Does Persona Drive Product Character?

Here’s an idea I’ve been struggling with since learning about personas: does the right persona drive a product’s character?  I think it does.  In fact, I suspect that most truly addictive products were built, intentionally or not, with a particular user and buyer in mind.

In thinking about this today, I made a quick list of some current, well-known products that have a strong and broad, positive character:

• Nintendo’s Wii
• Apple’s iPod
• Rim’s Blackberry (or crackberry)
• Harmonix Music System’s Guitar Hero
• Intuit’s TurboTax
• UpToDate’s UpToDate

What’s so special about these products, beside their popularity and a strong character? One thing I notice is that most of these products created a user population where there was none.  For example, before the Wii, video games were primarily built for and played by young males. Yet, when I was a little kid (and bread cost $.05 a loaf … ) the whole family enjoyed Pong. Now apparently whole families are rediscovering the pleasures of video gaming via the Wii.  Even the sound of the name “WEEEE” is easy, family fun.  When I think of an ad-hoc persona for the Wii, I imagine Grandpa and John-boy Walton as great personas on which to base the Wii’s development.

Similarly, Apple (aided by some fantastic marketing) transformed the walkman and mp3 player – typically a young person’s entertainment and escape vehicle – into an entertainment and escape vehicle for everyone who enjoys music, young or old.  Once we get music on the iPod, we are transported.  (Yes, I am still bitter about the nights I lost hacking the iPod’s database to load the music.) When I imagine an ad-hoc persona on whom to base the iPod’s character, I think of Loretta Lynn. She’s a smart, older woman with an encyclopedic knowledge of and an encyclopedic collection of country music. She travels long distances and long hours.  She might have arthritis.  She wants to show off pictures of her great grandchildren.  Flipped around, I can almost imaging an iPod having a persona similar to Loretta’s.  It’s great at what it does. It’s good looking and knowledgeable. It’s friendly. It travels well. It performs for long periods of time.  It’s cool. (Hmm, maybe I should have chosen Bono for my iPod ad-hoc persona?)

I don’t have a famous name to pin to TurboTax.  While the product isn’t new, the  merging of the calculation with the documentation of a person’s taxes without relying on black-box calculations and government forms still stuns me in its brilliance.  TurboTax makes so many of us feel more comfortable, more knowledgeable and more in command of our taxes.  When I consider who TurboTax was built for, I think of a blue-collar entrepreneur named “Al”.  Al wants everything nice in life that Wall Street stockbrokers get and he’s carefully earning his way there with his own contracting business.  TurboTax is like Al.  It is in-control, smart, clear. It doesn’t use buzzwords or complex terms.  It doesn’t expect higher eduction, but it doesn’t condescend to people and it is easy and rewarding to do business with.

These obviously aren’t highly thoughtful personas.  But I think they are interesting examples of how a product and a person(a) can relate.

Comments

[Brian Lawley]

I agree that many of the successful products were built with a specific user in mind. You can also come up with examples of the opposite - products that failed because they were not designed for anyone in particular. Look at Apple's Newton - who was that built for?

It will be interesting to see what the long-term success of the iphone is. My belief is that the persona that is the sweet spot for the iphone is teenagers who don't want to have to carry both a phone and an ipod. However, with the price tag of the iphone they will only reach a fraction of that market. Having had three ipods stolen and four phones ruined by my teens there is no way I would pay for an iphone for them.

Other than the teen persona Apple will pick up the Apple enthusiasts and early adopters for now. Maybe they'll be successful with a low end line extension of the iphone like they were with the Shuffle - we'll have to wait and see.

Brian Lawley
www.280group.com