Summary: Personae have been used for a long time when it comes to selling products and services. A persona’s purpose is to create an emotional connection with the customer to build loyalty and empathy. Persons are fictional characters created by companies, to connect with their customers, and to encourage them in contrast between their competitors.(jdn.org and usability.gov)

This year, T-Mobile has had a few upgrades after a tough year of getting bashed by competitors and customers alike. I’m not sure how well T-Mobile’s use of Persona’s has worked in the last days, but the Kathryn Rosita Jones replacement, Carly Foulkes, has kept T-Mobile noticeable on the screen. The pretty-gamer girl in real life, whom is not a big fan of the color pink, wears an assortment of lovely pink dresses. Fortunately for Carly, her T-Mobile persona, gets a makeover. “No more Mr. Nice Girl.”

iJerk™ Meter: LOW -Brand representation via Persona.

T-Mobile’s message is clear, “we are tired of being pushed around, and have done some new things with our service.” I’m not sure if that will be enough to amend the public perception of T-Mobile’s actual performance, but also in the eyes of fanatics of other wireless providers? Only time will tell. I expect this year of commercials from T-Mobile will try and present facts, somewhat like Sprint attempts, and display more of Carly as a tough, yet attractive individual.

Many years ago, when Sprint’s colors were red black and white, they had a Sprint guy that went around trying to solve people’s communication issues due to an unclear wireless connection. Sprint was known for having the clearest voice connection out of all of its competitors in that day. Today, like other companies, Sprint uses a variety of personae in their videos; but less so than their competitors. Their commercials were hilarious. You can search for past Sprint Commercials from the 90’s and early 2000’s. See video below.

Verizon used to display the Verizon guy who would go around and to different locations in the world as a field tester and say, “Can you hear me now? Good!” Customers empathized with the expectation that there is a company who sends their workers out in the field on a cell phone to check reception. Then when Verizon wanted to target African American families, white families, Asian families and more; they would develop specific commercials just for each with ethnic personae. These Personae all had a certain quality; they were more stylish and interested in learning more about new technology. Plus, their colors were derived from Sprint, until Sprint acquired Nextel and took Nextel’s colors to avoid confusion. Still, the American values of families and partnerships are diverse, so lately, Verizon has been playing with this approach for the past few years. Also, Verizon has been experimenting with different ad agencies as they came up with an range of fictional action heroes and scenarios for the audience to emotionally connect with. These were generally known, however, by the blog community as the “Bad days of Verizon Commercials” See below.

Then came AT&T, with various actors over time and when they received the iPhone, they were in front of the persona game. Now people recognized similarities between AT&T Apple Mac commercials and their Mac vs PC personae. Verizon hit back with different marketing strategies with Maps and other things, but that is another story.

These are the four main wireless providers for North America, with some International reach, but other subsidiaries of these providers have managed to engage the other percentage of customers who fear the bigger companies for the notion of ridiculous contract agreements and charges. Personae were created of people who were rebels, or perhaps more budgeted with their money and just wanted to have a phone they could make calls on, without all the drama.