Tom Lear

Artificial Intelligence

Meet your audience, thanks to AI.

Getting to know your audience better.

When you understand your target audience, you are better equipped to meet their needs and tailor your messaging to resonate deeply. Demographics and psychographics are two methodologies to profile your audience, and both play significant roles in effective branding and marketing.

Demographics refer to external traits and statistical data of a population, like age, gender, income, education, and occupation. They provide a "snapshot" of your customer and are often the starting point in audience profiling. For example, if you're selling premium yoga apparel, your primary demographic might be women, aged 25-45, with a high income.

However, demographics only provide a surface-level understanding. Two people can share demographic characteristics yet have vastly different needs, values, and behaviors. That's where psychographics come in.

Psychographics delve deeper into the personal attributes of your audience, including their interests, attitudes, values, aspirations, and lifestyle. They help you understand why someone makes a purchase decision. Using the same yoga apparel example, psychographics would reveal that your customer values health and wellness, follows a holistic lifestyle, and prefers premium quality products.

Creating an avatar involves defining both the demographic and psychographic profiles of your ideal customer. Let's say, your avatar could be 'Sophia,' a 30-year-old woman, working as a software engineer, earning $100,000 per year, who values a balanced lifestyle, practices yoga daily, is environmentally conscious, and willing to pay more for premium, sustainable products.

Visualizing your target audience as 'Sophia' instead of a list of characteristics makes the audience real and relatable. It guides product development, marketing strategies, and brand communication. You're no longer selling to an abstract consumer but to 'Sophia,' making your efforts focused, personalized, and ultimately, more effective.

Using AI (Midjourney) to connect with your audience.

Whilst AI won’t create your audience for you, it can be a great tool for you to start putting these avatars together. Let’s have a play with this idea of creating avatars based on some audience profiles and see how we go.

I highly recommend having a play, further to this giving you a solid visual of who your audience is, the process actually forces you to think about your audience in a way you may have not done before.

Ethan is a 45-year-old executive in the finance industry living in Auckland. He's married with two children. He earns a high income but leads a busy lifestyle with little time for relaxation. Ethan values time management and productivity, is tech-savvy, and prefers quality over quantity. He often purchases high-end products that can save him time or make his life more convenient.
Olivia is a 28-year-old freelance graphic designer living in Wellington. She values creativity, freedom, and environmental sustainability. Olivia loves the arts, often visits art galleries and music festivals, and is actively involved in her local creative community. She seeks out brands that are eco-friendly and support local artisans.
David is a 35-year-old teacher living in Christchurch. He's passionate about education and spends his free time volunteering at local community centers. David is budget-conscious but is willing to spend a little more for durable, reliable products. He appreciates brands that give back to their communities and foster positive social impact.

Tom Lear is the Creative Director and founder of Society, a brand and marketing agency in Mount Maunganui. His ideas, thoughts and opinions come from over 12 years of design and art direction experience working with some of the world’s leading agencies including Allison Mitchell London, CHE Proximity, JWT and Saatchi & Saatchi Melbourne.