Marketing Persona

The task of creating a marketing persona for ourselves seems to be easy since who knows us better than ourselves. It’s eye opening to take a step back and realize the type of persona you fit into. Specific information that a marketer would need to know in order to create an accurate and rich persona would include information such as gender, age, education, ethnicity, and interests/hobbies. The best persona description I fit into is "Jason, the Male Grad Student."

I am a 21-year-old male attending the University of Texas at Austin, pursuing my masters in accounting. My typical week consists of school, work, fraternity life, and spending time with my girlfriend. I work as a desktop support specialist (I didn’t make up the title) doing IT for the Dean’s Office of the liberal arts college on campus. In addition to my full course-load, I work an average of 25 hours a week. At the end of the day I try to stay in shape by going to the gym after work.

One of my biggest (and most expensive) hobbies is computers, and gadgets in general. I consider myself an early adopter – a marketers dream customer. I’m not a sucker; I won’t buy a product just because of all the shiny bells and whistles. I’ll typically research the product and read the reviews even before the product is launched, and end up buying it within the first few weeks of launch – if not days. Once the next revision comes out, I’ll usually sell the old generation and use that money to offset the cost of purchasing the new generation. Although my girlfriend doesn’t agree with my spending habits, I don’t see my spending as reckless. I always research the product beforehand to see if it fulfills my needs. Most of the time I don’t need the product, but want it because it will make my life easier. I won’t name all my purchases, but a great example is the iRobot Roomba. Sure, I could easily sweep the floor of my apartment the old fashion way, but I don’t regret that purchase for a second. I just press the cleaning mode I need and let it run its course.

I’ve also fallen into an online purchasing frenzy. I recently upgraded to an Amazon Prime account ($80 a year for free two-day shipping, and $3.99 next day shipping). Getting what I need delivered to my door with the added benefit of having not to pay tax is great. With such a busy schedule, I never have time to make a trip to pick up what I need during the week. Rather than wait until the weekend, I can get what I need delivered to my door. I can also invite four friends/family members to use my account without any additional costs.

Any downtime I have I’ll usually spend it catching up on TV shows or movies. Since most of the shows I watch air during the week while I’m busy, I’ll usually download them to view later (I spent a good amount of time and money into setting up my home theater system). I prefer to watch movies at home without the annoyances that you find in a movie theater. If I miss something, I can pause and rewind, or even turn on subtitles. The only time I’ll actually go to a theater is for a movie I’m dying to see. Anything else I can wait.

Overall I keep up to date with current trends and advances in technology. While I'd love to buy the newest and greatest, my wallet doesn't always permit it.