Three ways to describe an audience
A segment groups people by measurable traits: age, income, region, purchase history. It tells you who is there and how many.
A persona turns a segment into one imagined person with a name, a job and a set of needs. It is easy to design for, and it gives you one answer to every question.
A tribe groups people by what they share: a passion, values, places, words and rituals. Its members can differ in age and income and still belong together.
Why the difference matters
Runners are defined by running, not by age. Craft beer enthusiasts span students and pensioners. When a market is held together by shared meaning, demographic cuts split the people who act together and lump together people who do not.
A persona also hides disagreement. Ask a persona whether a brand should change its packaging and you get one opinion. Ask a tribe and you see that the explorer welcomes it, the knowledgeable enthusiast objects and the local patriot cares about something else entirely.
When to use which
Use segments to size a market and plan media. Use personas to keep a design team aligned. Use a tribe when the question is how a culture will receive something: a campaign, a product change, a new place to meet.
On The Tribal Map, a tribe is described through its values and meaning, the artefacts, spaces, influencers, stories, language and experiences around them, and the tensions between its perspectives.