If you’re a strategic communications professional, a public relations expert, brand strategist or some other form of strategic coach or advisor, then part of your work involves developing strategic insights for clients which lead to decisions affecting their bottom line. Turns out, developing Ideal Client Avatars (ICAs) or Client Personas with your clients, customers or other decision makers is why campaigns haven’t been delivering, why folks haven’t been getting to ‘yes,’ and why it may also feel like you’re losing the content war—especially given how quickly AI is crowding the attention economy.

ICAs aren’t just flawed. They may in fact be the very reason your work is getting easier and easier to ignore. In this series, we’re going to discuss 3 of the most critical ways ICAs are getting in your way and what you as a practitioner can do about it.

“Information doesn’t lead to sustained behavior change.”

I remember sitting in on a chat with Kristen Berman—a sterling behavioral scientist—as part of her team’s behavioral design program. One of the participants—it may even have been me—asked a question about behavior change and equity. And after providing some helpful context, Dr. Berman dropped that gem.

“Oh,” I thought. “This is why ideal client avatars are garbage.”

At the time, all that had occurred to me was the fact that Ideal Client Avatars (ICAs) weren’t an effective behavior change tool. But as I explored my own relationship with them, and the hesitation around them I’d never quite shaken off, it became clear as day why ICAs were not only a waste of resources but were also a source of unnecessary risk.

Here’s the typical ICA loop:

Collect data → Add said data to an ICA → use the ICA to inform our creative → our creative isn’t as effective as we’d like, or becomes less effective →

This loop keeps us busy. But it doesn’t lead to sustained behavior change.

(Read: getting folks to “Buy Now.” “Donate Here.” “Vote Today.”)

And the more we invest in this loop the further we get from actually making that change happen.

More specifically, Ideal Client Avatars (ICAs) are garbage for 3 reasons.

They obscure insight
They don’t deliver the results they promise
They actually make the world a less equitable and more poisonous place.

None of this is hyperbole.

Obscuring Insight

First things first: we are in the buisness of behavior change. That behavior change can be anything from the transformation our work brings about in our client’s brands, to the flip folks make from not biting to buying in. All of that is behavior change.

Behavioral science is really clear about what leads to behavior change. Shifting context, removing or adding barriers, leveraging motivations, incentives and motivational drivers.

Suspiciously absent are demographics and psychographics.

Said another way, deciding that my intended audience is made up of 35 year old women that are particularly fond of grapefruit seltzer doesn’t tell me what will motivate them to change their behavior. And yes, that’s even if I’m selling grapefruit seltzer.

You’ll also notice (or not) that I used the word “deciding.”

At the end of the day, when you develop an ICA you are choosing an audience to profile. Unfortunately, you can only profile the stakeholders you’re aware of.

(Stakeholders are more than just the clients who invest in your products, services or brand. Case in point: there are at least 4 other key stakeholder groups you're probably ignoring without meaning to)

So if you don’t know all the stakeholders that are relevant to your success and you’re not equipped to gather intel that’s actually useful to the behavior change process, how on earth are you going to be able to glean the insights you need to deliver results?

Continue

"Oh. This is why Ideal Client Avatars are Garbage."

Obscuring Insight