To accurately create a persona of me or someone like me, a marketer would be required to research the lifestyle, goals, and priorities of a college student about to graduate. My value systems, beliefs, and decision-making processes are unique at this point in my life, and each phase of the “persona process” - which “metaphorically [maps] the life stages of human reproduction and development” – would have to reflect my economical spending habits, my focus on education, and my tendency to engage in intellectual development, among other traits.
The persona vignettes provide very concisely conveyed aspects of subjects’ personalities. For example, my persona vignette would consist of statements like “I like to take long study breaks to relieve stress” and “I like to have fun and enjoy college but at the same time I need to keep my eye on the money.” I am representative of many conflicting goals and different sources of pleasure and pain. College students like me, especially students attending UT, would have many overlapping persona components and would express similar values, likes, and dislikes. Marketers who could accurately glean this information and isolate it as part of a unique persona would wield immeasurable power as far as marketing goods and services to people like me. I would see the purpose in whatever was being marketed to me, and it would seem like an obvious improvement in my life that should have already existed. This goes back to our discussion in class, which culminated in the end goal of creating and engineering intuitive yet innovative entities to introduce into a specifically fine-tuned market.
In the persona family planning, conception and gestation stages, a persona like mine would be designated as a college student existing in an academic environment (or at least near one) with a focus on higher education, earning a degree, and being competitive in the job market. The conception and gestation period would also involve gathering data about my study habits, my class schedule, priorities that either correlate or conflict with school, and my overall sense of purpose, self-efficacy, and utility given my current environment. Significant details gleaned at this stage would be my high level of stress, my constantly busy schedule, my need for relaxation, and my burning desire to succeed in all aspects of my college life, both academic and extra-curricular. A college student persona will inevitably be very dynamic and possible cluttered, seeing as how so many aspects of life are valued at this time.
After the persona birth and maturation, it enters adulthood and becomes a living, breathing model that marketers can use in almost any environment because it is strong enough to adapt and account for several variances in different markets. The fully formed college student persona would largely depend on geographic location, choice of school, living situation, and commutes to campus, family life, and many other things, so it would take a long time to mature and be ready to apply to the marketplace. My persona, for example, would display a longing to go home and a sense of displacement when I’m away at college. It would also be characterized by the need for a job as well as the need to fill my life with many things to keep busy since I’m less productive when I have less on my plate. This persona would either retire or experience a natural death as college students’ personalities and values change throughout future generations. Right now, though, the details I’ve described should be characteristic of the majority of students at state universities around the U.S.
College students comprise a significant percentage of many markets, and we are a powerful demographic force. Marketers would do well to carefully map out our personas because it will serve them well in the long run. I know that, personally, I am a unique combination of several standard personality types, and that I cannot be summed up by a rudimentary persona model. I’m sure this is true of many persona models, but I can relate specifically to this process because of my age and current life situation. I think there are fascinating details to be learned about people my age going though any higher education program because we represent great levels of intelligence and creativity. We truly are the future, and hopefully marketers will be dynamic enough to capture our needs and wants.
Nick,
ReplyDelete"I am a unique combination of several standard personality types."I'm glad you brought up this. In fact, social psychology and marketing scholars have been investigated the multiple self-concept for a long time. According to their literatures, we have many different selves such as as good self, bad self, hoped-for self, feared self, ideal self, possible self and one of these can be active as a result of confronted social situation at the given time. Thus, as you contended, marketers certainly cannot sum up A CONSUMER'S persona by one model. But what they can do is perhaps to generalize a persona for those CONSUMERS who are similar to one your self-concepts. I enjoyed reading your critical thoughts. Good job!