Still making personas? Why?

The advertising kingdom has a long history with analytical information, and constructing a bird’s eye view of the consumers they are trying to reach. This practice began before the creation of interactive media, but like many things, has hung around into our modern age, occasionally morphing into other forms but maintaining the same basic intent, namely to fabricate a picture of the target audience to understand them better.

In the period leading up to the eighties, demographics were the keys to the kingdom. Analytical information was gathered by poll, study and survey to construct a description of segments of the population based on age, race, sex, geography, religion, income level and so forth.
With the arrival of more electronic channels in the nineties, our demographics became more sophisticated, morphing into ‘psychographics’. The advertising industry sought to understand the target market by examining not just statistical information, but emotional motivation as well. They looked at the personality, values, gender and generational bias, interests and lifestyle choices of their target. Cultural anthropologists were brought in to contribute, along with other experts.

Personas were Born

At the end of this shaky road came the creation of the persona, which is popular now and at times has been treated as the ultimate insight into the factors influencing the spending habits of a given market. Persona creation is sophisticated.
Usually it is not possible to sum up an entire market segment in a single persona, so several may be created. Personas have come to be extremely detailed, listing off many aspects of the composite’s life, their habits, their behaviors. To remove the reminder that this persona is a composite, they are even given names and decorated with the photos that are said to resemble them (usually a snapshot of someone at the creative agency). Some companies go all out with personas, going so far as to bring in decorators to design a room according to the persona’s tastes, or fill their handbag with items the persona uses.
The persona has merit to some degree – it’s use can provide a common language and vision for the team working on the marketing.

But there are quite a few problems with personas as well, to the point that they can wind up being no more than a tool for the creative agency, with very little gain to the client. There are a number of reasons why personas can go terribly wrong.

1. The Strategy Team Gulped the KoolAid
Having been involved in several persona builds for high level accounts, I can personally say that I have NEVER seen a persona made of a total jerk. On the contrary, the personas inevitably are of attractive people, who if they have a flaw have the perfect flaw that completes them as an interesting and story-worthy individual. But most often they don’t need a flaw, they are a composite of the most interesting features common to the demographic. Is this realistic?
2. Two Weeks of Research – We Must Know Everything
I have witnessed personas made up based on no more than a couple of days of brainstorming and a quick visit on location. And those personas were convincing, detailed, beautifully presented. In every sense they were real and compelling. The problem is that while the persona does a good job of selling through a concept with a client, the illusion of customer insight is just that – unreal. Many times it does a fantastic job of convincing the client that they do not really know who their customer is, that the customer is in fact someone far more interesting and sophisticated than they had thought they were.
3. Nobody is Perfect
No matter how you slice it, a persona is a composite of many people. While it would be nice to mix and match our finest qualities with the best of others and cook up a super-person, the real world does not work that way. And thankfully so, for as it turns out the world needs all those flaws and quirks just the way they are, and good advertising can talk to those flaws very effectively. As a composite, the persona is a throwback to a time of mass marketing, when the interest of the individual took a back seat to attempts to reach out to people en masse. That worked during mankind’s brief flirt with non-interactive entertainment, but that time is drawing to a close.

Why is so much time, attention, imagination and effort going into the creation of composite personas when the real thing is so readily available? I’m talking about real, living breathing people with whom advertisers can open a dialog. No imaginary persona can ever match up to referencing an actual human being with all their many levels of complexity.

The channels are there, they exist right now in a form never before available to us.
There is a lot to be said for tossing aside the composite, and marketing directly to a single real individual. This is more challenging than selling to an imaginary person, but it is more valuable. A real person will tell you no, they will react irrationally, they will get emotionally involved. But often, setting out to please a single customer yields lessons that can apply widely, because at the heart of it, we all share a few major motivators in common as human beings.

There are some cases of large companies employing this method of marketing to a single real customer with great results. Anecdotal reports in “The Whuffie Factor” by Tara Hunt, and Marcus Buckingham “The One Thing You Need to Know” mention Walmart using this technique.
For the most part though, this idea of marketing to actual individuals seems to be the domain of smaller startup companies, the kind that explode with vibrant growth not expected in large corporations. That makes sense, because these groups seem to have figured out the right way to use interactive media and are doing so with far more frequency than the large established brands. Perhaps it is because the large brands are so very used to traditional marketing. At one point the persona was far more intimate knowledge of the target person than say, just launching catchy jingles.

But in today’s electronic medium, the persona lacks sorely compared to actually jumping on and having a genuine conversation with a person.

A recent article in Marketing Mag just crossed my desk thanks to a twitter post. The article speculates on marketing via social media, and questions how effective it really is. Specifically it mentions writers (calls them ‘gurus’) such as Seth Godin, and states ‘the consensus is that online and social media marketing does work when it’s done well, and the Godins of the world know what they’re talking about…they saw it first’.

Note the language there. The writer does not specifically state that Godin knows what he is talking about, he only concedes that the ‘consensus’ is that he does. The writer then goes on to question the value of online social media, pointing out ‘a few still-lonely voices have made a good case for a more cautious approach, suggesting the promise of social media has become far greater than the reality’.

I’m all for casting the pale eye of reality at social media. Not long ago, I attempted to deflate some hype by pointing out a study showing over seventy percent of Canadians don’t know what twitter is.

However, to suggest that everyone is jumping on social media prematurely, and a few lonely realists are questioning the value is quite bizarre. The media space is jam-packed with people dragging their feet regarding adopting social media programs. There are far more people in radio, television, and print that are reluctant to adopt interactive media than those that are eager to get into it.

Did Not Get The Memo

There is no shortage of people in decision-making positions doubting social media effectiveness. This is not a case of a few grounded realists in a tide of over-hyped enthusiasts. In fact the situation is quite the contrary. If it weren’t would the minister of culture have needed to reform the qualifications for funding through the Canadian Media Fund to mandate interactive media?

Brands can not afford to give a massive edge to their competitors by ignoring interactive media. This includes almost all industry sectors.

Godin and others write strongly specifically because the tide is still very much against recognizing the effectiveness of two-way interactive marketing. The budgets are still very much biased to traditional media, whether such media is effective or not.

It is All One Media

Can traditional media be dropped? No, absolutely not. That is crazy talk. It is quite effective when combined with interactive media. By now it seems almost silly to make distinctions between the two when they tie so strongly to each other if done well. The pace of technology is combining them regardless of what anyone does anyway. There will not be different medias for much longer, at least from a consumer’s perspective.

What I find really lacking in the article was the all-relevant discussion around time. Social media marketing is slower, and needs to be maintained over time. It must be truly two-way communication. Traditional media launches campaigns for specific durations, then tends to move on to the next campaign. If you’re trying to do social media the way you do traditional media, then no, it’s not for you. If instead, your company is full of people who love what they do and like to talk about it, and you’re willing to enable that and further support it by appointing sociable people to manage it, then yes, you can enjoy a steadily growing group of brand fans over time. It will cost less, take longer, and build lasting value.

If you don’t want it to take quite so long, you can boost it with traditional media. The problem after that may be sorting out those that really should not be part of the core group you are building with social media. It can get diluted with new members that add little value.

Nor did the article talk about money when discussing whether social media marketing was worth the effort. How much did the traditional media campaigns discussed cost compared to the online campaigns? This is most certainly a factor in determining return on investment, but is not discussed at all.

The article did quote Tara Hunt a lot though. I took in her presentation at NextMedia. She mentioned that she could not understand why her call to Rogers resulted in unsatisfying service, but the moment she posted on twitter about it, a rep direct-messaged her.
“Why not use that money to get more people on the phones?” she reasoned.
The answer should be fairly obvious. On twitter, more people are likely to know about the response being offered, compared to a one-to-one phone call. That was the whole reason she posted her dissatisfaction to twitter in the first place.

The conclusion of the article, voiced as though social media were being questioned in hushed tones in back rooms, was “It’s about time someone said this publicly”.

Well actually people have been saying this publicly forever.
Perhaps it doesn’t seem so because blogs and social media have been very good at dissemination of a different message.

Wait a minute…if individuals writing blogs can create such a massive and overblown hype for social media, does that prove that it works over time?

Character Animation by Will

In the photo above, you can see a bit of his workflow. Notice the thumbnails sketches in front of him he is using to inform his 3D modelling.
You can also see the bone rigging he has done, and earlier today I was watching him do some animation examples. We talked about the way a character like this might move – would it be a side to side shuffle? Or perhaps more of a hopping motion?

Character Meshes – weight applied

To get the motion realistic, Will has to apply weight to the meshes that make up the character, and rig the bones with the right kinetics. The process is a bit time consuming upfront, but when it is done he will be able to do walk-cycles and have the character jump and be expressive through his movement.

Character Sheet – various poses

It is one of the great pleasures of working at Oddly seeing talented people like Will pursuing their craft with such interesting projects. I also overheard Will talking with Ian about bringing the final character into Unity 3D for use in a mini-game. Great to see one creative idea spark another!

In the middle of writing this article, a friend sent me a link to this post by Seth Godin. It nicely summed up what I was thinking about. I suggest you go check it out, then check back here for some thoughts and personal experiences.

Was it Good For You?

What makes for a good public presentation, seminar, or panel discussion?

I attend quite a few of these every year, at all levels from the local user group meetings up to global events like GDC and FITC. I see student presentations, academic presentations, professional presentations and pitch meetings. Over time, my tastes have matured by listening to speaker after speaker, and I’ve come to understand that many of the things I originally thought made for a great presentation actually do not.

Critical Thinking

I want to be clear here that critical thinking does not mean coming into someone’s presentation jaded and expecting the worst. On the contrary, you, the audience, owe it to yourselves to pay close attention to what is being presented. After all, you paid for it and so did those around you. Listening, really listening, is a skill that can be developed. You should be able to come away from the presentation with some new knowledge or stimulus. Therein lies problem number one – many presentations simply are not sharing anything new from the personal experience of the presenter. Let me share a few examples.

Standard Bad Presentation Template

I once took in a seminar that I felt really illustrated the worst parts of a bad presentation. If you care to put together a similar bad presentation of your own I’m providing the following template (please don’t, I’m being facetious here). The format went like this;

1. Start with an off-color joke.
2. Apologize up front that something outside of your control has prevented you from being totally ready.
3. Promise that near the end you’re going to show something really amazing.
4. Start reading publicly available information about the subject (in my example it was wikipedia)
5. Make references to other people’s work, and claim to have done similar work, but don’t show any examples of this.
6. Towards the end, announce that there won’t be time to show that amazing thing you promised, but claim it will go up on your site/blog soon so people should keep checking out your site. (Alternatively, you can claim technical difficulties instead of time constraints.)
7. There is no point seven, you’re done! Woohoo! No need to follow up, post your notes, or respond to emails from your audience.

Other signs of a bad presentation include arriving late, spending a lot of time finding and opening materials, and general disrespect for the audience. And frankly if the wifi goes down the presenter should not be stumbled if they have presented more than once.

Over the years, I’ve seen variations of this bad presentation over and over again. It is easy to miss it when you’re being manipulated by a presenter, particularly if their presentation style is entertaining and they are charismatic. But there is a simple way you can avoid getting scammed – demand proof.

Demand Proof

Do not assume that because someone is standing in front of an audience they know what they are talking about. In many cases, this might not be so at all. Or they may be experts in a very narrow subset of the field they are discussing. The point is, whether it is Steve Jobs or the guy from your stamp collecting club, or your college professor, the same rules apply. Question everything, use your reasoning ability. Demand proof in the form of examples, statistics, case studies. True, all of these things can be manipulated by a presenter to favor their conclusions, but at least you can then decide whether the evidence favors what the speaker is saying. At that point, they have done their job, and are not fleecing the audience.

Question Authority (respectfully)

It is not disrespect to question the statements of authority figures. On the contrary, those who are truly into what they do will welcome it. Richard Feynman, the nobel-prize winning physicist once complained openly that people stopped questioning him when he won the top science prize, it was very upsetting to him.

A few Examples

At the Mesh conference (MeshU to be precise), a speaker gets a question regarding HTML5 and Flash. His answer is that ‘everyone knows Flash is disappearing, and it is only used for banner ads and animated splash intros’. The audience nods and smiles.
Notice the format there? No substantiation or case studies – this answer is purely speculation on the part of the presenter, but nowhere is it prefaced with a statement like “in my opinion…” (Please see bullet 1 and 4 of Godin’s post)

At WordCamp, a presenter shows a bunch of popular plugins made by others then claims ‘we make plugins like this for clients all the time’. He repeats this many times, yet no example of such a plugin is shown, and nowhere can any be found on his site. Maybe they have made popular plugins, but where is the evidence of it? (see bullet 11)

In a panel discussion, one presenter talks over the others by being louder, swearing, and cracking jokes. He establishes credibility by poking fun and making wild claims. He is covered in tattoos and has interesting hair, while his fellow panelists are dressed like, well, nerds. If you were in the audience, would your alarm bell go off? Would you start keeping an internal count of the number of times he diverted your attention using humor or simply a loud voice? Would you make a note to yourself to research those vague references he made to work he had done? (see bullet 10)

Let me be clear here. I am not suggesting there is no room for color or personality in a presentation. Having a personal flair is great. But a presentation can not be based on style, and have no good substance.

Critical Thinking Categories

With critical thinking, you tend to start grouping presenter’s statements into a few categories based on whether they have made an effective case. You wind up with a pile of “yes”, “no”, and “sort of” lists. If you have time, you could research the “sort of” and prove/disprove it on your own. Remember that the point is not whether you agree with the presenter (that is entirely at your discretion), but rather whether they presented well. If you find your lists weigh heavily towards “not proven”, then it was a bad presentation, no matter how entertaining.

If enough people exercise critical thinking, the conference or event gets better and better each time. Otherwise it dissolves and loses focus. When a conference loses focus, it may be fun to attend for social reasons, but it should probably be the first one you drop from your agenda if you can only hit a limited number of events during the year.