Episode 169
SBP 169: The Sharp Cut - Personas, we have a problem.
Welcome back to The Sharp Cut — where Marc and Vassilis take scissors to marketing’s biggest comfort blankets. This episode’s target: personas.
Not “burn them all”… but the idea that personas are a valid operating system for audience strategy. Marc and V argue that personas don’t fail because they’re fictional — they fail because they pretend markets are stable, targetable, and neatly categorized, when real buying behaviour is context-driven, messy, and dynamic.
They unpack why personas became popular (stakeholder comfort, platform narratives, proxy metrics), then bring in evidence — including an Adobe test where the “expected” persona audience underperformed an unexpected segment by 50%. The conclusion is blunt: personas are a story, not a strategy — and if you confuse the two, you’ll underreach, overfit, and misallocate budget.
The alternative? Shift from identity to category entry points, need-states, broad reach, and experimentation — and use personas only as a creative communication layer after the real strategy is built.
Key takeaways
- Personas aren’t dead — but they’re not a foundation. They can help internal alignment, but they shouldn’t drive budget.
- Context beats identity. People don’t buy because they “are” a persona; they buy due to situations, triggers, and barriers.
- Personas encourage exclusion. That’s dangerous when growth requires reaching more category buyers (especially light and ultra-light buyers).
- Markets are more similar than persona decks imply. The Ehrenberg-Bass “law of brand user profiles” suggests rival brand buyers often look alike; growth is about penetration, not “unicorn” profiles.
- Testing beats theorizing. The Adobe example shows how persona-led targeting can blind you to better-performing audiences.
- Privacy + platform automation should push you away from persona obsession. Your edge becomes positioning, reach, creative quality, and measurement — not “knowing Sarah.”
- Replace persona-led planning with: category entry points, need-states, barriers/motivations, creative territories, broad reach by default, and guardrail measurement.
Chapters / Timestamps
00:00 — Welcome to The Sharp Cut: “Personas, we have a problem.”
Why this topic matters right now.
01:10 — The “Underwear Crisis”: when a persona sounds smart but makes no decisions
Why polished personas often collapse at decision time.
02:20 — The core myth: “If we can describe them, we can target them.”
The promise of precision and why it’s so seductive.
04:25 — Persona theatre: why decks reward stories over strategy
Checkbox segmentation, stakeholder comfort, and agency incentives.
05:00 — Evidence check: Adobe says the persona era is over
The “inside-out” problem and why context drives outcomes.
06:10 — The 50% conversion wake-up call: testing beyond the persona
How “sport lovers” beat the “correct” persona audience.
07:15 — Why personas persist: org design, proxy metrics, platform narratives, psychology
Control feels good — even when it’s false.
09:10 — The marketing science critique: brand buyers aren’t that different
Penetration, light buyers, and why “special customers” are overrated.
10:30 — Category entry points: what people actually buy for
Identity vs situations, triggers, and motivations.
12:05 — “But B2B is different…” committees, risk, and why personas still fail
Buying groups, maintenance explosion, and mental availability across the unit.
14:35 — What to do instead: the replacement model
Segmentation vs targeting vs personas (and where each belongs).
17:25 — The practical deck: what to present tomorrow instead of personas
Category → entry points → barriers → creative territories → reach → measurement.
18:55 — Close: Personas can be a costume. Don’t let the costume drive the budget.
Links:
Links:
Forbes Agency Council
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/12/02/why-buyer-personas-are-more-important-than-ever-for-facebook-advertisers/
Adobe Business Blog
https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/the-customer-persona-is-dead-long-live-the-customer-profile
SEMrush
https://www.semrush.com/blog/market-research-guide/
7 Common Mistakes in Building Marketing Personas
https://rockcontent.com/blog/buyer-personas-mistakes/
How Ex-P&G US Marketer Ditched Cohorts, Personas and Restrictive
MI-3 Australia
https://www.mi-3.com.au/17-04-2023/how-ex-pg-us-marketer-ditched-cohorts-personas-and-restrictive-segmentation-blended-0
Mark Ritson on Segmentation vs Personas
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marcbinkley_marketsegmentation-targetaudience-personas-activity-7152704726332002305
The Law of Brand User Profiles - Ehrenberg-Bass Institute
https://marketingscience.info/news-and-insights/the-law-of-brand-user-profiles-the-sharpest-nail-in-the-coffin-of-hyper-targeting
The Value of the Bottom 80% - Marketing Science / Ehrenberg-Bass synthesis
https://marketingscience.info/news-and-insights/value-paretos-bottom-80
