The Asian American

Dear World,

So for this week’s assignment, I’m supposed to create an accurate and rich persona of myself. We (my classmates and I) were given articles to read on how companies create personas and given other articles with illustrated examples of personas. I’m not going to lie. That first article was hard to get through because it was a bunch of technical stuff that bored me. (It was also probably because I was trying to read it in a sea of voices at the computer lab so I couldn’t concentrate). I thought to myself, “How on earth am I supposed to write at least one page on this?” But after reading the first article and moving on to the second article (with colorful pictures might I add), I got a better idea of what I had to do to create my persona.

Last week in class, Karen from Proctor and Gamble came to speak to us about personas. She has been working in the beauty line for several years now and was showing us an example of personas that the company came up with for their CoverGirl Simply Ageless makeup line. P&G had come up with several categories that seemed very obvious to me when Karen presented it to the class. The personas ranged from young, frequent users to older and very self-conscious users.  However, she made a good point and explained that it is a lot easier to see personas after they are created and state the obvious than to be doing the behind the scenes work and actually trying to create it.  Now my job is to get behind the scenes and create something that represents me that will be valuable for marketers.

 This wasn’t an easy task for me. I thought about it for a few days before I even wrote anything down. I thought about it while I was showering, walking home from class, going to the grocery store, and even before I went to sleep. I finally came up with a list (that kept growing as the day went on) to incorporate into my persona, including my hobbies, basic demographics, and habits. I am a 20 year old student from Houston, Texas attending a public university. I live off campus but not far enough to take my car to school. Instead, I walk 10 minutes to the closest bus stop and take the bus another 20 minutes to get to class. I am a marketing major at one of the nation’s top business schools, meaning I am always stressed and swamped with homework. Instead of doing homework, I procrastinate by streaming videos on www.hulu.com and by catching up with my social life on Facebook. I am also in a long distance relationship so I spend a lot of time talking to my boyfriend. Because I procrastinate so much, I stay up late virtually every night and get an average of 5 to 6 hours of sleep. I am involved in several organizations and honor societies on campus, so I am kept very busy with officer positions, socials, and volunteering. I am a first generation Asian-American and grew up in a very strict household. I speak several languages and enjoy my diverse culture. Being a college student paying for everything on my own, I am strapped for cash all the time and have loans and grants to help me out with rent and food. I can’t cook very well, so I resort to cheap food that’s still relatively healthy (like frozen peas). I have a lot of school spirit and attend football games on weekends and enjoy going out in the nation’s biggest party city with my friends during my free time.

I loved the article Cohorts’ Vignettes, and decided to use one of their personas as my template. So if I were to create a persona for me with all the descriptions given above, it would be something like this:

Cohort Segment Name: Cindy

Description: First Generation Asian-American College Student

·         College student growing up in different cultures who has a slight language barrier with parents; is strapped for cash, enjoys going out with friends, and is busy with school to keep up grades to impress parents.

Personality:

·     My favorite TV show is streaming online so I will do homework in a couple of hours. Don't tell my parents that I'm wasting time please!

·     Let’s go to the football game this weekend, pregame ahead of time and then go downtown after the game.

·     Frozen peas count as my daily intake of vegetables right?

·     Man, I wish I got more grants! I have to pay rent and bills and food and the list goes on. When does shopping get to come into the equation?

·     I have to call my mom and tell her I’m doing well in school. She doesn’t have to know I just failed the last test – as long as my overall GPA isn’t below an A-.

Demographics:

·         Average Age: 20

·         Median Income: -$40,000 in loans

·         Race: Asian

·         Mobility: 10 year old car and bicycle

·         Home ownership: None

Lifestyle:

·         Audio/Video: owns a smart phone, laptop, and digital camera

·         Outdoors: kayaking, running, football, sunbathing

·         Sports and Fitness: school gym, IM sports

·         Other interests: sleeping, watching TV, baking

I’m hoping this is enough for the beginning of creating a persona. I’m not sure how researchers do it, but it’s tough work! When you think you have everything down, more stuff just keeps popping up in your head. As complicated of a person as I seem based on the above description, I am almost positive most of my first generation Asian-American friends can completely agree with most of the points above.

Best,

CJL