Day in the life of …
Branding is about communication - communicating a message, product or service to an audience. In order to communicate well, you need to understand how your audience wants to be communicated to.
As a brand, once you have worked out who you want to speak to (see our blog post on personas) it is a good idea to learn about their day-to-day lives. That way, you will have a better understanding of how they want to be spoken to, and when.
I first developed the exercise ‘day in the life of’ whilst writing the branding pathway on the Graphic Communication and Illustration course* at Loughborough University, and I think it is a useful exercise to keep your mind focused on your audience.
Let’s take an example, your persona is a mum of 3, she is on maternity leave and leads a busy life looking after her family. If we take the time to think about what an average day may look like for her, then we can also being to visualise where the points of stress are, and where she might be relaxed.
We could assume a number of things about her day:
- At 8.30am, she is getting her children ready for school. The house is noisy, everything feels messy and its safe to say – no one is relaxed!
- At midday, she is chatting to her mum friends in a local cafe, she’s having fun but the atmosphere could be labelled as chaotic!
- At 2am, she is tired, but bored. She’s up with her baby and scrolling on her phone
So, what brand touchpoints could you introduce into her day?
- At 8.30am she will be stressed and unlikely to be receptive to anything your brand has to say! In fact, if you were to post something through her door at that moment in time, it would likely have a negative effect.
- At midday, she might be in a chatty mood. If your brand wanted to interject the conversation, it could be a great place to do so. However, the tone would need to be light hearted, or at least light touch – a message that can simulate conversation, but not require 100% of her attention.
- At 2am, you definitely have her attention! But she will be sleepy, and perhaps emotional. A brand could occupy this space well, but heavy topics might not be as appropriate.
