Asking the wrong questions,part deux

Best Buy gets to know its customers better. Well, a little:

At the same time, it has begun to woo a roster of
shopper profiles, each given a name: Buzz (the young tech enthusiast),
Barry (the wealthy professional man), Ray (the family man) and,
especially, Jill
(CEO of the household).

Neat. Except I’m a Buzz and a Ray who hopes to be a Barry someday and my wife is a Jill who is usually with me if I walk into Best Buy.

My name’s Mike. I’m not an archetype; I’m a person. Don’t make up a story about me; converse with me.

Customizing to archetypes is better than one size fits all, but I fear a lot of companies are about to spend a lot of powder customizing to archetypes in the name of targeting. That’s sad, because with only a little more effort, you can customize to people.

People buy stuff. Archetypes don’t.

Mike Orren is the Chief Product Officer of The Dallas Morning News; President of Belo Business Intelligence; husband to Crystal Orren; and a Mungarian at Munger Place Church in Dallas, TX. All opinions herein are mine alone.