Brand Personality and Customer Personas in Action

Feb. 9, 2011

8:30-9:45 am

Presenter Amy Forsthoefel

A Brand is more than a logo!

F I V E R I V E R S M E T R O P A R K SF I V E R I V E R S M E T R O P A R K S

Brand personality

Brand personality

What is a Brand personality?

If your brand was a person, who would it be? What characteristics would your brand have?

Do people perceive your agency as:

- Old or young?

- Adventurous or conservative?

- More masculine or feminine?

- Upper class or working class?

What is a brand personality?

• Established over time, multiple experiences.

• Collective experiences with your brand – an average perception.

• How others might describe you to others.

• Both an outward face and inner soul.

• Projects core values and beliefs.

• Beyond products and services, it is why people care about your brand – how they emotionally respond when your brand is mentioned.

• A relationship with a brand can be like a relationship with another person.

• What if a brand spoke to you?

Can be done for master brands and sub brands.

Famous Brand personalities

Behind-the-times, clumsy, Modern, clever, free-thinkeruptight, inflexible, aggressive easy going, agile, creativemainstream, arrogant innovative

Famous Brand personalities

Conforming, traditional, Irreverent, up-to-date, classic, reliable spirited, confused?

Famous Brand personalities

Masculine, freedom Feminine, refined

Famous Brand personalities

Adventurous, accessible Classy, aspirational

Famous Brand personalities

Authentic, high-quality Decadent, easy-to-use,socially-conscious friendly

importance of brand personality

- Makes emotional connection that lasts beyond an ad or experience

- Creates loyalty, and a tribe of passionate supporters

- Underscores who you are as an organization, your beliefs and mission – helps others carry this message forth in a way that is relevant to their lives

- Differentiates brands from competitors or others with mind share.

importance of brand personality

- Enhance user expectations, and the promise of your services

- Guides communication and messaging

- Cues functional and/or product benefits

How to create a brand personality?

- How already have one! Find out what it is by asking your users.

How to create a brand personality?

- Once identified, assess the personality to see if it is what your organization wants to be portraying

- If it isn’t, define who you want to be and create a plan to get there.

How to create a brand personality?

- Remember, some people may never aspire for a certain personality trait, but place high value on being in a relationship with one who possesses it.

- Brand personality is not necessarily a direct reflection of your users. The reflection of your common user types are called customer personas.

Customer persona

what are Customer personas?

- Similar to the brand personality, but it describes your user, not your brand.

- Customer personas are snapshots of your likely or most common users.

what are Customer personas?

- Based on quantitative and qualitative data gathered through surveys, evaluations, interviews or whatever other means you have to analyze your target markets.

http://blog.mcorpconsulting.com/tag/brand-research

- User research should cover both demographics and psychographics to truly understand user needs and motivations.

- Demo: age, where live, income level, education, marital status, etc..

- Psycho: goals, habits, desires, behaviors, attitudes

what are Customer personas?- Find your niche.

- “You can’t be all things to all people.”

- Pick 2-3 personas max to maintain focus – your most influential audiences.

Lady Gaga Target Audiences

Gay pop performance community

20-30 year-olds, open-minded, enjoy pop art performances

Former/current Madonna fans

But Gaga attracts a much wider audience…

Not turning other audiences away, just targeting your ideal customers.

"Pleasing everyone with our work is impossible. It wastes the time of our best customers and annoys our staff. Forgive us for focusing on those we're trying to delight.“

-- Seth Godin

 

what are Customer personas?- Describes a ideal user,

his/her goals and common interactions with your brand.

http://brandtouchpointmatrix.com

- Goal is to understand important touch points and the user's motivations when interaction with your brand.

Define Who are you talking toUse your imagination!(and market knowledge)• Give them a name, an age, an occupation.

What are their demographics?  

• Walk through their day. Where do they work? Do they commute to work? If so, by what means? 

• What is their family life like? Do they have one? 

• What do they do in their spare time or for fun? Do they like team sports, or solitary activities? Are they foodies or do they mostly just grab fast food? 

• What magazines do they read? Where do they get their news and information? Or do they just care about entertainment? Are they active Internet users or strictly offline? 

• What groups or associations do they belong to?

You see what their life is like — and can speak about benefits in words they care about.

http://calenna.com

Essence of Customer personas

high-end customer, low-prices and convenience quality and customer matters most service

Essence of Customer personas

Younger, ready for change Older, risk-adverse, conservativemotivated by inspiration, traditional, motivated by fear,tech-savvy patriotic

Essence of Customer personas

Young, hip, creative, Serious business users, need for

non-techie, into image, power & reliability, techie,simplicity, design, want to be able to customize,looking for life solutions leave their work at the office

Using them togetherCustomer persona + Brand personality = Long term relationships

+ =

"Look at Apple Computer," said Steve Manning, managing director of A Hundred Monkeys, a Sausalito branding consultant. "They make boxes with chips, but people think Apple actually has a personality."

The Apple corporate tribe, in turn, believes it is waging a holy war against the evil forces of Microsoft and PC-makers.

process

Getting Started: The survey• Broken down into key areas of interest:

• Demographic questions

• Drivers/Experience with facility questions

• Behavior once at the facility questions

• Opinion/impressions of the facility questions

• Personality of the facility questions

http://www.zoomerang.com/resources/DS_SurveyDesign_Chklist.pdf

Demographic questions• Best placed at the end,

or later in the survey.

• Limit to only what you need to know.

• Use multiple choice and standardize choices:

• Age & Gender

• Zip Code

• Education Level

• Ethnicity

• Income

• Household size

• Hobbies, Interests, Organizational affiliations

Drivers / Experience• Limit to only what you need to know

• Use multiple choice and standardize choices

• History with facility

• Frequency of visits in last year

• Expectations

• Advertising/communication

• What influences visitation

• Open-ended:

• Why do they visit

• Why do they choose facility over other options available

• Unmet needs

Behaviors within facility• Limit to only what you need to know.

• Use multiple choice and standardize choices:

• Common activities/patterns

• Frequency of activities

• Who comes with them

• Where do they enter/exit?

Opinions/Impressions of facility• Limit to only what you need to know

• Use multiple choice and standardize choices

• Ratings on operations:

• Ratings on services and/or features:

• Open-ended

• What they love most (strengths)

• What they wish could be changed (weaknesses)

• How they would describe the facility to someone else

• How does it compare to others

Brand Personality of facility• Use standard brand dimensions from Brand Guru Jennifer

Aaker

• Randomize order of words if possible

• Rate on scale of 1-5Excitement Sincerity Competence Sophistication Ruggedness

AppealingSpiritedDaringImaginativeIntrovertedUp-to-DateHip/coolAdventurousAmbitiousCalmDynamicPleasantYoungOldConformingIrreverentSeriousOutgoingSurprisingInspiring

WholesomeDown-to-EarthHonestCheerfulGenuinePhilanthropicOld-fashionedFamily orientedCommunity-basedPersonalUnpretentiousFunSocialAccessiblePeople orientedSmall townRealSentimentalFriendlyCorporateSafe

AdmirableReliableIntelligentSuccessfulVarietyComprehensiveHigh-qualityConsistentOrganizedVisionaryWiseProfessionalLaid backTrustworthyRelevantDelivers high qualityService-orientedHard workingCommunity leaderSmall BusinessPracticalEnterprisingFocusedClassy

Upper-ClassCharmingIntelligentCheerfulFormalPolitePretentious, Wealthy, CondescendingLikablePopularUniqueUnconventionalInnovativeGlamorousGood lookingFeminineWorking-class

RuggedToughFlexibleAthleticOutdoorsyMasculineRebellionFreeMachoAdventurousActive

Survey summary• Combine electronic with paper to get a wider sample.

• Choose a time to conduct when you will get the broadest audience.

• The length of this survey is long, so incentives may be required.

• Do not hide the fact that it is long, prepare folks upfront.

• Communicate which questions are required for prize entry.

• Limit questions to just what you need in order to increase response rate.

• Put easy questions up front, and at the top of each page.

• Test – if it takes more than 10-15 minutes, cut questions.

• Make users comfortable – language, distribution, filling out.

• Legibility matters – use tools to insure readability, remind users.

• Get volunteers to help type up paper versions.

Survey Tools• Survey Monkey: www.surveymonkey.com

• Zoomerang: www.zoomerang.com

• Survey Gizmo: www.surveygizmo.com

• Survey Methods: www.surveymethods.com

• Google Docs: docs.google.com

• Surveyz: www.qualtrics.com

• Wufoo: www.wufoo.com

And many more….

Making sense of the results• Many survey programs have built in features for graphing

responses.

• Use Wordle.net for drawing major concepts out of text answers.

• Case sensitive

• May require cleanup before using (tense, plural, etc…)

• When in doubt, read, prioritize and categorize.

• Create spreadsheets for scoring.

• Use Excel or Powerpoint graphs if survey tool doesn’t supply function.

• Also: Swivel or IBM Many Eyes

• Borrow a GIS resource to geocode zip codes

Making sense of the results• Examples:

Making sense of the resultsCustomer Persona:

• Paint a picture.

• Personify your user: create the archetype of your ideal user:• Male/female, young/old, income, household, etc…• Where he or she lives or works• How he or she lives• What they want, what motivates them• The particular problem that you can fix• Hopes, dreams, fears /or pains• How you can connect best with them  

• Give persona a name, choose a photo, craft a bio

Who are these women?Why do they care about Gaga?

Making sense of the resultsBrand Personality

• Again, paint a picture.

• Personality must reflect:

• Perceptions, motivations, values of Customer Persona

• Perceived/intended core values and beliefs

• Tone, style, attitude

• Leading/differentiating human characteristics

• Give persona a name, choose a photo

• Join with Customer Persona on the bio sheet

• Are the Personality and Customer Persona be compatible?

• Gap analysis and retool.

Who is Gaga? How does she relate to her fans?

Making sense of the results• Create a report, share it with those who need to react,

make decisions and embody the brand.

• Use data to guide messaging:

• you know appealing benefit language.

• you know brand characteristics you want to convey.

• communicate directly to persona, as if you were the brand personified and were sitting in a coffee house, talking one to one.

• Use data to guide media buys – you now know who and where your significant customer groups are and where they go for information.

• Use data to set tone for interaction: any/all touch points.

• Use data to guide new features, new programs, master plans.

• Use data to guide course corrections, repairs, fix issues.

Case study

How FRMP is using these toolsA case study: 2nd Street Market

- FRMP took over day-to-day operations in Jan 2008.

- Needed to understand what was working and what wasn’t.

- Who is shopping there – who is our ideal customer?

- What is the emotional connection people have with the market that separates their experience from grocery stores and other competitors?

- Once identified, we could create a marketing plan.

The need to survey Users• Wanted to reach as large an audience of customers as

possible.

• Ask them about:• Who they are• Where they are coming from• What makes them visit• How often they visit• What they enjoy best about being there• What they tell others about their experience

• Use resources we have available to us:• Email list from newsletter• Foot traffic• Attractive incentive

The survey process• Email invitation to online survey sent

to ~1700 individuals on email list.

• Gave users 2 weeks to complete, with 2 reminder emails.

• Incentive of $10 Gift Certificate provided to the first 25 respondents.

• 167 responses were collected (10% response rate)

• The survey included 38 questions averaging 16 minutes to answer.

• All data was used for this summary, including partial responses.

• Supplemented by surveys done in person at a booth in the market.

Customer Persona: Stephanie

• White, Female, Under 45, Educated, Making $60K

• From 1-2 person household, 15 minutes from downtown

• Does yoga, Women in Business networking, Rotary Club.

• Visits market 1-2x/month, coming to market >2-3 years.

• Spends more than $20/visit.

• Buys produce, bread and meals most often.

• Expects higher quality and more variety than grocery stores.

• Wants to eat healthy, be green and support the community, be part of a social scene.

• Wishes downtown and the area around the market was more vibrant, safe.

• Shops at the market to support LOCAL small business/farmers that she has come to know, to find unique goods, and because it is simply more enjoyable.

• Wishes that the market was open more hours/days, that there was better parking, & that it wasn’t so crowded when she goes.

• On the internet daily on sites such as Facebook or Yahoo mail. Reads the Dayton Daily News and listens to WYSO Public Radio.

2nd Street Market: Summary

User-Chosen Words:Local Community-based Appealing Down-to-Earth Cheerful Fun Pleasant Delivers high qualityIndependent Genuine People oriented Wholesome Social Friendly Small Business Natural Real Honest Health-conscious Likable Safe

- Practical- Not-Corporate- Honest- Hip/Cool- Spirited- Personal- Relevant- Small Business- Health-Conscious

Leading Dimensions:Sincerity Competence

Differentiators:- Down-to-Earth- Cheerful- Real- Unpretentious- Non-Conforming- Community Leader- Outgoing- Casual - Small town

DRIVERS:

Bias:More educated user base.

All metroparks highest words(in order)Local Natural Pleasant Appealing Green Accessible Family oriented Welcoming Fun Outdoorsy Community-based

Brand Personality: BarbBarb is 35 year-old, college-educated “tom-boy” who has a husband of 10 years and two small boys. She lives to spendquality time with her boys, playing outdoors and laughing.

Born locally on a farm, she knows how to work hard but has taken a more laid back approach as she mellows with age. She is involved in several civic and environmental groups she cares about, where she assists and freely but politely speaks her mind.

You’ll typically find her wearing a funky scarf her mother gave her combined with a great handmade sweater she bought at Goodwill (despite the mended hole in the elbow). She switches up scarves and jewelry, but wears the same classic sweater almost every day.

She loves music and makes it a fabric in her life.

She is fairly fit from regular bike rides and yoga classes. She strives to cook healthy meals for her family, choosing to go organic whenever she can afford to and testing out different ethnic recipes from time to time to grow their appreciation for other cultures. Recently, the kids have helped her plant a vegetable garden in the backyard. She wishes she knew how to grow dark chocolate and red wine.

People trust her because she is honest and always does her best. She has set the bar high for herself in everything she does, but remains practical, balanced, cool and confident.

She calculates risks carefully and makes smart decisions to set a good example for others.

People find her very approachable. Everyone who meets her likes her, and becomes a fast friend and regular party guest. She is easy to talk to, a good listener and responds quickly when needed.

Are they compatible?Could they have coffee?

What would Stephanie think of Barb?

Would a friendship develop?

What void does Barb fill in Stephanie’s life?

On what level do they connect?

Tweak Barb if needed, Stephanie is based on reality.

We chose to embrace Barb. Kevin Roberts, ‘Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands’

findings in useWe used Stephanie’s values to craft messaging:

- Local, Unique, Fun

- What’s new and changing each week, seasonally

- How supporting vendors supports the local economy and is green.

- Play up quality & variety

- Emphasize reasons to gather at Market

Run scenarios –would Stephanie:

- Buy this? vendor selection and recruitment

- Participate in this? demos, activities, promotions

- Enjoy this? facility enhancements, amenities

- Expect this? Customer service policies, interactions

findings in useWhere we used Stephanie for message, we used Barb’s personality for tone. This allows us to remain true to what Stephanie already likes about Barb:

- Easy-going, friendly, genuine

- Playful, cheerful, optimistic

- Funky, unique

- Green/health/trend conscious

- Appreciates the finer things in life

- Tries hard, trustworthy

- Not-pretentious, unassuming

- Inclusive, brings people together

- Committed to the community

Run scenarios –would Barb say this, do this, wear this?

Results- Advertising and communications now consistent in theme,

tone & messaging.

- Marketing budget used to promote less fluff, more meat.

- Clear vision of who we are and what we want the market to be – communicated to staff and vendors.

- Stephanie is coming to the market, and bringing her friends.

- Shoppers now “get” what we stand for.

- Vendors are making more money.

- More consistent year-round traffic.

- Waiting list of new applicants for space.

- We can now be selective about vendors and if they fit our mission.

- Email list has doubled since 2009 – now 3500 specifically interested.

Are you ready?

Contact me!

Email me for sample surveys, profiles and excel templates!

Amy ForsthoefelMarketing Research Manager

Five Rivers MetroParks1375 E. Siebenthaler Ave.Dayton, OH 45414 M // 937-479-9922amy.forsthoefel@metroparks.org