Know your customer
Creating a persona for a target audience is important to understand what motivates them as a consumer and why they would want to purchase products. Personas are pertinent because they are a major factor for the overall design. Business to business interactions as well as business to customer relations all rely on who is involved and how the product interacts with their business or for a consumer’s everyday life. By creating a dynamic description of a consumer a company is able to keep in mind who their audience is.
Marketing Persona Example
Cone Denim is a denim supplier for numerous apparel brands around the world. With 3 offices around the globe, they provide a wide range of products to many consumers with vastly different needs. One recent collaboration was with Cole Haan, who initially got its start in 1928 producing shoe wear but has since expanded to accessories and outerwear. This partnership produced the 2.ZeroGrand, a stylish and innovative shoe for business professional customers of both genders. Cole Haan has stores located in 23 countries across the globe. For this example, we will focus on a store in India.
Cone Denim — Jiaxing, China — Product Development Manager
Dalu Lin — 35 years old. Born in Shanghai. He went to Donghua University and majored in Textile Design. He has a gift in design and loves drawing. After he graduated from university, he interned in 3 textile companies in 2 years. After that he found this job and worked for 10 years to be the product development manager. He knew the rules of the market and understood what kind of products consumers would like. Dalu has married and has a son. He loves his family and wants to buy a bigger house for his family. He spent most of his spare time on working and socializing with his colleagues or other people because he wants to do better on his career. He feels a little pressure on his finances because of his son’s education. Dalu connected with his networking community through email, wechat, and LinkedIn. He loves using Tumblr and always found inspiration through Tumblr.
Cole Haan- (New York, New York)- Buying Manager
Andrea McKinnton — 41 years old. Born in Boston, Massachusetts and is the oldest of 4 kids to parents that were entrepreneurs in the screen printing business. She went to school at The Fashion Institute of Technology, majoring in Fashion Business Management. While she was a full-time student, she worked two part-time jobs and interned at many apparel companies as an assistant to the merchandising and marketing teams. Throughout the years she worked her way up the buying chain (gaining many networking advantages in overseas companies where she interacted with P&D managers.) Andrea is single with two pugs named Thomas and Geoffrey. She donates some of her free time to helping nonprofits figure out their financial (solvency). Andrea likes to donate her time in practical arenas. She makes it a point to travel to one new country a year. Andrea lives comfortably in a financial sense. Her salary is a contributing factor, but her financial prowess and intuition about money and getting the best deal help with her success in her personal life and business. Andrea stays connected with her networking community through forums, her blog, email and platforms like LinkedIn. She recently got an Instagram, only to publish images of her dogs.
Customer — (Delhi, India)- Cole Haan Customer
Priya Malhotra — 24-year-old girl was born and brought up in Delhi. She completed her graduation from Delhi University in accounting and finance. She is currently in the second year of her MBA program. Before her MBA program she worked for a year in a finance firm and that’s when she decided she wants to learn more about that subject. In her free time, she likes painting which helps her to display the creative aspect of her personality. She lives with her dog Zoey. Her mom, a single mother of two has been a great influence on her all her life. Her mom used to stitch clothes for her in her childhood, thus she got used to having clothes which are not too common. Thus, she loves buying clothes from boutiques and stores which are not so widely available across India so that she could maintain her uniqueness. She gets her news from Facebook and Twitter. She is very active on Instagram and Snapchat displaying her life and alot of pictures and videos of Zoey. She uses LinkedIn for her professional profile.
Even though all of these personas are in different countries, they work together to create a wholistic view of B2B interaction as well as B2C engagement. Cole Haans buyers seek out new collaborations. Since the stores are in 23 different countries around the world, buyers interact with lot of different people which broadens their scope of products to supply for different cultures. The P&D staff member in China seeks out networking connections to further his companies position in the western world. His eye for design and creativity drew world traveling buying manager from New York to set up a design meeting. Andrea’s interactions with a wide variety of cultures allows her to understand what consumers want for a variety of aesthetics different than the U.S. Which is why Priya is drawn to the stylish, sophisticated and professional look of the 2.ZEROGrand denim heel. All personas have vastly different culture experiences but with technology and globalization it has allowed interacting and learning about different parts of the world much easier. Therefore, producing products that benefit all.
Persona project for Dakota Batch, Anuja Khairnar and Jack Shen
Credits: Dakota Batch
