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From Cave Paintings To Leonardo da Vinci: The Evolution Of Persona Targeting

Through time, human beings have endeavored to create increasingly accurate representations of the human form. What started with crude cave paintings and rough sculptures eventually matured into the stylized art of ancient Egypt, and evolved over time to ultimately reach a pinnacle with Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

Persona targeting in advertising has evolved in a similar way. Just as developments in art were driven by improvements in technique and increased knowledge among practitioners, targeting improvements in advertising have been driven by technology, and expertise has accumulated over time that has enabled us to better describe our fellow man. 

In the beginning, brands simply targeted ads based on location… with everything from flyers posted in the town square to the out-of-home ads and billboards we still see today. Advertisers fumbled for audiences based on neighborhood demographics and nearby businesses. This type of targeting is the equivalent of Paleolithic cave paintings: rough, raw, imprecise.

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And then there is print media targeting, which is more akin to ancient Egyptian art: bold but lacking dimension. Advertisers plan print media buys by selecting publications and circulation geography.

Then came television, long the gold standard for advertising. TV advertising approximates the Byzantine art of the 1300s: fairly representative and aware of perspective, but still imprecise. In addition to targeting vectors like location and audience affinity, TV also allowed advertisers to target by time of day. Enter: Saturday morning ads for Cocoa Puffs and Count Chocula.

But because many different types of people watch the same shows, there are awkward gaps in TV's ability to target. A multi-generational family of grandparents and kids watching Dad's favorite sitcom see the same ad for muscle cars, wasting potential impressions.

As we each spin off mountains of data while Facebooking and tweeting, a new way of looking at targeted populations has emerged that is beginning to replace the cruder ways of persona targeting: the interest graph. Interest graph is comprised of publicly available information like self-declared interests; what people share (e.g., photos from a biking trip); who people follow; and what people say online, what they retweet and what they post. It also includes “feedback loop” information from what people actually respond to, such as receptiveness to a particular campaign, which then feeds back into the database.

Since the interest graph is an actually representation of who people are and what they like, it enables marketers to better match their offers and ads to people who will actually be interested in them. This means less wasted effort, better matching… and ultimately better ROI.

Here’s what this looks like in practice for a popular audience segment: auto enthusiasts.

The challenge for automotive brands is identifying people who are currently in the market for a new or used car and people, as well as those who are generally interested in auto topics and products, regardless of whether they are currently shopping.

Traditional targeting methods include out-of-home ads near auto dealerships, print ads in auto magazines or local phone books and mass-market television -- all pretty rough ways at finding this audience. But with the interest graph, advertisers can hone in on just the people who have demonstrated interest in automotive topics by following brands like Ford and auto blogs like Jalopnik. They can look to see that the top geos for auto enthusiasts include Indianapolis, Columbus, Milwaukee, and that in addition to typical peak Internet use times, this audience is also active at 11:00 p.m. Central… and adjust their strategies accordingly.

As the above example shows, brand advertisers can now paint a more accurate picture of their audience and target their brand messages more precisely than ever before. With the interest graph, we have reached an evolutionary point in a persona targeting equivalent that rivals Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man: the most accurate representation of humanity that has ever been available to marketers. 

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