Many conceptual ideas start with psychological personas. They’re a good way of simplifying things and firming up the audiences you’re targeting. This is why it’s worth questioning personas and giving them greater depth.

Stereotypes are part and parcel of psychological personas. The fact that they’re so simple and tangible helps us portray the people we’re trying to reach more vividly. for example you have the woman who lives in the countryside, eats her morning muesli in the tram and does yoga; or the gadget geek, originally from Singapore, who lives in a bedsit, plays video games until late and night, and lives on ready meals; or the C-level manager who lives in a high-end apartment on the edge of the city, drives his car to work and has a rowing machine at home.

No human being is a stereotype

We use such stereotypes to define the language, image, channel and style. That’s a good thing, because it enables us to simplify things and paint a more vivid picture. But now comes the but. The very strengths of psychological personas are also where their weaknesses lie. No human being is a stereotype. Or have you ever felt completely like one of the personas you’ve created in one of your own concepts? Precisely. We’re all personalities with a lot more depth. And it’s important to capture this, at least in thoughts.

The reasons for using non-stereotypical personas

Non-stereotypical personas enable us…

_ … To see beyond our limits – from the start of the conceptual process, and not just before implementation.

_ … To do justice to the world as it is: complex, varied, and far from black and white.

_ … To show people that they’re not alone with their non-stereotypical characteristics. This gives the message an even stronger and more authentic impact.

If you’re used to thinking in terms of conventional personas, it’s difficult at first to break out of the old patterns. There are various ways of doing so you might want to try out:

Tips for creating non-stereotypical personas:

– Speak the same language: Take Gen Z, for example. Those of us who aren’t part of Gen Z are convinced we understand what this generation needs and wants to hear. But that’s often a mistake. Young people even speak another language, as evidenced in the Migros campaign to mark Youth Language Day. “Cringe”, “slay”, “bre” sound better than “peinlich”, “erschlagen” and “Bro”. This is something it’s worth informing yourself about, for example in the newly published book Gen Z. Speaking the same language is an important step in really understanding personas in all their complexity.

– Change roles: The man is the boss, the woman his assistant. Here it would help to simply change the roles around. If you assume the woman’s the boss and the man’s the assistant, you’re already thinking in terms of new patterns and can give the personas new character traits. If you want to go a step further you can bring in gender diversity generally and move away from bipolarity.

– The feature that stands out: In addition to the classic character traits that stereotypically fit the persona, you can add a characteristic that’s deliberately out of the ordinary. For example, the environmentally conscious woman who’s committed to sustainability in her professional and private life and at the same time loves tuning cars. Or the chairman of the board of directors who likes to do puzzles in his spare time. This one new character trait immediately gives the persona more depth and makes it more interesting.

– Think in terms of needs: True to the motto “content is king”, you start with needs and not the personas per se: What motivates them? Why will they be interested in the message or product? What connects them? For example, people with very different lifestyles can share the dream of a sports car. The Porsche campaign is a good illustration of this approach. If you want to pursue this idea all the way through, you can give the resulting personas an icon as a feature instead of a name and photo: a rocket for the curious, glasses for the focused, etc.