From person to person in marketing or how to overcome WYSIATI

Actors rehearse the role of their characters.

I present to you Longrid about the use of characters , the methodology, which had a sobering effect on the development of our project Fetchee - a single list of desires, watching prices in all online stores in the world. The material is not in any way step-by-step instruction or training manual. His main task is to shake up and make fellow startupers take a broader look at the main component of any business - their potential or existing customers.
')
For understanding the material, it is advisable that you already know what a person is (persona) , try to make at least one for your project, and only then continue reading.

So, I suggest you conduct a small mental experiment. Read the person’s description below and analyze how your brain reacts.

Igor is 30 years old, he was born, grew up and works in St. Petersburg. Considers himself a real Russian man. Six months ago, he married in the same registry office as his parents 36 years ago. There were many friends at the wedding, even my uncle came from Germany.
Igor graduated from FINEC with a bachelor's degree, but due to the crisis he could not find work in his specialty. Since he was interested in computers since childhood, he learned to program well. This is what he earns.

Friends consider Igor stylish. His mother was an editor in a fashion magazine, and even after retiring, she often buys designer clothes. Igor does not often acquire new things, as he chooses only what perfectly suits him in terms of style and color.

Igor is keen on tennis, playing the guitar and loves to read.

Recently Igor needed a tuxedo for a wedding and he just bought it at DLT .

This tuxedo bought Igor, well, almost ...

The story above is in the format of a typical marketing person . Anyone who reads it will have one of three processes in the brain:

1. Instant consolidation of all facts into a complete story explaining why Igor bought this particular tuxedo and precisely in the DLT. The brain itself thinks out the missing points.
2. Unsuccessful attempt to collect all the facts in one story, failed due to fatigue or lack of involvement in the described problem.
3. A deliberate decision to spend power on creating a reliable history, a forced slowdown in processing speed and a transition to a more critical perception mode. However, due to the lack of information to recreate it, the transition to the behavior model number 1 or number 2.

Your mind is not an exception, he behaved according to one of the scenarios, because he received a set of very scattered facts and the final result - Igor bought a tuxedo. However, he did not receive an answer to the question:

How are the listed facts about Igor related to his recent acquisition?

Due to the fact that persons are built on a story created on the basis of consumer signs, instead of explaining the reason for their purchase, they leave the brain in an unsatisfied state. To fix this, for a split second, the brain itself invents a story explaining why Igor bought this particular tuxedo.

The reason for this behavior of the brain is cognitive distortion , namely, the use of the innate mental pattern of “ What you see, that is ” (eng. WYSIATI) described by Daniel Kahneman .

This story briefly describes a person , but followers of this concept in marketing clearly did not expect the WYSIATI pattern to intervene in the process of filling in the missing facts. That is why the idea of ​​a person has a devastating effect on all advertising activities of the company. After all, each member of the team finishes the story of a person according to his personal assumption, which varies greatly from person to person.

To neutralize the effect of fragmentation of perception, the person must be replaced by a model that ensures the connectedness of all the facts of history. This model is called a character .

Persons, filling gaps and team

Attention! You are about to read the description of the person. Do not try to analyze or think out something. What you see is what it is. Not more...

Over the past years, many marketers have realized that people can create more problems than they can bring benefit. To fix this, they began to increase the size of the description of persons and fill them with even more details. So, some of them began to occupy one or two pages of small printed text, carefully describing all the signs of an imaginary consumer.

Nevertheless, no amount of arbitrarily bright signs will help to avoid the gaps that our brain will independently fill in the process of perception of a person. Although the events of these gaps and led the consumer to the choice of a particular product. If the reason for the choice is clearly not spelled out in person, the brain will resort to the WYSIATI template and think out everything himself.



The brain itself compares all the facts as he wants. His task is to finish the story.

The brain works in this way, since it needs to establish a causal connection between facts and events, to explain why everything happened exactly as described. If he finds out that there is not enough information, the subconscious will fill in the gaps on his own. Our brain specifically developed this ability in the course of evolution. When something even remotely similar to a predator suddenly jumps at us, the brain instantly makes an assumption that we are in danger, and will not begin to slowly assess the situation.

The main danger for advertising teams, generated by such behavior, is that each person forms his point of view explaining why consumers buy or do not buy goods, which leads to a separation of opinions and attitudes within the group. Worst of all, the team members will not even be aware of the process with them, because it passes behind the scenes.

The good news is that there is hope. There is one thing in personas that makes them suitable for use: they allow the team to quickly create a list of confirmed facts about consumers. However, everything else in person should be discarded.

You can save basic ideas about the consumer and add what is missing - causality .

The brain will believe in a story explaining why a consumer has bought a particular product, but only if the information is submitted in a certain way. To do this, it is necessary to describe what the consumer is worried about, what motivates and motivates them, what events occurred and in what situations he was in front of the purchase.

Combining all of the above, we get a character .

Consumer becomes a character

Character Sketch - Master Cheif of Halo

Let's return to the story about how Igor bought a tuxedo. Everything in it is pure truth, nevertheless your brain feels a trick. He realizes that the listed signs of the consumer could not suddenly push him to purchase this tuxedo. In addition, he notes that some of the information is just noise, for example, that Igor plays the guitar.

The meaning is important for the brain - in our case it is a story in which it can believe and which will explain the perfect purchase. For this we resort to character creation.

So, the character can be called one:

1. He is anxious and motivated.
2. Survives previous purchase event.
3. Facing prior purchase situations.

Use the story of Igor as a starting point and create our first character. Let's start with anxiety and motivation.

Anxiety and Motivation

Igor has been thinking about buying a tuxedo for years, but he was always stopped by the following reasons:

• He does not like black, and most tuxedos are black.
• Over the past few years, Igor has attended only a few official events.
• Igor does not want to waste money.
• Despite the fact that he doesn’t like the look and tuxedos he’s hired, Igor cannot bring himself to buy a thing that he cannot use often.

If you are familiar with the idea of ​​hiring products to solve problems (Eng. Jobs To Be Done ) , you will find in the diagram the forces attracting and repelling the consumer.

Harassing and motivating factors are identified through surveys. The way to conduct them in this article can not be described, but recently a book was published from the main ideologists of this methodology - Jobs To Be Done Handbook .

Next we analyze the events preceding the purchase.

Prior purchase events

Living a life filled with certain anxieties and motivating factors, your characters will experience events that encourage them to buy. Igor faced the following events:

• Recently, the stars and actors of the male movie were not standard tuxedos - the most notable among them were models from Tom Ford. They caused a strong resonance in the industry of both high and mass fashion.
• Shortly before the purchase, Igor saw an advertisement for a new James Bond film, the main character of which is known for its nifty delicacy. In the video on it was a dark blue tuxedo not classic cut. In addition, the new actor Bond turned out to be similar to Igor with his blond hair and blue eyes. All previous were with dark hair and eyes.
• Igor recently read an article in GQ about tuxedo selection. In addition to the classic models, it was presented and modern, which can be worn on informal occasions, for example, with jeans and a regular daily shirt.

Until now, we have looked at previous purchase events through the prism of anxiety and motivating factors. By themselves, these events are not able to persuade to purchase. Weigh the scales may precede the purchase situation.

Pre-purchase situations

Events occurring with the consumer before purchase are passive in nature. These are things that he sees, hears, or experiences. In the end, consumers make decisions in favor of a particular product, as they face one or several situations preceding the purchase. Here is a list of such situations for Igor:

• Recently Igor got married and met many new people. It turned out that some of them are also going to celebrate the wedding soon and plan to invite him. This means that over the next year, Igor will have to wear a tuxedo at least 2 times.
• Passing by DLT, Igor saw a dark blue tuxedo in a glass case with a discount for a limited time. Having quickly calculated the cost of renting a tuxedo for two events, Igor realized that buying a new one with a discount would cost him about the same money.

In both cases, Igor had to decide:

1. Soon he will need a tuxedo, is it worth it to buy or can you rent it?
2. The sale will end soon, buy a tuxedo now or ignore the discount?

Characters for your product

As you begin to interview your customers, you will begin to notice how they:

1. Describe the same worrying and motivating factors.
2. They talk about similar events experienced before buying.
   
3. Enumerate almost the same situations in which they were before buying.

For example, suppose that the DLT staff conducted a survey among customers and found that the troubling and motivating needs and situations of them and Igor are similar. We use this as the basis of our new character.

Anxiety and Motivation	Prior purchase events	Pre-purchase situations
For some time already thinking about buying a tuxedo. He refused to buy a tuxedo, because he doesn’t like what traditional models look like, and all tuxedos are either traditional or lurid. He doubts that buying a tuxedo will pay off, since he does not often attend official events. Hates what hired tuxedos look like.	Perhaps one of the most famous world designers - Tom Ford, created a tuxedo model that looks modern and designed for the general public. In recent awards ceremonies (Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe), many actors wore non-traditional dinner jackets. Often they were from Tom Ford or in his style. The media had many images of celebrities in these outfits. The popular magazine GQ came out with an article about choosing and different ways to wear a tuxedo. They included options for its use in everyday life.	Recently I learned that he will attend several official events (weddings, balls, charity evenings) where a tuxedo is required. He does not have a tuxedo and will have to either buy or rent. He finds out about the time-limited sale and is faced with the need to decide whether to buy a Smokyie at the price he is willing to pay, or to risk being left without him due to the price increase.

Table number 1. Character. Doubtful tuxedo buyer.

The characteristics of your character will gradually begin to emerge as you conduct interviews with different people. You will begin to notice that all of them share similar traits, and also that they will begin to group.

Using characters for sales, advertising and product development

Characters will help all employees involved in the development of new products. Sales department they will understand how to reduce the level of anxiety among customers. Those responsible for advertising and marketing will be able to create ads that fall exactly in the needs and expectations of the audience.

What are the characters missing?

Unfortunately, even the characters are not protected from the intervention of the template WYSIATI, but in their case it is not such a problem as for people. Gaps, self-filled with consciousness, are not important for the integrity of the whole story. It's funny that it is on these non-principal points that all attention is concentrated when developing people. For example, on how the buyer looks, what he does in his spare time, etc.

The character also does not describe the purchased product. This is done intentionally, because solving a consumer’s problem is a set of options, while the character itself is a set of facts. To write that a potential tuxedo buyer needs a tuxedo means to create a character that can be used in only one case.

Characters exist throughout the entire life cycle of your product. They are keyholes for which solutions (keys) are selected. Sometimes keys fit, and sometimes not.

The above character model describes the customer and the process of making a purchase decision. It is different from the user model. The most obvious difference is the need to replace the events and situations preceding the purchase with situations and expected results.

Star corpse of your product

The term character was not without reason chosen to describe this model. Your consumers are actors playing the roles of different characters. Your product is the story that these characters tell.

Consumers can play the role of one character, and sometimes several. Perhaps the consumer is looking for a tuxedo:

1. For myself
2. For son, brother, father or friend.
3. For my colleagues.
4. For all of the above cases.

Another reason for the consumer to change his character may be his transition from the role of acquisition to the role of use.

Conclusion

Today we have shared with you a free translation of the article, supplemented with links to useful materials and our own conclusions. Characters have become for us a reliable tool for developing Fetchee. Only by describing all our customers, sorting out their expectations, disturbing and motivating factors, events that lead them to the ranks of our users, we were able to focus on the truly important functions of the application and anticipate needs.

Understanding the problems faced by consumers helped us find the best moments and places when representatives of each group realize the need for our product, and then apply suitable advertising tools to attract them to our product through correct emphasis on how to solve their current problems (hello, Jobs To Be Done) by Fetchee.

If the topic of this article turns out to be of interest to the Megamind community, then in the following publications we will describe in more detail about the characters developed for Fetchee and the impact of the revealed patterns on specific solutions in the development of our application.