Like much of the country, I watched the Oscars this weekend. As I witnessed various Hollywood talent receive their awards, I started to reflect on what makes a good actor or actress. How do they transform from character to character, and how does this differ from who they are in real life?
As I got to thinking about this, I realized that the key to good acting is ethnography at it’s finest. It’s studying and understanding a character so deeply that you can embody them (the inside-out perspective, if you will). While anthropology doesn’t go as far as to try to play the people we study, in my particular line of anthropology I’d argue that we actually have a harder job in the creation of tools like personas.
Let’s start by looking at the Wikipedia definition for personas. It states, “A personality, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor.” If we took out the phrase, “played by an actor,” would that be very different from the definition of personas in marketing?
The marketing specific definition states, “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.” What I’m interpreting is that the only difference is in the execution – actors “play” the character, while marketers deliver them on paper.
Ultimately when developing the marketing version of personas, both of those definitions apply. In developing personas, they should be real, believable, and hopefully Oscar worthy. They need to include such attention to detail that they can be used as a strategy and design tool. In some ways, I’d argue that those developing personas have to go one step beyond acting because their “characters” must transfer to the other players in the production seamlessly so that anyone member of the troupe can play that role.
Good personas are the result of a three step process: research to gain an ethnographic understanding of target audiences, the embodiment of those archetypes through analysis and synthesis of that research, and the creation of a performance of those characters that can stand up to the toughest critics.
So is anthropology that different from acting? Maybe there’s a career change in my future…Or maybe Los Angeles is getting to my head.
5 comments:
Well, I think, if I recall correctly, that there are two types of actors. There are method actors and classical actors. I believe that you're talking more about classical actors, those that do not embody, but rather study, understand and purvey.
Method actors become the person, without possibly knowing why they do what they do. If they are playing the raging alcoholic, they literally become a raging alcoholic. They might not know why they have a short fuse, and probably dont care, but they do, and they show that in their character.
:)
Megan,
I like the connection you make, and so timely! It is true, anthropology in the era of Geertz had long been concerned with the emic and the etic, the ‘experience near’ and the ‘experience far’ .. and so personas absolutely. What’s common to both (rather than which came first) is they these practices think via theatre and the stage .. We know some of what the years since the question of experience a la Geertz means for anthropology (from meaning to practice, for example), but what of the analgous shift for the business cousins of emic/etic? Might there be a practice theory for business? What’s it look like, what’s it for? Or is it always acting?
Glad you have returned to this blog!
Frank
Werebeer - I think there's a bit of both right? We hope that you can "become" the person via personas, but it also shouldn't make you crazy. I also love that you bring up the "why they do what they do." That is the point of ethnography, to understand the "why" behind the "what".
Frank - I love Geertz...I think you are on to something with adapting that for business practice theory. From what I've seen, no one has directly evolved the emic/etic theory as it stands in anthropology to apply to business, or more specifically marketing. We should talk!
Megan,
When I think of emic/etic in business, I think of what Rick Robinson made possible, all about joining what’s experience near to creating new value in the world. Do you mean something beyond that, or a more strident focus on marketing (not design)?
As it is, I do think there is space for a new think on how research matters in business .. research responds to questions, solves problems, but am convinced this pairing would benefit from recognizing that the context of these problems, and their solutions, has transformed in recent years, and very quickly (acceleration is the trope today, no longer velocity .. ).
Frank, Rick is great. We need more! And I think you hit the nail on the head when you suggest we need more etic/emic experience in marketing specifically. However, I would say that the principles of good design transfer quite nicely to what composes good marketing. It's just a matter of bridging the delta. Love you fodder! You may have led to a collaboration between me and another anthro colleague on this topic. More to come :)
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