Meet Katie!

This week in Customer Insights we talked about building personas to help companies enhance their segmentation practices. This method can help analyze a target audience’s motivations, perceptions, and behaviors, so that the company can optimize its overall brand design. So what is a persona? I have to cheat a bit; my professor mentioned that there was a good definition of personas on Wikipedia:

“Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic, attitude and/or behavior set that might use a site, brand or product in a similar way.”

So this week I have been asked to develop a persona for myself that market researchers may be interested to delve into. Ideally, the information from this persona would provide them insights valuable to their brand development. Therefore, without further ado…

Meet Katie!!!

On the broadest level Katie can be described as a single woman who is 21 years old with no children. She also does not own any pets, although she has always wanted puppies. She is currently attending the University of Texas and is a marketing major with an MIS minor. She is one of the few native Austinites at the university, and is ready to break away from her hometown even though she loves the Austin atmosphere.

She is entering into her final year of college and does not have to worry about financing her schooling because her parents are generously paying the bills. However, she is money conscious having worked since she was 16, and has money saved up for her post-graduation plans. While she did not grow up in a rewards-based household, every now and then Katie will splurge and treat herself to a new outfit or nice dinner if she’s accomplished an objective. She is goal oriented and a high achiever in all aspects of her life. Well, except for athleticism. While Katie enjoys being active and works out regularly, she is a bit of a klutz. Never excelling in sports growing up, Katie still enjoys playing sand volleyball and tennis each week with friends.

Katie is a good student but is currently more apt to dedicating her time to friends than keeping up with homework. This may be because she is currently going through a “why not?” phase when it comes to doing things. She figures that because this is the last time she can live with virtually no responsibility, she should make the most of it. If her friends want to get together on a Monday night for movie and a glass of wine, she thinks, “why not?” She wants to experience as many new things in her college town as possible before she moves away for her career.

Speaking of careers, did I mention she’s stressed? While at first she thinks the exhaustion is due to the staying out late with friends, she begins to realize that stress is taking a physical toll on her body. She frequently gets less than 5 hours of sleep each night either because her mind won’t stop racing when she is trying to fall asleep, or she is awoken from a nightmare about jobs. She is, however, doing her due diligence in prepping for the next stage of her life. She has many interviews lined up with a wide variety of companies, but is beginning to find it hard to keep everything straight. Her planner is her true best friend right now, which details every hour of her day. Whether she is searching through online career services, reading case interview prep books, or researching a company she’s interested in, her life is consumed by work “stuff.” In fact, she finds that she can’t go a single day without bringing up recruiting and post-graduation plans in conversations.

When Katie isn’t around friends, searching for a job, or studying for a class, you could find her watching a movie at home. She loves movies, especially comedies, action films, and horror movies. Katie also loves to read, but has started 3 new books in the past two months and hasn’t finished a single one yet. Katie is borderline obsessive about food. She loves to cook and bake and would someday like to learn how to grill, too. Her favorite foods are the worst kinds because she has a major sweet tooth. She also loves cheeses, especially when paired with fresh fruit and a glass of wine. She likes to try new foods and the only kind she hasn’t liked thus far is Jell-O. She tries new recipes a lot, and will typically modify them to either fit the ingredients in her kitchen or the mood she’s in. She’s also very health-conscious, so she enjoys cooking recipes that are good for her. In fact, most weeks, a third of her meals will be salads. Katie also enjoys going out to new restaurants to try different styles of food or different cultural flavors.

Finally, Katie is very family-oriented. While she left for college worried her mother would be the type to call her multiple times a day, it’s Katie who finds herself calling home. She enjoys keeping her parents and brother updated with her life and loves to hear about what is going on theirs. In her mind, nothing can beat her mom’s home cooked meals when she comes back every few weekends. However, her brother did just leave for college for the first time, and Katie is now finding it harder to keep in touch with him.