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I think you're talking about using personas. I'm not surprised that was your reaction, as personas are often misunderstood, even by marketing folks. The point

I think you're talking about using personas. I'm not surprised that was your reaction, as personas are often misunderstood, even by marketing folks. The point of using personas is not to stereotype your customers but to establish focus sufficient to permit clear product decisions. In other words the idea is not "all our customers are like this" but "this is the type of customer we care about the most." Or more typically there are multiple personas, which allows you to create a matrix of product features with personas and again, establish priority for which feature to develop when, and how much to invest. I'm using "product" and "feature" here broadly, so for example even in an ad campaign, each ad can be considered a "product" with "features" like where it appears, what's in the imagery, what the text says, etc. You can run into trouble with personas if you start believing that they cover the entire range of potential customers. They don't, and again, that's the point: focus. That's why personas are sometimes given names and photos and detailed descriptions, to make it clear they're supposed to be individuals not stereotypes.

tobr 8y ago
Maybe they’re supposed to be individuals, but the problem is that unlike real individuals, you made them up. You can’t learn anything from them that you didn’t put into them yourself. Only a real person with lifelong experience of being themselves can give you insight into what that’s like.
- theoh 8y ago
  If you are designing for someone, you have to base your design decisions on what you have observed that person doing or saying. By your logic, generalizing from past observations of other people is never going to be enough to make an adequate design. So either you have to literally prototype each touchpoint (for example) with every possible customer (even the ones who can't articulate what they actually need), or the design is going to have to be based on insight into human nature and (varying) capabilities. Luckily, most designed things are simple enough that generalizing about users in order to discover the "right answer" isn't an unachievable fantasy.
- IgorPartola 8y ago
  Look, if you take a group of 100 people who are into Warhammer 40k, chances are that at least 80% of them will have played StarCraft too. Collapsing that group into a single person and calling her Wendy helps some people reason about them. If you prefer to think of them a Venn diagrams and that helps you sleep at night, no crime in that.
  - tobr 8y ago
    But you’re not learning that from a persona, you’re learning it from talking to 100 real people. You can put that into a persona if you like, but it won’t give you any new knowledge.
    - andrewflnr 8y ago
      It's very common for a new perspective on knowledge you already have to enable breakthroughs in deriving new knowledge from it. In particular, imagining a person rather than a statistical abstraction will tend to activate useful neural wetware that simulates other humans.
      - tobr 8y ago
        Agree 100%, but I don’t understand how that leads to personas. Just talk about real people instead and you can get all of these benefits.
        andrewflnr 8y ago
        Maybe if you can find the exact right real person who reflects the statistical reality you've already measured, and if you don't feel it's creepy to obsess over this one person in your target demographic, and you don't end up needing their consent to disseminate information about them. It's much easier and approximately as effective (more effective wouldn't surprise me) to make one up.
        snowwrestler 8y ago
        That is a bad practice with respect to customer privacy.
- tlow 8y ago
  This is not necessarily the case and makes light of an entire field. Often times personas are developed by ethnographers, human centered designers, design researchers and are based upon actual users or prospective users. Furthermore, data analytics can be used to generate personas. Personas can be representative of key forks in behavior patterns or beliefs and are a useful tool when making design and product decisions. As written your comment seems to write off all of this based upon your claim that "only a real person" can give you insight. While the reality is that personas are based upon user insights and are often distillations thereof.
  - tomrod 8y ago
    Right. It's using demographics to predict product adoption, service sign up, etc. This is finding the best-fit stereotypes.
  - tobr 8y ago
    I’m aware that personas are often based upon insights from real people, but I question the value of repackaging the insights as a new, made up person. It introduces distractions and invites stereotypes. Just use real quotes and observations, statistics if it makes sense, and focus on describing typical or recurring situations or behaviors that are relevant to what you’re using the research for. A hair color or favorite snack isn’t going to be helpful.
    - theoh 8y ago
      What about a disability, though?
    - sizzle 8y ago
      "A hair color or favorite snack isn’t going to be helpful." It's about humanizing the product design process, don't pay any mind to extraneous information like hair color etc. At the end of the day, personas should be representative of the people you are developing products for and that's inherently valuable to the product development process and all the people involved who don't have a chance to be in front of users and get a feel for their needs, which determine how successful your product will be when they are aligned with what you are coding.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  > You can’t learn anything from them that you didn’t put into them yourself. Right. Personas should be backed up by research into real customers and potential customers. "Garbage in = garbage out."
tomrod 8y ago
Right. With personas, you're using demographics to predict behavior (and, occasionally, craft your product, which isn't marketing but rather product design). That is another word for stereotypes.
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
  "Product" is one of the 4-Ps of marketing. With that meaningless jargon out of the way, as someone who attended a non-technical marketing undergrad program, product development was one of the tracks, with a course requirement in the general curriculum and a few related electives.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  I didn't say demographics. Personas should be built around shared behaviors, not demographics. If I'm selling gasoline, I'm going to target my marketing at people who own cars. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.
  - tomrod 8y ago
    And who owns cars? It leads pretty quickly to demographics, even if you condition on prior regressands. Older folks who rarely drive are unlikely to be the target of large gas consumption (and thus commodification of personas), hence demographic spoilage will happen regardless.
    - snowwrestler 8y ago
      The fact that humans have attributes does not mean every interaction with them is an act of stereotyping. You’re really stretching now.
      - tomrod 8y ago
        So long as the factors are predictive, the stretching is simply narrative creation.
sjg007 8y ago
So is the solution here just to hire these personas into your marketing department? Is this what all the marketing interns are for?

tobr 8y ago

Maybe they’re supposed to be individuals, but the problem is that unlike real individuals, you made them up. You can’t learn anything from them that you didn’t put into them yourself. Only a real person with lifelong experience of being themselves can give you insight into what that’s like.

theoh 8y ago
If you are designing for someone, you have to base your design decisions on what you have observed that person doing or saying. By your logic, generalizing from past observations of other people is never going to be enough to make an adequate design. So either you have to literally prototype each touchpoint (for example) with every possible customer (even the ones who can't articulate what they actually need), or the design is going to have to be based on insight into human nature and (varying) capabilities. Luckily, most designed things are simple enough that generalizing about users in order to discover the "right answer" isn't an unachievable fantasy.
IgorPartola 8y ago
Look, if you take a group of 100 people who are into Warhammer 40k, chances are that at least 80% of them will have played StarCraft too. Collapsing that group into a single person and calling her Wendy helps some people reason about them. If you prefer to think of them a Venn diagrams and that helps you sleep at night, no crime in that.
- tobr 8y ago
  But you’re not learning that from a persona, you’re learning it from talking to 100 real people. You can put that into a persona if you like, but it won’t give you any new knowledge.
  - andrewflnr 8y ago
    It's very common for a new perspective on knowledge you already have to enable breakthroughs in deriving new knowledge from it. In particular, imagining a person rather than a statistical abstraction will tend to activate useful neural wetware that simulates other humans.
    - tobr 8y ago
      Agree 100%, but I don’t understand how that leads to personas. Just talk about real people instead and you can get all of these benefits.
      - andrewflnr 8y ago
        Maybe if you can find the exact right real person who reflects the statistical reality you've already measured, and if you don't feel it's creepy to obsess over this one person in your target demographic, and you don't end up needing their consent to disseminate information about them. It's much easier and approximately as effective (more effective wouldn't surprise me) to make one up.
      - snowwrestler 8y ago
        That is a bad practice with respect to customer privacy.
tlow 8y ago
This is not necessarily the case and makes light of an entire field. Often times personas are developed by ethnographers, human centered designers, design researchers and are based upon actual users or prospective users. Furthermore, data analytics can be used to generate personas. Personas can be representative of key forks in behavior patterns or beliefs and are a useful tool when making design and product decisions. As written your comment seems to write off all of this based upon your claim that "only a real person" can give you insight. While the reality is that personas are based upon user insights and are often distillations thereof.
- tomrod 8y ago
  Right. It's using demographics to predict product adoption, service sign up, etc. This is finding the best-fit stereotypes.
- tobr 8y ago
  I’m aware that personas are often based upon insights from real people, but I question the value of repackaging the insights as a new, made up person. It introduces distractions and invites stereotypes. Just use real quotes and observations, statistics if it makes sense, and focus on describing typical or recurring situations or behaviors that are relevant to what you’re using the research for. A hair color or favorite snack isn’t going to be helpful.
  - theoh 8y ago
    What about a disability, though?
  - sizzle 8y ago
    "A hair color or favorite snack isn’t going to be helpful." It's about humanizing the product design process, don't pay any mind to extraneous information like hair color etc. At the end of the day, personas should be representative of the people you are developing products for and that's inherently valuable to the product development process and all the people involved who don't have a chance to be in front of users and get a feel for their needs, which determine how successful your product will be when they are aligned with what you are coding.
snowwrestler 8y ago
> You can’t learn anything from them that you didn’t put into them yourself. Right. Personas should be backed up by research into real customers and potential customers. "Garbage in = garbage out."

tomrod 8y ago

Right. With personas, you're using demographics to predict behavior (and, occasionally, craft your product, which isn't marketing but rather product design). That is another word for stereotypes.

barbecue_sauce 8y ago
"Product" is one of the 4-Ps of marketing. With that meaningless jargon out of the way, as someone who attended a non-technical marketing undergrad program, product development was one of the tracks, with a course requirement in the general curriculum and a few related electives.
snowwrestler 8y ago
I didn't say demographics. Personas should be built around shared behaviors, not demographics. If I'm selling gasoline, I'm going to target my marketing at people who own cars. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.
- tomrod 8y ago
  And who owns cars? It leads pretty quickly to demographics, even if you condition on prior regressands. Older folks who rarely drive are unlikely to be the target of large gas consumption (and thus commodification of personas), hence demographic spoilage will happen regardless.
  - snowwrestler 8y ago
    The fact that humans have attributes does not mean every interaction with them is an act of stereotyping. You’re really stretching now.
    - tomrod 8y ago
      So long as the factors are predictive, the stretching is simply narrative creation.

sjg007 8y ago

So is the solution here just to hire these personas into your marketing department? Is this what all the marketing interns are for?