Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Give Your Product Personality

jasonshen.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: How to Give Your Product Personality

#21

Post by cliftonmckinney »

alanh wrote: post #18

A lot of the examples in this article are kind of gimmicky. MailChimp, for example. You would be better off ignoring the chimp, who usually links to YouTube time-wasters as if they were important messages (the chimp is usually the "visually loudest" item on the page). Personality? Yes. But maybe not a good inspiration for your own product's personality. Maybe too much trading-off of utility. To me, the web product th…

I have to respectfully disagree with your point re: Mailchimp. They are a company that makes it easier to make email newsletters. Nothing knock your socks off amazing there. But that chimp and the subsequent marketing around it has played a major role in customer loyalty. They recently hit 1M customers and, to celebrate, they gave away plushies, hats, and t-shirts all with the mailchimp theme. And they gave them away quickly. Really says something about customer love and loyalty imo.

http://blog.mailchimp.com/one-meeeellion-users/

Also, they do give you the "non-cheeky" option, so there's that.

Completely agree re: Feedburner. :)

Re: How to Give Your Product Personality

#22

Post by alanh »

cliftonmckinney wrote: post #21
alanh wrote: post #18

A lot of the examples in this article are kind of gimmicky. MailChimp, for example. You would be better off ignoring the chimp, who usually links to YouTube time-wasters as if they were important messages (the chimp is usually the "visually loudest" item on the page). Personality? Yes. But maybe not a good inspiration for your own product's personality. Maybe too much trading-off of utility. To me, the web product th…

I have to respectfully disagree with your point re: Mailchimp. They are a company that makes it easier to make email newsletters. Nothing knock your socks off amazing there. But that chimp and the subsequent marketing around it has played a major role in customer loyalty. They recently hit 1M customers and, to celebrate, they gave away plushies, hats, and t-shirts all with the mailchimp theme. And they gave them away…

I wasn’t aware that I could de-chimpify. Thanks, I’ll look for that.

And I don’t mean to knock the entire MailChimp brand or UX or mascot, so much as that one most visible aspect.

Re: How to Give Your Product Personality

#24

Post by kn0thing »

jasonshen wrote: post #14
aresant wrote: post #12

Great read. A shortcut to injecting personality touched on but not highlighted in your article is building around a spokesperson. These come in three flavors: Anthropomorphic mascot that doesn't age, doesn't go on benders in Vegas, doesn't get divorced, etc: -= GEICO Gecko -= Aflac Duck -= Reddit Alien and follow-up of HipMunk. -= Mickey Mouse Or your "over the top" fictional people: -= Old Spice guy -= The Most Inte…

Great point. Spokespeople / mascots are great. I think Alexis Ohanian is adamant about how having a mascot was a big part of what made Reddit succeed in growing and building a cult (and now massive) following.

Indeed! :) breadpig.com too. I've given a couple classes on Making Something People Love that hits on a lot of these. So happy to see more people talking about building brands with personality.

Re: How to Give Your Product Personality

#25

Post by capkutay »

I like this article, but it seems mostly geared towards social or web products. It'd be really interesting to discuss giving less "charismatic" types of products personality such as software for data integration or other enterprise services....

Re: How to Give Your Product Personality

#27

Post by epo »

cliftonmckinney wrote: post #21
alanh wrote: post #18

A lot of the examples in this article are kind of gimmicky. MailChimp, for example. You would be better off ignoring the chimp, who usually links to YouTube time-wasters as if they were important messages (the chimp is usually the "visually loudest" item on the page). Personality? Yes. But maybe not a good inspiration for your own product's personality. Maybe too much trading-off of utility. To me, the web product th…

I have to respectfully disagree with your point re: Mailchimp. They are a company that makes it easier to make email newsletters. Nothing knock your socks off amazing there. But that chimp and the subsequent marketing around it has played a major role in customer loyalty. They recently hit 1M customers and, to celebrate, they gave away plushies, hats, and t-shirts all with the mailchimp theme. And they gave them away…

Customer love? You can't be serious! The only thing it really says is that people love freebies.

Re: How to Give Your Product Personality

#28

Post by Tichy »

I have just disassembled a piece of furniture, so I might be a bit biased, but what went through my head is "my screwdriver does not need personality". I don't even care if the screwdriver is rather boring.

Probably it is true for some products, but I think if you offer a great service or tool, people won't shun it just because it is boring. For example the tax industry is huge (in Germany anyway), software companies selling tax accounting software rake in the money. I don't think little artificial pets would help with their products.

Re: How to Give Your Product Personality

#29

Post by andrewflnr »

Tichy wrote: post #28

I have just disassembled a piece of furniture, so I might be a bit biased, but what went through my head is "my screwdriver does not need personality". I don't even care if the screwdriver is rather boring. Probably it is true for some products, but I think if you offer a great service or tool, people won't shun it just because it is boring. For example the tax industry is huge (in Germany anyway), software companies…

Personally, I can see value in tax-management software having a personality. People might really appreciate that if it made the task less onerous, as long as it was done in a way that didn't interfere or give you the feeling it didn't know what it was doing. Couldn't that be a big differentiator?

Re: How to Give Your Product Personality

#30

Post by Tichy »

andrewflnr wrote: post #29
Tichy wrote: post #28

I have just disassembled a piece of furniture, so I might be a bit biased, but what went through my head is "my screwdriver does not need personality". I don't even care if the screwdriver is rather boring. Probably it is true for some products, but I think if you offer a great service or tool, people won't shun it just because it is boring. For example the tax industry is huge (in Germany anyway), software companies…

Personally, I can see value in tax-management software having a personality. People might really appreciate that if it made the task less onerous, as long as it was done in a way that didn't interfere or give you the feeling it didn't know what it was doing. Couldn't that be a big differentiator?

Clippy?
Post reply on HN