The Power of Personas: How a 12 -year-old Guided Smarter Marketing

Nigel represents an end-user persona ; a 12-year-old who will influence his parent’s to buy a cellphone. As  the buyer persona, his parents will evaluate its affordability, durability and control the “cha-ching-ching” or plainly –the wallet. This practical scenario demonstartes that both perspectives matter and will ultimately impact how ENet advertises the Unnecto Bolt 5G.

According to HubSpot, buyer personas are semi-fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers and is based on real data , behaviours and insights (through interviews, focus groups etc.) Key characteristics include, age, gender, location, job, family size and major challenges. The aim of a persona is to establish a guideline for effectively targeting the “real” audience.

Buyer/customer personas are crucial because they shape everything – from how a product is designed and packaged to how it is marketed. It allows for hyper-focused marketing efforts , shaping the offer, messaging and channels. Sales and marketing teams are unified through a shared understanding of the customer. This ultimately leads to reduced ad spend and efficiency.

A persona puts in focus a name, face, and story. This allows marketers to humanize strategies and ensure every campaign feels relevant, timely, and intentional. Let’s get back to  Nigel, a 12-year-old boy starting high school. His parents, part of a middle-income household earning around GYD $200,000–$300,000 per month, want to buy him his first phone. They are cautious about cost, preferring something affordable but durable.

The dualities presented are: 1) parents expect affordability 2) Nigel expects a phone “cool enough” to flash at school. For ENet, in this case personas inform multiple marketing strategies:

·       Product bundling: An affordable 5G phone paired 90 Gb FREE for the first school term addresses his parent’s affordability criteria.

·       Targeted messaging: Campaign captures the message of  “the child’s first phone is  affordable for parents and cool for kids.”  aptly.

·       Channel strategy: Facebook to reach parents, TikTok and IG Reels to engage kids with relatable, fun content.

ENet extended its “Back to School” theme with the School Dayz mini-series, where child host Nigel engaged the community by asking adults about their first phone and challenging them to name nine backpack items in 15 seconds. The aim was to connect with our customers and prospects on social media to inform, remind, persuade, connect and motivate.

·      Efficiency in Spend: Personas help identify where the customer scrolls, and shops. Parents are likely to be on news websites, school-related platforms. Digital ads on these platforms will perform better than generic mass advertising.

·       Internal Alignment: Personas act as a reference point across teams. Sales, marketing, and resolution center, all operate with the same understanding of who the customer is, which creates a consistent brand experience at every touchpoint.

Personas can fall into stereotypes or quickly become outdated in fast-moving industries like telecoms. Still, they humanize data, build loyalty, and drive returns. I know this because Nigel and his parents felt ENet’s back-to-school deal was made just for them.