The New Avatar Framework (How to Build Avatars That Scale in 2026)

Summary

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Brain Driven Brands – Episode 130 Summary

Episode Title: The New Avatar Framework (How to Build Avatars That Scale in 2026)
Host: Sarah Levinger
Date: April 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Sarah Levinger and her co-host dive deep into the evolving framework of customer avatars for e-commerce brands, questioning traditional demographic-driven models and proposing a new hierarchy: focusing on customer "whens" (buying moments), followed by the emotional "why," and, lastly, the "who." Drawing from creative strategy experiences with brands like True Classic, Spotify, and Plants vs. Zombies, they challenge outdated neuromarketing tropes and unpack real-world tactics to build scalable avatars that drive better ad spend ROI, stronger creative, and more inclusive growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origin of the Customer Avatar [05:39]

• Sarah traces the concept back to 1983, crediting software developer Alan Cooper, not a marketer.
  • Cooper created avatars to understand how people would use software, not who would buy it.
  • He modeled his avatar, "Kathy," not to focus on traits, but to walk through user behavior scenarios.
• Quote (Sarah, 06:00):
  "He would just ask himself, 'What would Kathy do? Not, who is Kathy?' That’s why I’m struggling… We get real hyped on that 'who.'"

2. Should Marketers Obsess Over Demographic Differences? [02:09–04:32]

• Sarah questions obsessing over targeting specific demographics—“Should I split up all my marketing?”
• The co-host argues age/gender are low-priority compared to mindset and motivation.
  • "You’re going to have a much better chance optimizing for the similarities, understanding where the differences are and creating funnels around them." [03:40]
  • Example: Whiskey can be bought to celebrate or to cope—opposite moods, same product.

3. Redefining the Avatar: From Demographics to Psychographics [04:32–08:25]

• Sarah highlights frustration with static, AI-generated avatar models (“Mindful Melissa, age 25…feeling overwhelmed…”) that don’t translate into actionable creative decisions.
  • Wants avatars to guide “what messages get her to purchase,” not just describe her.
• Both agree psychographics are a step up, but still limited unless they connect to actionable triggers.

4. When vs. Who: The Case for the “When” Avatar [09:37–12:17]

• Sarah: The next evolution is mapping out whens—the moments, needs, or triggers that prompt a purchase—as the highest priority.
  • “I want to target way more 'whens.' Because...your customers had the same when—I want to show appreciation, whether it’s my partner or myself.”
• Co-host: Specific “who” details aren’t useless, but they’re “the last 5%.”

5. Brand Examples: Universal Messages & the Limits of Targeting [08:25–09:37, 13:07–13:35]

• Real-world: “Show your man he’s worth every second”—worked for both men and women, even though only 20% of buyers were male. Universal message cut across segments.
  • “That message…still works for a guy because…he wants to show himself he’s worth it.” [09:26]
• Exercise: Imagine seeing every face that buys your product. Diversity would undermine hyper-targeting dogma.

6. Environment & Buying Contexts (Swiffer, Fast Food) [13:49–14:33, 14:56–16:16]

• Swiffer: Innovation didn’t focus on identity—focused on the environment (over-cleaning mop heads vs. floors).
• Fast food analogy: Same product attracts wildly different customers at the same moment. “Taco Bell drive-thru at midnight”—too many avatars, but typically one “when” (it’s late, need food).

7. Emerging Avatar Hierarchy: When > Why > Who [17:16–18:24]

• Proposed structure for future customer personas:

  1. When: The situation/context driving the purchase
  2. Why: The emotional/a psychological driver
  3. Who: The customer’s identity details

• Quote (co-host, 17:52):

  • “If you like handcuffed me and said you can only market to one—the when or the who—what are you going to choose? I’d mark it to the when.”

• Quote (Sarah, 18:06):

  • “When, when, when, when, when. Who is much harder to nail down.”

• Both agree: Build personas for “whens,” map emotions for those triggers, then map who most often occupies those emotional states in that context.

8. Limits and Challenges to the New Model [16:20–17:16]

• Sarah admits: model isn’t perfect for every niche (ex: gender-specific products, or when sales data shows a clear “who” outperforms).
  • “There are holes in this theory… but I still think the when is more important than almost anything else.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Avatar Origins:
  • “Customer avatar was not invented by a marketer. It was invented by a software developer named Alan Cooper in 1983.” (Sarah, 05:39)
• On Siloed Funnels:
  • “I would rather optimize for similarities than try and build siloed funnels for one very teeny, tiny person.” (Sarah, 04:04)
• On the Value of ‘When’:
  • “The next jump I want to make, though, is not targeting who so much. I want to target way more whens.” (Sarah, 09:37)
• On Avatar Sheet Redesign:
  • “What I want to see is wins, like thousands of them... Then I want which emotions pop up most commonly for those wins. Then I want who might be feeling these emotions the strongest in that order every single time: when, emotions, and who.” (Sarah, 12:20)
• On Challenges of Universal Targeting:
  • “What happens when we are only a women’s skincare brand and we’re not marketing towards men? There’s holes. I get it.… but the when is more important than almost anything else.” (Sarah, 16:20)

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Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–02:56 | Banter, intro, and setup of big avatar question | | 02:56–04:32 | Should you obsess over differences or similarities in your audience? | | 04:32–08:25 | Definitions of avatar; frustration with classic AI/stereotype models | | 08:25–09:37 | Effectiveness of universal message vs hyper-targeting | | 09:37–12:17 | Sarah’s new “when”-first avatar concept | | 12:17–13:35 | Brainstorm: redesigning the avatar worksheet for “when, emotion, who” | | 13:35–14:33 | How seeing all customers’ faces would crush demographic assumptions | | 14:33–16:16 | Environment/context examples: Swiffer and fast food | | 16:16–17:16 | Limits/holes in the “when > who” model | | 17:16–18:24 | Consensus: Avatar structure “When, Why, Who”; analogy and summary | | 18:24–18:45 | Wrap-up banter (skip for summary purposes) |

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Episode Takeaways

• Build for Buying Moments: E-commerce brands should prioritize understanding “when” customers buy—the triggers, context, and situations—over assuming identity-based segmentation.
• Write Avatars That Are Actionable: Avatars should guide creative, messaging, and product decisions, not just collect demographic trivia or generic emotional data.
• Embrace Overlapping Motivations: The same product often serves wildly diverse identities for similar reasons—find the overlaps and design for them.
• Refine, Don’t Replace, Demographics: The “who” (age, gender, lifestyle) still matters, but is less critical than environment, motivation, and context; use it for fine-tuning, not for foundations.
• Real-World Wins Beat AI Avatars: Direct research into “buying moments” and visible customer diversity is more valuable than generating lifeless AI Personas.

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Next Steps & Experiment Ideas

• Action: Try building an avatar sheet listing “whens” for your product or brand—identify the key triggers and map common emotional states before filling in demographic data.
• Exercise: Imagine who actually buys your product by visualizing your customer base—not who you think your average buyer is—and use that breadth in your creative strategy.
• Test & Iterate: Continue to refine your avatar frameworks and be open about the holes and exceptions—one size never fits all.

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Hosts:

• Sarah Levinger
• [Co-host: Name not stated in provided transcript]

Transcript

[A]

The avatar was actually created by a software developer, not a marketer. Okay, so let me go through. Let me actually start there. Let me pull up the tweet that I'm about.

[B]

Sarah. That would have been a great intro to the episode seven minutes ago. Welcome back to Brain Driven Brands, episode 130. And we're back to doing weekly shows.

[A]

It only took us, slash, almost four

[B]

months to come back one off. How's life?

[A]

So great. My. I'm constantly.

[B]

That didn't even sound a little bit true.

[A]

I tried to talk to Katywkays the other day. My husband. I tried so hard to explain to him what's actually happening in the industry, and I. I need to write, like, a script for anybody who has a spouse who's not in D2C for explaining what the hell we're experiencing, because he was, like, very. He listened actively. Wow. Oh, interesting. And I was like, what do you think about all this? Like, this is the thing. He was like, ah, that sounds hard. That. That's challenging for you. That was the best that came out. That was all he could do. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go talk to Nate.

[B]

That's funny. I take the opposite approach. I try to not talk to Steph about the industry stuff.

[A]

That's actually really smart. I talked to Casey because I need to hear. I wasn't talked to, but I'm like, help me with this. What do you think? And he's like, I don't know, man. It sounds like it's a lot right now. How are you? How's things? How's the week? What you been doing? What you been up to? Obviously, you guys are growing. You're doing a lot of restructuring of, like, all of the different internals of the business, and I love it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All your updates make me so happy.

[B]

Yeah. My first quarter here was just kind of like, learning and, like, observing.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

And this past quarter was like, all right, tear down everything, rebuild everything, get it growing, Acquisition a whole bunch, which is fun. Building an internal team, which I desperately prefer to anything else. So super happy with a couple. Couple of the people I brought in, and then the people that were on the team already are adjusting to their new roles very well. So.

[A]

Amazing.

[B]

Yeah, life's good.

[A]

I'm stoked. Okay, well, this will be good for. Honestly, the conversation we're going to have today to share with your internal team, because I'm breaking things again. My question to you today might ruffle some feathers. I want to know, do you think we should care who our ads bring in. Do you think we should care about who our ads bring in? Meaning if my ad brings in a 45 year old mom in Texas and a 25 year old dude who lives in LA, should I care about which Should I split up all my marketing? Should I go in different? Like, should I, like, seriously obsess over the differences or. Or should I optimize for their similarities is what I'm asking.

[B]

Oh, wow, what a loaded question.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. It's gonna be a good podcast.

[B]

Actually, I'm like, excited about this because

[A]

the answer is like, no.

[B]

Yes, you should care because you do need to know.

[A]

Okay. All right.

[B]

I think you need to know.

[A]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

I do think we focus way too much on our Persona differences and their similarities. And like, you know, the, the example that I always give for this stuff is like, there's a lot of different reasons why someone buys your product. Right.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You can buy whiskey because you're sad and upset and stressed and frustrated, or you can buy it because you're happy and in celebrating. So two opposite states of mind can bring you to the same thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You're going to have a much better chance optimizing for the similarities, understanding where the differences are and creating funnels around them. But if you're marketing Whiskey to a 55 year old female or 25 year old guy, like, it's kind of the same thing. Kind of don't care.

[A]

Yeah. Yep. And this is why I've been going down this rabbit hole.

[B]

I could argue this both ways.

[A]

I know. This is why I brought it to you. Because I was like, help me think through this. Because I'm leaning towards. I would rather optimize for similarities than try and build siloed funnels for one very teeny, tiny person. And this is, somebody's going to come to me and be like, Sarah, you've always told us that we should, like, break everything apart by avatar and like, it has to be very specific. Yes. But I, I, maybe I should have clarified what I meant by avatar. So let's start there, shall we?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What is an avatar?

[B]

Define the who we're talking about. Because, like, you started with age and gender, and then I went to, like, mindset.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Which is a different thing. So define who.

[A]

Okay. So according to AI, at least a customer avatar. And this is the reason why I'm doing this, because you and I had different, like, views of what an avatar was. Customer avatar is detailed fictional profile representing a business ideal customer used to tailor marketing Messages improve products and boost roi.

[B]

Okay, so based on the word profile, I would assume we're including age, gender,

[A]

where they live, demographics, psychological intelligence, pain points. Yeah, the interesting part is, so I went down a rabbit hole of this the other day and tried to figure out where the hell did this come from. Yeah, the avatar was actually created by a software developer, not a marketer. And, okay, so let me go through.

[B]

Let me start there.

[A]

Let me pull up the tweet that I'm about.

[B]

Sarah, that would have been a great intro to the episode seven minutes ago.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

We're still shaking off the rust at Brain Driven Brands. Guys, we are getting back in the flow of podcasting. Bear with us.

[A]

Okay, so fun fact here. Customer avatar was not invented by a marketer. It was invented by a software developer named Alan Cooper in 1983. He was trying to figure out how real humans would use his software. Not who would buy it, but how they would use it. So he went, interviewed a woman named Kathy who was a project manager at an ad agency, so he could understand how she might use his software. And then anytime he ran into a new feature or screen or button, he would just, like, ask himself, what would Cathie do? What would Kathy do? Not, who is Kathy? And that's why I'm struggling, because I'm like, yeah, we get real hyped on that. Who? So he would literally just, like, prance around his office, and anytime he would click on a new screen, he would, like, put himself into Kathy mode and be like, where would Kathy go from here? So that's where it started.

[B]

So this is where, like, I think is. Is probably the argument we should be having is, like, how do you define who? Because I will take the stance, like, you should care who your ads are reaching and who is buying from you. But the way that I define who, age and gender are, like, the last priorities on that list.

[A]

Oh, okay. So, yeah, you do it. You flip it and do it backwards.

[B]

Yeah, Like, I want to go with, like, mindset how they're. They're feeling, what they're hoping the product does. I think that defines who. And then the age and gender thing really just comes out in the details of, like, yeah, how am I going to. Like, what words am I going to choose?

[A]

Yes. Yep, yep.

[B]

But the core message will stay the same as long as the core motivation does.

[A]

Well, and this is where. This is why I'm struggling with this, because I was on this giant, like, motion presentation with a bunch of, like, new and intermediate creative strategists. Right? So I was teaching research, which is very difficult to teach because, like, how do you condense research for creative strategy down into 90 minutes? I was like, oh, my God. So I talked about the fact that you have to understand customer. I think that's critical and important. You have to understand the person that you're going after. But which order you. You target, I think is important. The only reason why I have beef with the current version of it is I'm seeing this, like, mindful Melissa. She's 25. She struggles with, like, feeling overwhelmed. I. I see all of these where it's like, it's an, this is an AI version. I can tell it's AI generated and it's all these different emotions that are like, probably accurate, but it still tells you nothing about what messages are going to get her to purchase.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What type of ad should I make? What type of creator should I look for? What type of copy should I write? I don't know. So I'm not super concerned about the fact that we have avatars. I think that's critical. I'm upset about how we map out their information on a page age.

[B]

Do you know what's crazy is like, both these things are true. Meaning that, like, at og, we had messaging that worked best for men and messaging that worked best for women. But that messaging that worked well for women worked for everyone. Like, that was our whole site during our Christmas sale. And every ad was show your man he's worth every second with a watch as unique and storied as he is.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And yes, 80% of our customers during that time are women.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

But 20 of them are men. And they still saw that ad and bought that watch more efficiently than they do all year. So, like, this is where it's really weird. It's like, yeah, we can, we can split Personas and split the funnels.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And get hyper targeted.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But that message of show your man he's worth every second still works for a guy because he's not buying it for someone else, he's buying it for himself. But he wants to show himself he's worth it.

[A]

It's so tough because how. And this is the reason why it's tough because I built full customer avatars for customers recently, in fact, and it's been incredibly helpful for them because we took them from very generic style avatars to psychographic avatars. And even that jump of basically just rearranging the information that they had on their document, that small jump was very helpful. The next jump I want to make, though, is not targeting who so much. I want to target way more whens. Because in this particular case, your customers and og, male and female, had the same when, which is I want to show somebody, whether it's my partner, my spouse. Yeah. Or myself, appreciation. That's it. That was the win. So I'm starting to think about this now as like, how do we re. How do we remap the customer avatar from jobs to be done demographics and psychographics into something that tells the marketer what to do? And this is why I hate the current avatar still. Even after all the emotion we put on it, I'm like, it's still not quite good enough for me. Because I'm like, still doesn't tell me what to do. It only tells me a little more information is all.

[B]

Yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. We need to start with when.

[A]

When.

[B]

Start there. I. I would still argue that eventually you need to get to who I told you about the insight of meeting a customer from OG to like a. Not a nice event, but like a decent event. Wore beat up jeans and dusty boots.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that guy has the same emotion as any other customer out there. But like, that insight made us talk differently, made us shoot visuals a little bit differently. It made us flip the words from because he deserves a watch. As rugged and unique as he is.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

To from. He's earned a watch.

[A]

He's earned. Earned it. Yeah.

[B]

Because these guys don't feel like they deserve anything. They don't want to be handed anything. They want to go out and work for and earn everything they've got. So I think like, eventually getting down to the specifics of that who matter, but it's like it's the last 5% of the work.

[A]

Okay, thank you for helping me think about this because I was just, I. I was about to post it this weekend and the whole entire, like, premise of it, I was just like, this is not quite what I think I believe about this. So I need somebody to think with me. But in general, I want to see new customer avatars being built. Like the actual sheet that we use on like a weekly or a monthly basis, I want to see them build.

[B]

You should pull one out. You should make one and put up.

[A]

I tried, I tried to put it out and I was like, this is. I can't figure out how I want this to range. So I'll work on it and see if I can and build one. But what I want to see is wins, like thousands of them. Like how many different wins can you think that somebody would need this product or possibly think about wanting this product? I want both of those listed and as many capacities as possible. Then I want which emotions pop up most commonly for those wins. Then I want who might be feeling these emotions the strongest in that border every single time when emotions and who I like it. That's kind of what I want. So anyways, I'll build you one.

[B]

That's what I'm most excited for about the brain driven pod being back is free consulting from Sarah. I think I've had you on retainer for months. Screw that. Cancel that. Boys, let's get free consulting going. Now that we have a podcast again, do you know what I think would be so good for E Comm brands is if we, if we could see a picture of everyone who bought from us. Oh, I think we'd be blown away at the diversity.

[A]

Oh, that would be so fast. Of every customer, of every single one.

[B]

And I think like that would probably be the nail in the coffin for how we build interesting Personas to be like, oh, why did this 59 year old guy and this 18 year old girl just buy the same thing, the same product?

[A]

Well, and I think that's, that's what I'm kind of trying to hone in on here is Swiffer is a really good example of this. So the only reason Swiffer exists is because they actually partnered with a behavioral science agency, went in and took a look at all these women who were like, women and men who were mopping their floors and found that like environmentally people were spending more time cleaning like the mop head than they were actually cleaning the floor. So they just invented a Swiffer so you could like throw them up away. Right. The interesting part about this is they, they were trying to activate environment insights. And that's what I'm trying to get down to is like we kind of skip environment constantly as marketers and go straight for like, let's go after this person's identity. And I'm like, that's. Yeah, that's part of it.

[B]

Let's do a quick exercise that you might cut because when I freestyle segments it usually doesn't go well. I'm going to get. There's like a fast food Japanese hibachi steakhouse place near me. It's disgusting, but I've eaten clean for weeks in a row and I'm going to get like a steak and rice Japanese hibachi thing tonight.

[A]

I'm very excited.

[B]

It's $12. It's really gross. It's low quality meat, but I love it because I've earned it.

[A]

Right, You've earned it. Emotion.

[B]

But like it's always very surprising to me to see the other, the other people at that spot. Some of them are Japanese. Like they want like some kind of food that reminds them traditional.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Some of them are construction workers that just got off a brutal week. And then there's me who's like, worked at his cushy desk all day and drives his nice car to the drive thru.

[A]

Isn't that interesting? And like how many avatars are in this room?

[B]

Yeah. And it's just like so obvious. I like the, the funnier example is like the Taco Bell drive thru at midnight. It's like beat up Nissan Bentley and then an Uber eats driver behind him in a Toyota and it's like. Yeah, it's just. That's actually the best example.

[A]

100% Taco Bell Drive through at midnight.

[B]

You want to market to who?

[A]

I don't know that you'll be able to. You won't be able to like cover them all. There's too many. But there's a. There's a very finite amount of wins. So. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. It's midnight and they needed food.

[A]

Like, there you go.

[B]

That's the when. Like market to. To. To that which is like what. Which was their campaign for years was

[A]

like, open late, open late. Yeah. And they did great with it. I mean they crushed it. Yeah. This is so interesting. I want to continue talking about this though because there are, there are holes in my theory and I recognize them and I realize them. So before you call me out, there are holes in this theory. The holes that I can see currently is. Okay, what happens then when you market to the when and you want to put more money towards a specific type of person that just keeps coming in over and over. Right. Or what happens when we are only a women's skincare brand and we're not marketing towards men? What happens when we're tampon brand and the who is defined? There's holes. I get it. Like, this is why I'm trying to work through it. I still think the when is more important than almost anything else. And that comes down to your product and your category more than anything.

[B]

I think we've just built it on the wrong foundation.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like, which is why I think like you, you can't leave the who out completely because like your house needs shingles.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But shingles are not the foundation.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And that's where I think it's really important. And like, that's where I, I think, like, we did have gains at OG Marketing to men and women separately.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

But the core message and emotion and the core when stayed the same throughout all of it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We then just tailored individual at times, ads, campaigns, landing pages.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To the who. But again, like, it was minor changes. And if you like handcuffed me and said you can only market to one the when or the who, what are you going to choose? I'd mark it to the when.

[A]

Yep. When, When. When. When. When. Who is much harder to nail down. We have to stop this though, because now I'm like in a rabbit hole

[B]

and I'm like, market to win. First.

[A]

I don't think market the win.

[B]

Win first. Why? Second.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Third.

[A]

Yeah, who. Third. Yeah, when? Why? And who?

[B]

When. Why? Who?

[A]

There you go.

[B]

Sounds like a town. Dr. Seuss and the locals in When? Why who?

[A]

Not marketers.

[B]

That's doing something.

[A]

We saw marketing.

[B]

We fixed it. There you go, guys.

[A]

We fixed it. You're welcome.

[B]

That'll be the last episode we ever do. We fixed it. We solved marketing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

As always, this is all easier said than done. Good luck. Go work hard and try to do it better than the last time you did it. Thanks for listening to Brain Driven brand.

[A]

Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, I'm Sarah Levenger. Anywhere you consume content, he is natelagos. If you like this show and if you like this episode, go ahead and like, subscribe. Share with a friend. Drop us a review when you have a minute. We would appreciate it. Otherwise, have a great week. We'll see you next time.