User 5: Ian Leow

 

User Characteristic: B2C

IT Application Requirements: Graphics-Intensive Games

 

 

Brief Bio

 

Gender: Male

 

Age: 29 years

 

Family: 4 members (including himself). His father, mother and younger brother are all working. His father is a businessman, his mother manages a hotel and his brother is an equity investments recommender (“basically a broker”). On closeness to family he would be a 3.5 to 4 out of 5 (we would say a good family guy!).

 

Profession: Currently a student. Before that he was in the IT domain – a software developer! (aahhh! One of those geeks!). Worked on web technologies (pretty cool – just the kind of stuff we were looking for).

 

Hobbies: Playing video games, reading books, watching movies, writing, creating video games (so this genius is not just limited to playing, he develops his own games! Woah!)

 

Passion: LIFE. Exploring life to find the deeper meaning, understanding how others experience life.

 

Values: Honesty, being true to yourself so you are true to how you act. “Morality is subjective to most people but for me it is BLACK or WHITE”. Lives by what he believes in.

 

 

In Conversation With

 

Tech Savviness: He thinks he is a 5 on 10 while rating himself on tech-savviness (highly modest we say!). But when he does his research for making purchase decisions (for tech products), he transforms into an 8 on 10 (this gamer really does take his stuff seriously). What is the reason for this 30% jump you ask – well, we are soon to find out!

He doesn’t do research in general because the landscape changes so fast (so what’s the point in keeping up, right?)

 

He believes the “COMPUTER” is the greatest technological invention ever. (TADA! Yes! We’ve found our man. This should get interesting now!)

 

He believes the most complex device he uses in his daily life is his laptop or smartphone or both.

Laptop: He chooses the one that is ‘best’ according to his budget. And the most important feature on which he would want to spend his money is an efficient video card.

The brands he’s owned have been: Acer, Alienware and MSI (current)

Desktop: Always chooses to build one himself and will customize it based on his needs and monetary budget.

Smartphone: His current phone is his 1st smartphone EVER (OH MY GOD. Where is the ‘shocked face’ emoticon!). It’s a Samsung (smart choice? Eh.). And believe it or not – our man is an Apple Hater (It’s all right Steve, you can’t please them all, at least not this innocent gamer)

 

Our man takes his time to develop trust and does not just fall prey to fancy ‘marketing’ gimmicks.

 

According to him, the most vital piece of hardware is the one if not present, then the device would not function.

In a Computer that would be the video card (also the most expensive component – Surprising!)

In a Smart phone it would be the… wait for it… yes, you heard him right… it’s the… PROCESSOR! (Yes yes yes! We’ve struck GOLD! At least he thought about us. Phew! After all that video card nonsense. Gah)

And now we find out the reason. The reason why our subject abstained from the pleasures of a smart phone. Time to break it to you. Because the keyboard is virtual. Umm, what? Ah wait, there’s more. Our user here did not trust the engineering, felt it was designed to break. Hmm, I think we’ve uncovered something. Our man takes his time to develop trust and does not just fall prey to fancy ‘marketing’ gimmicks? This is an interesting learning for our brand. There is a consumer out there who is tough to please. He needs to know hard facts and figures to trust you and make his (purchase) decision. He trusted Nokia. For the others he thought that both the software and the hardware were haphazardly designed (boy, where does he get this stuff) – be it the inside or the outside, the chips or the clicks - he does not appreciate lags, does not like being slowed down and being at the mercy of the self-proclaimed ‘smart’ phone. He would rather use a dumb phone that functioned efficiently. HE THE MAN.

 

For PCs/Laptops, the factor that most influences his decision is PRICE (“I am not richest man on the block”) and of course performance.

He would like to go for a robust engine (what drives the machine he is buying) – which according to him is the VIDEO CARD – must render more things without lagging, must be more powerful and must be a trusted brand set / model set.

 

For smart phones, the factor that most influences his decision is STURDINESS. He drop things a lot (yes, it’s true, we saw), is a wee bit clumsy (ok maybe slightly more) so he needs a ‘rugged thing’. So, he currently has a Samsung S4 Active which is supposedly rugged, he’s dropped it a couple of time (not for testing purposes) and has found no crack. However with this phone he has had to make a compromise – he got  a bad camera, he got the camera features of the S3, but as he says “I’m not a camera (read selfie) person, I don’t care”. For the smart phone, what is essential for him is that the external physical frame (chassis) should be tough.

 

“I need my devices to be reliable”.

 

And this reliability can be taken a step further – that is the Operating System, Processor and Battery.

 

In a typical day, he’d be hard pressed to not use a computer. He uses his laptop to study or work and always lugs it around. Since ergonomically that’s not too convenient, he makes some sacrifices – he checks his e-mail on his smartphone sometimes (while he is on the move). But he can’t do his routine stuff anywhere else but on his laptop - word processing, facebook, video games, assignments, chatting (virtually) with people.

 

“So basically I do everything on my machine except sleep, eat and shower… and... walk.”

 

 According to him, “Intel is Invisible”. If it’s not there, you miss it. 

 

His experience with Intel has always been smooth, he believes that the processors are reliable and he has not had any complaints with the hardware.

 

When he has to choose between us and our competitor (AMD) he always goes for the one that provides more bang for the buck.

 

He is not biased toward either brand – he always analyses what both have to offer within his budget and in the case of desktop customization, there is an additional factor of component compatibility.

His current laptop is powered by Intel (i5).

He bases he decisions heavily on reviews and has observed that generally the two brands are not very different from one another.

But if, just if (with a gun to his head) he had to pick one, he would pick INTEL, because he has used it more often and he trusts the brand based on his past experience.

 

Words that come to his mind when he thinks of intel are: Processor and Reliable. (Reliable Processor – that kind of hits the nail on the head!)

He has never faced any problems with it, but he won’t go to the extent of calling it flawless because as he says “You get what you pay for”.

But he also maintains that he has never said - “I wouldn’t have this problem if I wasn’t using intel”

 

For him Intel embodies OMNIPRESENCE. "You never see it, but it’s always there. Intel Inside (the box)."

 

He went to the extent of saying that it wouldn’t surprise him if people assumed that ALL laptops/desktops have intel inside.

 

 

Consumer-Brand Relationship Form

 

It is safe to say that IAN and INTEL share a “Compartmentalized friendship”. Theirs is a highly specialized, situationally confined, enduring friendship characterized by lower intimacy than other friendship forms but higher socioemotional rewards and interdependence. Easy entry and exit attained. That’s IAN and INTEL for you!