Re: When It Comes to Profiling Consumers, You Have to Kick the Buckets

Response to John T Peters' article at AdAge.com, "When It Comes to Profiling Consumers, You Have to Kick the Buckets."

I appreciate what I think the majority of the article is saying. while I do think that consumer profiles play a large role in ideating a strategic plan, I also worry that large components of nuances are missed when data is compiled to form these profiles. I believe that this is partly because I don't trust most people's ability to play devil's advocate when mining data and I don't trust that all factors have been incorporated and calculated. Because of this fear, I remain critical -- but open minded.

I agree with the writer in that we are consuming via the age of chameleons. I believe that within each "consumer profile" lives mini segments of 'profiles.' And similar to what John T Peters describes, it is because we are exposed to everything (and not nearly as likely to be niche) that we have become chameleons. For example, to Peter's point, within the construct of Pandora radio segments, a Tupac listener, may also have a Lady-Gaga station (sure, it's possible?). These are not two completely different people, this is one example of today's chameleon that's been regularly exposed to multiple genres. 

I think the request is to recognize consumers as such and not to jump the gun on creating a profiled stereotype based on our initial find. While we do recognize the diversity for tastes within ourselves as we compile consumer personas, from a strategic stand-point, we still do have to find patterns and trends. We need to build some kind of insight to make a move. And we realize that It's difficult to capture everything.

I believe the key is to really recognize that these personas, or profiles, are merely a top-level oversight and that they should not be seen as hard and fast rules. I completely agree with the author here. But the errors of execution come from misinterpretation and accepting everything at face value. 

I would apply this knowledge of using consumer profiles to generational stereotypes. For those reading into generational stereotypes, that do not recognize that these are not standard personalities and that there are existing mini-segments, it's important to start realizing that these are merely far-removed trends. Because if you don't view them as so, you may start losing out on major opportunities. 

Another example comes to mind about the multitude of consumer profiles that exist within one person. While analyzing the trends of response to various emails in list A, we may find that they respond well with aesthetic design and concise copy. Despite this discovery, we never jump to a conclusion to form a standard promotion to group A. "Always send colorful emails to A people." Luckily, we didn't. With over 52% crossover to another list, we found that in list B and list C, lengthy, linear content far outperformed in these lists, composing of nearly the same people. Probably not the best example, but as John mentions, different information is absorbed via different means. 

The take-away here, is that these should be seen as a high-level oversight of trends and not to be read as hard and fast rules, as there are usually several small factors that are not included in the data. 

I guess there are two different instances here. One is the consumer profile that you build based on historical trends. In which you should not create hard and fast rules, but use as a guide. And then you have your buyer personas, in which you have your targeted marketing group of ideal people that you envision buying your product.