A New Way to Rethink Your Audience
Ever feel like traditional marketing tools don’t quite capture the complexity of real people? Most marketing relies on one-size-fits-all approaches, like static personas or fixed customer journeys. But humans are dynamic, influenced by countless factors—and that’s where traditional methods fall short.
By borrowing ideas from anthropology, the study of people and cultures, we can rethink how we understand and connect with our audience. This article introduces a fresh approach, using concepts like Continuum Personas and Loops to better reflect the complexities of human behaviour.
This is a quick summary of where my thoughts are at by the end of 2024.
The Human Puzzle: Why Traditional Personas Fall Short
Marketing personas are simplified sketches of ideal customers, like “Jane, the busy mom.” While they’re useful for creating focus, they can feel too rigid and out of touch with the messy reality of human lives.
People don’t fit neatly into boxes. Life is unpredictable, and behaviours shift constantly by the year, month, day, hour or even minutes. For example, Jane may not always act like a busy mom—sometimes, she’s a professional, a friend, or someone scrolling through social media, born in Peru, Living in Camberwell. We miss out on these finer details when we treat her as one homegenised identity.
A Better Approach: Continuum Personas
I have been working on the concept of Continuum Personas for sometime. Imagine if we could represent people more realistically, capturing their changing priorities and behaviours over time. That’s the idea behind Continuum Personas. These personas are:
- Flexible: They adapt as people’s lives change.
- Probabilistic: They describe ranges of likely behaviours rather than fixed traits.
- Interconnected: They consider how various characteristics (like age, income, and location) influence decisions.
Think of planning a beach holiday. You might expect sunny weather, but you also pack for rain—just in case. Continuum Personas work similarly: they prepare us for various possibilities, not just one ideal scenario.
Example: Fitness Trackers
Let’s say a company sells fitness trackers. Traditional personas might target “Jane, the health enthusiast”. A Continuum Persona approach looks at how Jane’s interest evolves:
- She starts as a casual walker, just daily walk with her dog.
- A year later, she’s training for a 10k fun run with her friends.
- After that, she uses the tracker to improve her sleep due to pains from a training expercise
- She then just walks her dog, tracker is now in a drawer.
By thinking this way, the company can create campaigns that resonate and engage with Jane at each stage of her journey, and back again.
Why People Don’t Take Straight Paths: The Loop Concept
Marketers often use customer journeys to map how people discover, consider, and buy products. But real life rarely works like this. A typical journey might assume: “First, they see an ad. Then, they visit the website. Finally, they make a purchase.” What happens when someone sees your ad but doesn’t click? Or hear about your product again six months later? People’s behaviours loop back, overlap, and change over time.
Continuum Loops capture this non-linear reality. Instead of thinking about straight paths, think of loops as evolving stories:
- They’re flexible: People can enter and exit at any point.
- They’re layered: Each interaction adds depth to the relationship.
- They’re ongoing: There’s no fixed endpoint—just opportunities to reconnect.
Example: A Coffee Brand
Imagine a local coffee brand. Traditional marketing might focus on a single journey:
- See an ad.
- Visit the shop.
- Buy coffee.
A loop approach acknowledges that the customer’s journey might look different:
- First, they pass by the shop and notice the smell.
- Weeks later, a friend recommended the coffee.
- They visit the shop but don’t buy anything.
- Months later, they see an ad online and finally make a purchase.
This layered approach better reflects real-life behaviours. Adding cultural/social contexts, like friends or events adds even greater richness.
Why Anthropology?
Anthropology helps us understand people in their real-world environments. It’s not about reducing people to numbers—it’s about observing their habits, culture, and emotions to uncover what drives them. For example, imagine studying why a group of friends chooses one café over another. Is it the coffee, the vibe, or the Wi-Fi? Anthropology helps us uncover these hidden dynamics, making our marketing strategies more human.
What This Means for You
This approach has benefits for both businesses and customers:
- For businesses: You can stop guessing what your audience wants and start understanding how they think and act. This leads to better campaigns and stronger relationships.
- For customers: You’ll experience brands that connect with you personally meaningfully instead of treating you like a sales number.
The Big Picture: Marketing That Feels Human
This isn’t about using fancy tools or confusing strategies. It’s about paying attention to real people and their lives.
By adopting Continuum Personas and Continuum Loops, businesses can move beyond labels and engage with audiences in dynamic, authentic ways. People aren’t static—they’re wonderfully complex, and your marketing should be.
