ECE/Strategic Marketing

Kellogg: Ontela Picdeck

Paul POIRIER/Lilian ROBERRT/Romain RENARD

1- What are customer personas ?

Customer persona is a conceptual and fictive character of who could be the typical customer. Shorter, it gives us a realistic kind of customer (with socioprofessional situation, sex, age, etc ). Of course its possible to have several customer persona (like in the Ontela case study). A user persona is a representation of the goals and behavior of a hypothesized group of users.

2- Which segment(s) should Ontela target?

We are comfortable choosing the young professional, I also consider the parent a viable segment. The young professional will definitely utilize the service in their business and will see the value to carry over use for personal photos thus increases their usage and dependency of the service (or vice versa). We think given the age group of this persona they will be quick to adapt to the new technology once they commit to using it. Once they commit to using it we believe it will be something that will be difficult for them to give up so they will be a regular customer. However, we are concerned about the number of potential customer in this persona. We wonder how many 27 year olds are like Steve when he mentions he was the last of his friends to get up on the latest technology.

3- Based on feature/benefit analysis, what positing statements are likely to be appropriate for each of the customers?
How much do customers in the segment want/need the product/service ? Most attractive ontela feature Most attractive benefit for the consumer Value to Ontela and partners Sarah 2/5 Steve 3.5/5 Regina 5/5

easy Save precious moment

Useful-easy Doing business faster from everywhere to every place Higher value 4,5/5 Steve is not a user of new tech but he knows it. Today, we can assume that a young professional of 27yo has to have new tech because its really useful for their work (especially for estate agent) and because to have a smartphone gives entertainment.

Fast-easy Show pictures

Medium value 2,5/5

Medium value 2,5/5 Regina is the typical girl of Z generation. The girl who has its own iphone, from a middle class. She is always connected thanks to internet and mobile internet. She is able to better know all new tech that can serve her easier, faster, more usefull.

Segment size

Willingness to pay

Note:

This kind of people is outdated about technologies, especially in phone domain. They prefer to stay with their habits because they finally learned how to use it. If they change, the old phone has to be broke (and often, they try to find the same phone or a similar one) or it has to be really easy. Ontele promise their software is easy but we can not say the same about the support (the framework). USA : 10 million Will think about the family budget before the all 3/5

USA : 10% of 153 million = 15.3 million (actif) Will have the ability to pay easily 5/5

USA : 20 million Pocket money

2/5

Cost to identify, attract and serve

Very hard to target. Sarah is not a techno user. So to target this persona about a product like Ontela Picdeck, its kind of impossible because to know that this app exists there are 4 solutions: -App store -Internet -Specialized magazine -Specialized TV/Radio program (and podcast). As we can see, Sarah is not this kind of target who will go on internet to search information (because she doesnt know really how to use it), and as she has no smartphone with appstore, its impossible to target her by this. About specialized magazine, she will be not interested as much. And about specialized TV/radio program, she cans be targeting but it will be a pure hazardous. So it will cost a lot if we decide to touch her, even if the product currently gives a response to her demand. 7,5/15

Steve has knowledge in IT and is ready to change its mobile phone. So he will access to appstore, search information on internet, his colluagues already use their cellphones to send pictures. So he will be easy to touch.

Regina is this easiest target to touch. She already has a smartphone and knows how to use it and get information about an application. So it will cost almost nothing to touch this target.

TOTAL:

13/15

9,5/15

4- Identify the key themes that should be emphasized in the messaging for the PicDeck service to your chosen target.
Chosen target : Steve, the Young Professional After the segmentation market, Ontela Pickdeck target will be Steve, the Young Professional. The Ontela Pickdecks offer and the Steves profile are linked. For us, Steve is the best target. Steve is 27 years old, he is cool and a young active adult desiring to connect with friends. Steve is a hardworker who knows the new technology and who uses very often the new technologic communication for his work. It is a easy target to approach because he needs this type of application to simplify his lifestyle and his work. For Steve, the essential key themes should be professional and easy to use. Professional : - You can use their phones to take pictures of houses to save and send instantly to clients. - You can be linked all the time with clients and colleagues with cellphone. - He uses email at work, but prefers the phone. Now with our product, he will can use only the phone for his work and to be attentive to his clients everytime even on the road. Easy to use : - If your phone is lost or stolen, your pictures are safe. - Every picture you take on your camera phone is emailed to you, automatically. - Sets up on your phone in about one minute. - There is nothing to learn or remember... just take photos and pic sender delivers them automatically.

Easy delivery to your email, your PC, and your Photobucket, Yahoo! Flickr, Snapfish or Google Blogger accounts.

To approach better Steve, we have chosen some promotion supports. Application Store : - It is needed for us, to have an application on the Apple Store and Android to download the product and to promote more efficienly thanks to a famous site. Internet : - Ontela PicDecks Site - Ontela PicDecks Facebook (connected with people of social networks) - Technologic sites about new technologies - Blogs Specialized magazine : - Magazine Immobilier - La vie immobilire - Immoxia - Phone press, application magazine WOM : With all his colleagues and the real estate world. This type of product can change the real estate agent work.

5- What are the risks of using qualitative personas to select target customer segments?
The main risk by using it is that customer personas are just a representation of a typically customer and only linked with the product or the company. It doesnt care about the geography, sociocultural differences, etc The other problem is that qualitative personas dont show the quantity of customer and so the real potential of a group of customer. We cannot know how much Regina are in the segment targeted. Shorter, the problem of using qualitative is that its just an assumption without quantitative evidences and no descriptives. The firm risks to target their customers only linked with their personas
Theres no quantitative evidence. The most common pitfall in persona creation occurs when someone asks, How can you be sure all our users are like the few you talked to? Qualitative personas are based on the idea that you can talk to a small number of users and see patterns that apply to all of your users. In other words, the risk of being wrong is higher compared to having a large sample size to back you up. If your stakeholders need quantitative evidence to buy into your process, theyll disregard your personas as a creative but ultimately unreliable tool. Some people simply need the proof of hard data. And who can blame them? If youre going to be making critical business decisions based on these personas, you better be as certain as possible of their accuracyand be able to persuade others. Existing assumptions dont tend to be questioned. You know your business, and you have assumptions about who the users are and what they need. When any person interviews users, he or she inevitably brings those assumptions to the research. The result: People find what theyre looking for. Subconsciously, people look for the things that backup their own assumptions, so that instead of discovering surprises, they simply validate an existing worldview. Too often, their segmentation will look exactly like their original assumptions instead of being affected by the research. It wont always happen this way, but its a serious risk when doing qualitative segmentation.