The Good, Bad and Ugly of Personas

Personas are widely used in marketing. They are the "ideal customer" and are an essential early step following a typical marketing plan structure.

But like many things we do because they're on a list of "things to do," personas are three-sided.

The good:

• Personas focus our efforts on key characteristics of our target audience. Age, gender, life stage, education, marital status, with/without kids, location and shopping preferences are a persona's tenements and offer some guidance.

A 40-year-old, married with two kids, living in a small town, who works as an electrician, has different needs than a 25-year-old, in school for her Ph.D., living in NYC.

The bad:

• You may have already guessed the bad, but the narrow focus of a persona can lead a team to make untrue assumptions. These assumptions are exacerbated because the team has something to point to and say, “But the persona is….”

A few years ago, a?comical example* of King Charles (then Prince Charles) vs. the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, was created.

The ugly:

• As bad as personas can be for leading marketing teams astray, their real danger comes from how they are often created. Unfortunately, the vast majority of personas are made using “gut.”

My gut tells me that our target consumer is a 26-year-old female early in her career…

If you’ve ever seen an ad or even a product that didn’t seem “right,” chances are their persona was made via gut vs. facts.

So the next time you are asked to create a persona or are given one — remember the Good and the Bad, and don’t commit the ugly.