12A - Figuring out buyer behavior no. 1

Segment: The segment I chose for this assignment is UF students who participate in the intramural co-rec season of soccer.

Interview & Summary: For my interviews, I conducted them at Southwest Rec's soccer fields once players were done with their games throughout the week as there a lot of games scheduled weekly, and this gave me an advantage in finding suitable interviewees. I actually found a lot more people than I required so I will sum up their collective answers. For the most part, people's needs become most salient when they want to play soccer but they can't. An example which was popular among the interviewees was when their intramural games get canceled due to inclement weather. Another factor that exposes their need to play is when they get home from school and have free time on their hands, since games can be planned out, are not that expensive per person, and are something fun to do during the day. I found that days that best suit the need are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. My explanation for this is that a lot of these people watch soccer whenever they can and a lot of games are played on these days; the Champions league is on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which is the second most viewed international soccer tournament after the world cup, and the popular clubs also play their league games on the weekends. Therefore, soccer fans watch these games and feel inspired to go and play soccer as well. Thursdays and Fridays were seen as the more popular days of going out at night so they do no fit soccer into those days. When the interviewees were asked if they googled indoor soccer in Gainesville, nothing popped up on the search results and the nearest facilities were in Orlando, an hour and 30 minutes away. Most have indeed expressed their disappointment to their friends - friends that they used to play indoor soccer with - about there not being a place to play indoor soccer here.

Conclusion: Based on the information gathered from this segment, I can conclude that there is definitely a desire/ need for indoor soccer among those in the intramural co-rec community. People have searched for an answer to their need, but there simply is no current method of fulfilling that need locally. Most, if not all of the interviewees had excellent need awareness, I did not have to try to convince them that indoor soccer was a need they did not know they were missing. In fact, they expressed their frustration to me during our conversations and this conveys how this segment was a good selection for this assignment.