Growing up, I loved Peanuts, the cartoon.

And I still love Peanuts. And I think the world loves Peanuts, too, because the characters are so relatable, the stories so familiar.

It’s not hard to see ourselves in those kids. It’s not hard to see ourselves in their happy times, their painful times, their self-conscious moments. Peanuts, really, is a collection of vignettes about the human condition, the human experience.

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And what’s interesting is it’s all based on only one person’s experience:

Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts.

We know this because he said so:

"This whole business of Charlie Brown,” said Schulz, “these are memories of my own miserable days. I think Charlie Brown is just a little bit of what all of us have inside of us,” he said. “Mainly me. Mainly, I’m Charlie Brown.”

Charles Schulz is Charlie Brown.

But in a way, he’s also like the other characters. This is made clear in Who Are You, Charlie Brown? — the excellent documentary about Schulz's life and career: 

The wishy-washy part of him belongs to Charlie, yes. But the philosophical part of him belongs to Linus. And the sarcastic part belongs to Lucy. And the dreamer, of course, is Snoopy.

And this speaks to a broader, more important point: what genuinely resonates with audiences — whether it’s in entertainment or in advertising — the things people truly, deeply connect with come from a singular point of view, one person’s point of view.

Because when you speak from your own experience — your own perspective, your own truth and vulnerability — what you are doing is opening the door for others to understand you and relate to you.

And the majority of the time, they will understand you, and they will relate to you. Because we all share the human condition. We’ve all felt the same core feelings and emotions. We’ve all had the proverbial football pulled out from under us, so we’ve all felt Charlie Brown’s pain after he whiffs and lands on his head.

This truth is why I don't worry about AI. But I digress.  

Another example of one person's point of view finding an audience:

VeryGoodCopy, my blog and newsletter, where I so often use my own life — my family, my experiences; my joys, my sad moments — to frame and explain concepts about copywriting and creativity.

I started doing this because it’s what I knew. I found it easier to weave technical concepts into stories about my life and my people. But over the years, I realized Readers connect with my work because they see themselves in it. They don’t see me. They don’t see my experiences, my family, my life. Not really, no. They see their partners and their children and their circumstances in the personal things I share.

People can’t help it.

We see ourselves in others because we’re all the same. We are. 

So knowing this, how can a "persona" — an amalgamation of characteristics — be your North Star when writing an ad? It should not be. It's not real. Marketing great, Sean D'Souza, said it best: “A persona is a Frankenstein,” he said.

So I don’t lean on personas to create ads, especially not landing pages. Instead, I build around one person — sans "a" — one individual. And this person’s singular point of view becomes my "source of truth" as it were.

Let me show you how.

It's just one of the many things I teach inside: