Assignment 12A

1. I decided to pick the segment of middle-aged parents who's children are close to being of age to show animals, with a background in showing animals themselves. This group of people would be strong potential clients who would have no strong loyalties to a brand currently, as they have been disconnected from showing for some time, but they have enough knowledge from their own experiences to make educated decisions and to offer critique towards my plan moving forward.

2. I completed my interviews of three new people.

3. In all three of my interviews, I asked the parents what their plan was for feeding their children's show animals when they began to enter into that venture. All three of them were somewhat skeptical, and gave answers that reflected that. One said that she had not thought about that yet. She basically has the plan of going to the feed store the day before they get their hog and buying whatever is available then. The second explained that she has looked but has not come up with a definitive answer yet; all of them were expensive, and when she had time to do more research, she would decide which appeared to be the best value and use it. The final said he did not feel he had much choice, but that he would probably use Purina Show Chow, as it is a brand name and one that he remembers being effective when he showed his own steers. Next, all were asked if they would be interested in a local brand of show feed that was a complete ration for their animal in each stage of its development, was comparable to the brand name show feeds in terms of quality and was more affordable than other show feeds. All of them said that they would definitely be willing to try it at the beginning of their projects. The first explained that she would trust the brand because of it being locally operated and smaller; the second explained that the price being lower is her selling point and the third explained that while Purina was a brand he remembered, he was always willing to try something new and liked the sound of not having to integrate supplements on top of the feed for it to be complete.

4. In terms of looking for information, there were again three different approaches. The first answer was essentially just to go with whatever looks and sounds the best the day that they go. In other words, her plan is to not have much of a plan, at least for this first year. The second idea was to google and look at the information on the different show feeds in the area. However, she did inform me during the interview that she was disappointed and underwhelmed with how little options there were. The third said that he has gotten prices and feed labels from the different feeds that he is considering. In doing so, his plan is to compare prices and the quality that he expects the feed to contain based on the label.

5. The summaries are above.

6. There are three different approaches that would need to be used for these three different potential customers. For one, it is simply getting the name of the feed out there where she can hear it, and she is likely to at least give it a shot for no reason other than hearing about it. For the second, it is important to establish a way for people to be able to read about the feed online; having some sort of Facebook or website for the feed could suffice, if it were to reach enough people as a result. Finally, I would need for the feed to have a set price or a limited price ranges and a complete label, with ingredients and percentages, in order for the final person to be interested. This will allow customers such as this gentleman to research the feed in a way that could be considered more old fashioned by some, but that allows customers to look at what exactly they are buying and find any differences in the feeds.