Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Making a Conceptual Persona Sing

In an email I tried to suss out an instruction by treating a conceptual persona (Pascal's gambler) and vital anecdotes from philosophy (Pascal's Wager) as if it was like a campaign for Betty Crocker.

We see a roulette table in an upscale betting parlor. In the background are a few stylized images of men are in black tie and women are in evening dresses. This is a still image, but there is a sense of movement, like the action was caught, frozen for our view. We see two (male) gamblers at the table; there is a woman on the arm of our protagonist- our gambler. The two gamblers are distinguished by their facial expressions, how they hold their bodies, the quality of their clothes. We should find "our gambler" more sympathetic. It is not that the other gambler is bad, just that our gambler is superior.

They've placed their bets. Our gambler has his money on a roulette slot that instead of numbers has an image of faith/church/belief. The other gambler has placed his money on a slot that represents disbelief. The wheel is caught as if in mid spin- there is a sense of tension, where is the ball going to stop? The faith slot seems to glow, just as our gambler does.

Above the head of the gamblers and the roulette table, we read. "What do you have to lose?" And below the figures, some copy explaining how if you place your bet on the existence of God, you'll win either way.

If we treat the conceptual persona of the concept just like one from advertising- we'd want to do specific things to it. We'd personalize it- informal, chatty, heavy use of "you". We would illustrate it being aware of how formal qualities affect the emotional power of the persona's appeal- we might set if off center to create tension in the image, give it a subtle glow, choose to "photograph" it to make it seem more sincere.

But I don't know how to take the manipulation inherent in this various techniques out of them, so I can create instructions to use. I can list all the ones that seem(ed) to work well for the ad men. But I don't know how to separate the selling out of the techniques.

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