hopes the marketing team at Legends will have at least one or two students from Saint Mary's on future teams.
"I know there have been Saint Mary's students on the team in the past, but currently I am the only one on the marketing team," Williams said. "It would be truly beneficial to maintain a working relationship between Saint Mary's, Notre Dame and Holy Cross students in the future."
Contact Jillian Barwick at jbarwi01@saintmarys.edu
