Issue Number 20

Personas

Using fiction to inspire fact

Richard and Linda Ames run a real estate company out of a south Florida bank building. Their teenage children, Carl and Sara, are into video games, music, and instant messaging their friends. Every Sunday night they all settle in with some popcorn and a rental movie.

Sound like people you know? They might, but the Ames family isn't real. They're personas: fictional characters created to make a company's marketing communications more effective.

Your communications must speak to audiences in terms as familiar as an instant message, addressing their unique priorities and needs. Otherwise, you'll never motivate your desired response.

Don't know your audiences that well? That's where personas come in.

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