For decades, marketers built campaigns around semi-fictional profiles like “Tech-Savvy Tom”, “CEO Steph”, or “Working Mom Mia.” These personas helped humanise targeting, but today’s buyer behaviours are too fast, fluid, and fragmented for static labels.
People don’t shop, scroll, or convert in linear paths anymore. A customer may discover a product on TikTok, research it on their laptop at lunch, and convert via mobile after work—none of which fits neatly into a persona built around job title or age group.
According to a Forrester study, 62% of marketers say their personas no longer reflect real-world behaviour.
In other words, we’re targeting ghosts of a buyer that no longer exists in the way we imagined.
Today’s leading brands are shifting from identity-based personas to behaviour-based segmentation, powered by real-time data and AI.
Platforms like Adobe, Salesforce, and Segment now allow marketers to act on live insights, such as what a customer just clicked, searched, or downloaded.
What topics or products a user is researching.
Based on real-time clicks, cart adds, or bounce patterns.
Prediction of who’s likely to churn or buy.
Integration of touchpoints across web, email, mobile, and more.
For example, Spotify doesn’t segment listeners by age, gender, or job title. Instead, it uses real-time listening behaviour to curate experiences like Discover Weekly, Daily Mix, and Daylists. These feature suggestions are based on when and how you listen, creating intuitive, mood-aware playlists.
In late 2023 and 2024, Spotify’s Daylist playlists, which update multiple times daily, celebrated personal “musical identities” (like “chill,” “main character,” or “nostalgia”) and became a viral talking point.
According to Spotify’s personalisation team, 81% of users named personalisation as the reason they love Spotify.
We’re not saying you should throw every persona out the window. But we are saying: update, validate, and don’t cling too tightly. Personas still have value. Especially in early-stage brand work or internal alignment.
But rigid labels limit your agility. A smarter approach?
It’s time to stop building for “Marketing Mary” and start designing for: Mary, on mobile, comparing products, while commuting.
Take Netflix, for example. It hasn’t abandoned personas, but it doesn’t rely on them alone. Instead of targeting broad types like “young professionals,” it uses:
This real-time, moment-aware strategy helps Netflix stay personally relevant something static personas just can’t do.
By evolving from fixed identities to fluid behaviours, Netflix shows that personas still work but only when they're flexible and data-led.
Personas aren’t obsolete, but they’re no longer enough.
In a world where intent signals, emotional context, and AI-driven insights can change by the hour, marketers need tools that evolve with the customer. That means going beyond neat boxes and predictable paths.
Today’s most effective marketing strategies are grounded in relevance, responsiveness, and real-time action, not guesswork about a persona created last quarter.
At MWJ, we dive deep into how these shifts are reshaping brand strategy, loyalty, and performance.
Want to learn how to modernise your marketing stack and ditch outdated buyer labels?
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