NORTHERN PLANNER

It can be hard sometimes to empathise with a target audience. Agency folk live in bubble most of the time, but even those with some feel for real life can struggle to connect with their bullseye customer.

For example, I used to work on haircare  brand aimed at fashion forward women. I'm a bloke with no hair and no sense of style at all.

Many women I know don't understand why men think football is life or death.

It would be hard for most blokes to get their heads around handbags that cost hundreds of pounds or dollars.

But it's not that hard. Our surface backgrounds and motivations may be different, but to quote the Dad in 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' some of us may be apples, some may be oranges, but we are all fruit.

The basic needs and motivations of human beings do not change, if you can find the find the right frame frame of reference, you can get into the heads of anyone.

For example, for a bloke to understand women's relationship with handbags, which is all about the right label and specific design making you feel a certain way about yourself and displaying status to others, it might be worth thinking stuff in your life that does the same thing. We all seek and display status, it's basic being human. Maybe think about the overpriced trainers you are wearing and how you decided to buy them, or maybe even a car if you're that way inclined (some bags cost the same).

Just as a women might want to think about a bloke and football by understanding how it feels when the girls get together. We're all social beings, we need to belong, men don't have that in the same way, they need football as glue. That might be one angle.

For the haircare thing, I happened to think about football because I know  both are about fitting in with complex rules and codes you need understand. I also thought about how it felt to lose it (not a tool for all of you of course). Men is part of bloke's confidence as much as a women's, you just don't have to bother with it the same, but the crushing realisation it was going I thought was the equivalent of a bad hair day. 

So…

Think about what you're selling.

Think about what basic human need it fulfills (they all do in some way)

Think of something in your life that performs the same task. What does it mean to you? Why and how do you buy it? What is the decision making process?

Works for me anyway.

Great for presenting too ,think it's the MC Saatchi model, but steal away.

Consumer truth +universal  human truth + brand/product truth = core thought