What is a Target Avatar?
Avatar: An image representing a user on an electronic network. An embodiment or exemplar; archetype. One that is regarded as an incarnation.
In general, an avatar is a fabricated figure created through illustrated graphics or through other simulated methods that typify, imitate, portray, or personify a specific person. This is especially pertinent to video games and other interactive games of a similar nature. A target avatar from a marketing perspective has a slightly different idea. It is used primarily to understand who the future ideal customers and clients are and to model their marketing around them. It is the search for prospective customers, and the perfect consumer, who is an ideal fit and acts as a paragon for future business. The following individuals had this to say about the subject:
“A detailed profile of your ideal customer. It doesn’t make assumptions or categorize people into groups. The avatar focuses on one person and outlines everything about them. It goes into much greater depth than a regular marketing persona, providing marketers with many more targeting tools.” - Einstein Marketer
"Target Marketing is the ability to make a potential customer feel like the message was based on their own diary.” - R. Scott Alvord
Now from a business standpoint, this may all sound fine and well, and it may even seem like a crucial step that must be undertaken in the name of marketing. But it is not difficult to imagine the average consumer that has no prior knowledge of marketing, to read some of the statements mentioned above and have alarm bells go off in their head.
When target marketing serves to help those that would genuinely benefit from the products or services offered, it is a win-win for both the business and the consumer. But what about all those instances where the marketing is not done in service to promote something that is actually useful, like a household product, or an appliance? What about all the examples of marketing for non-essentials that do not get used in everyday life for practical purposes? Entertainment, or anything really that is consumed at leisure, whatever medium or format that may be, could fall into this category.
Ever listened to an advertisement or watched a show or film that felt as though it was speaking directly to you, and tailored specifically around your life? Much of what was probably incorporated into the media was not put there by accident. And it was placed there based on the countless hours of research and studies that were conducted on many people who may be very similar to yourself. All of those touching points aim to make impressions upon the consumer's brain and their memories, where the real test is to see how effective the marketing is, and how much of an influence it had on their psychology and the choices they made afterwards.
This is a great way to build audiences and readerships, where like-minded individuals are gathered under the umbrella of similar interests. And in many instances, why shouldn't they want to belong to a group of others that think and feel the same way they do? But many could also regard this as a dangerous thought experiment, one that has yet to reveal the long-term consequences that have been effected en masse.
It also steers the mindset towards thinking and strategizing that is based around tricking consumers into becoming followers that are driven towards product purchase. Not because the product is for their general well-being, not for noble pursuit, not because the product supplies or provides any real value in their lives, but because it is a game to be played and many wish to see how effective their own influence is. Sometimes the buck does not stop with the simple one-time purchase, this is merely the starting point in the whole feedback loop that helps to prop up an entire collective enterprise.
It could be argued, that the human brain is thus being trained for the purposes of deception. We are training our brains to prize the smoke and mirrors of psychological trickery through advertising and marketing over the actual value of what is being put out into the world. It used to be the case that trust around a product or brand was built up organically and over time until it became a household name, but that does not seem to be the case anymore today. If there is a way to expedite the process through other clever methods of psychological ruses that are built into the marketing campaign, that avenue seems to be the one more likely pursued.
Many of us knowingly tune out certain advertisements, where it becomes nothing more than background noise to us. Anyone that may have listened to an advertisement recently, might have taken a moment to notice the structure of the ad. It might have had numbered touch points which were all strung together throughout the text, audio or visuals, that amounted to some kind of laundry list, and for many people, this can be read as very formulaic and robotic.
Many of us can think of authors or writers that have created great literary works that are considered classics today. Even in the wake of much criticism that is directed at written works or specific books by authors who have been pulled from the shelves at certain educational institutions, or when films and programs are censored for their content, those that survive the chopping block and maintain their influence are still revered for their lasting impact and their novel ideas.
For many great authors such as Ernest Hemmingway, William Faulkner, Mary Shelley, and J.R.R. Tolkien, they wrote their novels during a time when there were no courses on marketing. There were no deep dives into the analytics of consumer behavior and no psychographics to take into account or factor in during the creation process of their works. Let alone did the notion of advertising likely even dawn upon them. It would be rather amusing to think of any of those authors sitting down today to write a novel surrounded by the concept of a target avatar.
This is not to say that great authors did not have an audience they bore in mind, or that they did not write for the contemporaries of their time, as they certainly did, but many authors have to wonder if waving the magical hand of marketing will do the trick and create a wildly successful work, or if it does in fact, happen to be the product, or the personage behind it, that speaks for itself. And that certain mystique is what really resonates with readers and not some perfect alignment of marketing ploys. It is also difficult to imagine the notion of a target avatar, or a customer avatar being introduced to any of those esteemed writers, with the expectation that they pen an entire book series around said individual or avatar.
Many creators and businesses today, will go to the ends of the earth to find out about their Target Avatar. It has become increasingly common to collect every piece of data and information available from the TA's life. This is not limited to their general interests and hobbies, this compilation of information can be as far-reaching as the researcher sees fit. These days there does not seem to be a no-go zone when it comes to the cumulative efforts of acquiring information and data. Anything and everything about their life appears to be fair game.
Information gathered from their place of employment or their place of residence, reports gathered from their schooling institutions as early as grade school, and private conversations with family and friends, many members of a family are happy to sell out their own kin to show their loyalty and cooperation when it comes to disclosing information. They delude themselves into thinking that they are valued and trusted members of some kind of organization that protects them and that they play an important role and part in the lines of communication by feeding into this network.
Many companies are happy to keep a member of their own under continual employment so long as they get to keep an eye on them, and they get to be the arbiter that is in charge of all the information that surrounds the employee, where the company gets to sell all those reports and information about them to different parties. One does not need to be an investigative journalist or a trained reporter to chase down leads when acquiring information these days. Many people will happily sell their own souls and volunteer to be a part of this process.
With any kind of in-depth research that is done or any highly detailed information that is acquired about an individual or a great number of people, there is the potential for that information to be used negatively and for corrupt purposes. With great power comes great responsibility, and people that deal in matters of personal information, no matter how sensitive or generic the intel is, are not exempt from this. There should be a certain level of personal responsibility when acting as an agent that handles and disseminates the personal information of an individual, especially if they have gone out of their way, and to such great lengths to acquire that information in the first place. Written from the creator's standpoint, the following is a list of things to avoid when using a Target Avatar.
Exploitation: This can refer to many things. The interpersonal relationships of the TA. Their love life, their friendships, their siblings, their coworkers, etc. Gathering information about their private relationships with the sole intention of exploiting them. For example, someone in the TA's family is getting divorced, and that knowledge and highly specific information such as conversations and emails exchanged between both parties is used in service of the product that is being marketed and sold to the TA.
A Go-Between: Using the TA as bait to hook a larger fish, so to speak. The TA is just a temporary interest used in order to climb a little higher up the social ladder. Where another business or specific individual has already used the TA as a subject of interest, and along comes a separate and unrelated party that wishes to use the same TA as a way to merge themselves with the former party that already used them. This kind of leap-frogging is very obvious and disingenuous. It also shows a very transparent and disposable form of motive, which shows that a person's only interest in a specific TA, is to use them to get on someone else's radar.
Pinata: The assumption that a TA does not possess any of their own personal preferences, selection or taste in anything and that they are an anonymous vessel or billboard that anyone can simply slap their ads and products onto. And they will just keep eating it up, no questions asked. Therefore their tastes need to be shaped and molded for them. This means that they can be constantly battered with as many targeted ads and products as necessary. This is highly insulting to the consumer.
Branded Beast: Many organizations will try to lock consumers into never-ending servility, where they become permanent mouthpieces or spokespersons for an individual, brand or company. When it is incorrectly thought that a TA will always provide unwavering support and that they are expected to sing the praises of a company or an individual until the end of time. This is not to say that some people do not enjoy being cheerleaders for companies and brands they love. But, like anything else that is offered up in life, the support a person gives, should be a choice, not a conscription. Consumers are not mindless beasts, they are not cattle waiting to have logos seared into them so that they can line the collection of a rancher's stock. The person behind the TA, is a human being, remember that.
Benched Fighter: Picking a TA that cannot fight back. Knowing full well that they are not in a position to engage in a feud and therefore this justifies every position made to exploit them. This applies specifically to those that have found a TA and are only using them to be portrayed in a negative light, through whatever mediums or channels this might be. This is especially ironic for those that are all about maintaining the status of their own image, but they do not have an issue using their own platform to degrade and belittle others for the sake of their own creations or self-promotion. Also applies to those where it is not their own creations, but they are aligned to them all the same. Settling scores between two parties is one thing. Some feuds take on a theatrical turn of events all on their own and this can be beneficial to the development of both parties in the aftermath. But the TA specifically, and one that has no obvious correlation to the individual or business that decides to use them, why even go there in the first place? The company, the organization, or the powerful individual that punches down like this, gets about as much credit as the schoolyard bully. Many people do not look at them in a favorable light.
Career Demolition: When the presentation of the TA used causes irreparable damage in the life of someone else, whether intended or not. Knowing that the portrayal of the person behind the TA, or another specific individual close to them could suffer at the hands of the representation being used in the work. When the person behind the TA, be that supposed or outwardly recognized, happens to be a high-profile figure, and everyone seems to be already attacking them, then it might as well be open season, right? Let's all pelt eggs at the chosen hated person of the day. Many people will justify lambasting another person because it 'comes with the territory,' or maybe they are seen as deserving of such treatment. And in the present moment, who can say without dispute they are on the right side of history anyways, especially when they will not be alive many years from that time to really determine such a matter?
Idea Bank: When the TA is used as a bank of ideas that others can keep reaching into to borrow and rob from. When others continually keep tabs on them because they serve as some kind of source for inspiration. They are the tree that keeps on giving, and others can always return to the tree to pick and pluck its fruit.
Life Plagiarism: When a person cannot steal words, thoughts, and ideas from someone and confidently get away with it, so they search for, and go for the next best thing. Which happens to be their lived experiences. The life of the person behind the TA, is stolen and copied and transferred to the work. This is not a plagiarism of published works, moving quotations, or heralding speeches, it is a plagiarism of their life in part or as a whole. This is not in reference to documentaries or biographies that explore great lives that were lived. This is referring to the TA or the anonymous figure used in the creation of something. This feeds back into the first example given of exploitation. Theft and stealing is only half of the fun, flaunting it and getting away with it is the other half.
The Ends Justify the Means: There are many creators that believe that if something serves the project or is beneficial to the work in some way, it deserves to be involved or used in some manner. This attitude of the ends justify the means, can allow for a great side sweeping of morals and ethics. Employing this kind of thinking can gradually erode away at a person's morals over time. This is not dissimilar to the mad doctor or the scientist that is willing to do anything in the name of their research.
It is also very similar to how organizations or corporations will turn a blind eye to egregious violations so as to not bring negative publicity upon the company. And so does the creator disregard and ignore their own substandard ethics within their own creations. This is a reason why many people would likely not wish to be the figurehead for any organization or large body of persons. This is particularly true for people that have an original stake in the creation or inception of something. When a person has invested so much of their time and expenditure in the creation of an idea, a company, or an organization, they are "all in." The very same reasons why they are a viable person to be trusted and a primary candidate to represent the organization, in this same area can also be found their downfall.
Because they are loyal to a fault, and because they are willing to choose the company over the well-being of other people, this by default, compromises their morality. They are forced to choose between saving the company or the organization, and "doing the right thing." And so it can also be said with creators who are part of projects that involve large groups of people. If the project has numerous players involved in the making and the creation of the work, all those people who are a part of the whole enterprise cannot be let down. And so if any number of malpractices occur onsite, they will likely be ignored so as to not disrupt and derail the timeline of the whole production, whatever that may be. And many people will not raise concerns because a lot of people in life simply go along, to get along. This chipping away of morality, and ethics can be found in many industries, it is also a very easy trap to fall into as a creator.
In regards to the TA, the actual person behind the configured avatar, has very little say in all this, as is usually the case. Their wishes, and their opinions, are of little consequence when factoring in all the other moving parts involved. It is quite interesting to observe, especially when one takes into account, the integrity, or the vision of a certain individual who may have a notable hand in the work or creation of something. And while everyone else tip-toes around their enormous ego, no one raises a hand to express any concerns about the direction of the project they might have, especially with regards to the exact origins of what is being worked on, lest they interfere with the sanctity of the vision that belongs to the person in charge.
Just as there are many articles, interviews, blogs, and podcasts that speak of the benefits of creating a target avatar, and one that should not be a neglected area of research, there should also be just as much media that dissects the adverse effects and negative consequences of such marketing research. It would be nearly impossible to agree that all research and data that is harvested and collected from users in the name of marketing is done in good faith. This type of wishful thinking and optimism is not extended to many fields of research, and it should not be the case for marketing either. This post should not serve as a condemnation, but merely a warning.
As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.