I recently met with the head of a fairly large consumer goods company. We had an interesting discussion about how to interpret data and research. As we conversed, I could see frustration building. In essence, what he found frustrating was that the enormous mountain of data and research still was not telling him what he needed to know about his customers and buyers. The market is changing and the data is telling him so however it is not telling a story of how it is changing and why it is changing. It is not telling him how buying habits and patterns are changing and why now. Equally frustrating was that although the organization had a sense of who their buyers were, they could not pinpoint much else about the buyer other than what their data was telling them. As we were talking, I couldn't help think of this cartoon:
How many of us in our career have sat around a table and poured over reams of data, market reports, research studies, and sales anecdotal reports to arrive at a target composite customer? And we all leave the room with that uneasy voice in our head saying: "I'm not so sure if that is right but if everyone thinks so, I'll go along."
What he was missing most was the context in which all of the data could have meaning. Personas, in particular to this situation, can help provide the context for which all of the data can sit and tell a story. Often times, marketing and sales executives insert data as part of their presentations to employees about markets and customers. Employees do gain insight into the customer but walk away with a more factual view and have no context in which to place the customer.
Performing qualitative and ethnographic based fieldwork helps to identify the context in which buying decisions are made. I suggested that to truly find out why buying patterns were changing, he was going to need to get in the "field" and have the heart-to-heart with buyers on why. Good evidence for this need was that the sales anecdotal reports could not provide a clue.
Since the buying process appeared to be changing amongst his customer base, he was in need of getting a view of exactly what that looked like. Building various buying scenarios showing personas in action would help provide the context of how and why the buying process was changing. In the end, providing the context to gain insight and meaning from the data mining the company exercises. In cases like this, it is important to have a good sense of what the quantitative data is providing but also to recognize the limitations in terms of providing context. The qualitative creation of buyer personas and buying scenarios gives context and meaning to what the data may be saying.
In the beginning of persona development back in the mid to late 90's, I can remember the concept of "context" was talked about heavily in relations to understanding users. As buyer personas and buying scenarios make their way into being a useful process for sales and marketing, conversations about context should be in the forefront. If we are left with just data and even just a persona profile alone, we'll be left with the famous words of Joe Friday in the venerable detective show Dragnet: "Just the facts, Mam. Just the facts."
