Many years ago, early in my marketing career, I worked for a small marketing agency. One service we offered was a management session that helped define the company and objectives for its growth. As part of this exercise, we would create a personality for the company that would enable us to ensure we were on brand with the messaging and creative that was developed. At the time (10+ years ago), this was a fairly distinct approach, and different from the customer personas that many companies use these days.
The light bulb went on for me when, while sitting in traffic, I noticed a white station wagon with the Budweiser logo. Something felt wrong and it took me a minute to put my finger on it. A station wagon is NOT the type of vehicle that would be associated with the Budweiser brand. It isn’t as bad as driving a Hummer while promoting an environmental brand, but it certainly doesn’t build brand credibility for Budweiser. For me, it is an illustration of the need to think about every aspect of how and what you communicate about your company. Even the smallest things can affect the perception of your brand.
I expect that the car I saw was a sales rep’s vehicle and perhaps he (or she) needed the cargo space and fuel economy that the small station wagon provided. However, I believe a more suitable vehicle — one that would have met those needs while projecting the Budweiser brand — would a Jeep or SUV.
While I still believe creating a brand personality will help evaluate the brand marketing you do, I think that customer personas are more helpful when anticipating how prospective customers will act in reaction to targeted marketing strategies and tactics.
What to know more about personas? There is tons of information online, but I liked these:
- “Persona-lizing a site”, November 2007 article from Internet Retailer: http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=24243
- “Get In Your Customers' Heads: Creating Great Personas”, September 24, 2007 blog entry by Ian Lurie of Conversation Marketing: http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2007/09/get_in_your_customers_heads_cr.htm
- Also, check out Marketing Profs for more articles: www.marketingprofs.com
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