Six consumer profile illustrations were requested by a CPG client for one of their developing brands.
A consumer profile is a description of a set of customers based on characteristics which they have in common. This includes things like shopping habits, interests, values, and demographic characteristics - such as age. The aim is to divide the customers into usefully distinct cohorts for marketing, market research, product development, etc.
The goal of these illustrations was to represent those cohorts visually.
Each of the 6 "Umbrella Ladies" represented the key qualities of their respective consumer group: activity level, general age-range, and product interaction. They also indicated the kinds of obstacles they each must face, and how they overcome them (or don’t).
This was an atypical project. Often, stock images are used because these profiles are only used internally. However, in this case the specificity of the different profiles and the product involved motivated custom illustrations to be made.
Because they needed to be flexible in their application, a strong but simple style was used with a heavy outline and limited color palette. The background elements – the size of cloud, amount or rain, etc. were of secondary importance, but still mnemonically important.