NextStage Rich PersonaeTM classification
I promised that I would explain the way we define and classify Personae at NextStage (or personas as some people tend to write it), so here it goes.
NextStage uses Rich PersonaeTM since the early 90s when Joseph started developing NextStage’s Evolution Technology. We currently have for AmerEnglish 144 main different personae in our current toolsets, but we usually use 72 and they can be translated into Myers-Briggs equivalents classification. For the moment, we’ve identified over 500 in Europe and over 325 in Asia.
The way we define them is not like most design agencies or marketing departments tend to do this ‘the hockey mum’ or ‘Joe the plumber’, and then explain how these people are supposed to be. Our terminology in comparison is rather boring; we will speak about people who are A3 or V5 for example as they are based on science and not on feelings. Our tools use Rich Personae which not only have traits and attitudes but also rich explanations of why those traits exist such as:
- why their attitudes are their attitudes;
- how to change them;
- how they make decisions;
- what makes them remember this thing and not that thing;
- why and when they’ll buy this and not that
- etc…
But let me give you an example of what I’m talking about, I think it will be much clearer to you:
Let’s take a look at Rich Personae V15, here you’ll find a non exhaustive description of what NextStage can say about this Persona as they
- make decisions based on what they see (pictures, charts and graphs are strong influencers)
- focus on issues and/or items which are personally uncomfortable to them (especially in the information presented)
- tend to think of things as absolutes (either black or white with no shades of gray or no middle ground)
- keep their own counsel before seeking confirmation/information from others. This counsel will revolve around what is personally uncomfortable to them and nothing else. When counsel is sought from others it will be to confirm what has already been determined will go wrong.
- have a strong belief that something will definitely go wrong and worry because they don’t know what will go wrong, when or where it will be
- have a poor sense of time or involvement
- have a poor or little sense of how things get done (because they tend to think in absolutes, either something isn’t done or it is, nothing can be “half way to completion” or be “in process”, for example)
- tend to dismiss and/or ignore arguments/discussions in which time-factors or process-factors are involved
- tend to become confused when time-factors or process-factors are demonstrated as imperative to a decision, and will probably avoid making a decision until the time-factors and/or process-factors are removed from the discussion
- are more apt to believe in a negative statement than a positive statement
- are more apt to accept negatively stated information than positively stated information
As you see we try to provide information that’s actionable for your design and marketing purposes. Just as an example of how to market to this Rich Persona: you will be more successful if your claim incorporates a negative term rather than a positive: “No washing powder is better than ours” rather than “Our washing powder is better than all others”.
You will find Rich Personae in almost all of our future products. For instance in NextStage Sentiment Analysis we will provide you with the Rich Persona that has written the analyzed text as well as the one that the content best targets to and the one that might most be turned off by it.
At NextStage we can also help you define which Rich Personae you should target depending upon your product offering and target audience. We are working on future products to allow this, and in the mean while, we can provide this through our consulting services.
As always, comments and questions are welcome
Cheers,
René
Readers can learn more about NextStage’s Rich PersonaeTM in the BizMediaScience Rich PersonaeTM archive. – Joseph