ENT3003 Assignment 12A – Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Sketching out the Beginning of the Buyer Behavior Process

1) Pick a segment:

I chose to interview students that all fit into a segment of hand-writing preference and with a specific preference of using mechanical pencils when doing work or taking notes. To figure this out I went around UF Reitz Union and inquired from people that were already doing work with a mechanical pencil as they fit perfectly into the segment, I then asked if they'd be available for a short 10-15-minute interview and went from there. The students I interviewed were of different genders and between the age of 18-21 but were told they'd remain anonymous for the assignment.

2) Interview Summaries:

1. My first interview was done with a female, age 18. She was from Orlando, FL and told me she always prefers to write notes by hand as it helps more with her memory, while also opting for mechanical pencils over standard wooden ones whenever possible. 

2. My second interview was conducted with a 21-year-old male from Jacksonville, FL. He is currently a business student at UF and told me he likes to take lecture notes by hand, primarily using a mechanical pencil. Furthermore, he also told me that he chooses to use a mechanical pencil when writing out practice problems for classes like finance and business statistics in the past.

3. My final interview was with a 20 year old male from Miami, FL who's attending UF as a Statistics major. This student said he does a lot of his work on his computer but that whenever it comes to writing something he chooses to do it with a mechanical pencil, whether that be notes or problems.

3) Need Awareness: 

The unmet need my product hopes to solve is the current issues with mechanical pencils, primarily with the lead used inside of them. Throughout my interviews I received very similar responses for some parts and a lot of varieties with others. Similar among all the interviews was that the primarily usage time occurred during school seasons (Fall/Spring semesters), and especially during the daytime when lectures were occurring either digitally or in-person. My first interviewee explained that she primarily was writing when she has lectures to watch online, doing so in the Reitz Union. My second and third interviews gave similar responses in that they mainly only wrote with their mechanical pencil when doing work for the courses, primarily for problems in math/business classes. However, they explained when they go home they tend to just use their phone and/or laptop to do any other work that doesn't involve hand-writing.

4) Information Search: 

For the most part I believe my problem isn't talked about too much, which leads me to believe that perhaps my product needs to take a creating demand approach by first showing the audience what's wrong with their product prior to making the demand, which is inherently more difficult. With that said upon questioning all my interviews lead to the same answer that they do face issues of running out of lead with no backups, and they've all said that they've been guilty of replacing a completely fine pencil with a new one simply because of lead shortage. With that said, I'm not sure any information can easily be search on google, when people face these current issues with mechanical pencil most people claim that they just ask a friend or nearby person if they have a spare pencil as a means to finding the solution to the problem. Often this pencil doesn't even get returned from what I've heard in my interviews and personally experienced. 

5) Draw conclusions: 

I believe that the segment I interviewed is essentially just my target audience that I've had similar previous interviews with. The need awareness for this group seems to be with people that like to do their work on-campus but this is clearly gonna be a little biased to my study method due to the fact that I chose people to interview based off of finding them doing work on-campus. With that said, I was able to learn a significant amount in information search as I think many people I plan to target simply aren't too experienced with the main issue my product hopes to solve, meaning a primary obstacle to my idea will be getting awareness for the issue.