Designing your persona

Why the persona comes first

Before you make a single image, decide who your character is. Every later step comes from this decision: your prompts, your captions, how you reply to comments, and which campaigns fit. A clear persona is also what makes people recognise her from one post to the next.

By the end of this lesson you'll have a persona card: a one-page description you keep open every time you create.

The look

Make her clearly an adult. For this business, this matters more than almost any other choice.

• UK advertising rules say gambling ads must not strongly appeal to under-18s, and warn against cartoon or fairy-tale imagery (ASA (opens in a new tab)).
• Ontario, Canada bans online-gambling ads that use cartoon figures or social media influencers likely to appeal to minors (AGCO (opens in a new tab)).
• A bill passed by Brazil's Senate would ban animated characters, mascots and drawings from betting ads. Its current status is unconfirmed (NEXT.io (opens in a new tab)).

The safe choice is a realistic or softly stylised adult, not a cartoon, anime or childlike look.

Pick three to five signature details. These are the features you repeat in every image so she's instantly recognisable: hair colour and length, eye colour, a recurring accessory, a colour palette for her outfits. Write them down in exact words. They become the ingredients of every prompt.

Flirty lives in tone, not skin. Almost every AI tool bans sexually explicit output. Midjourney is SFW-only (Midjourney (opens in a new tab)), Runway restricts lingerie (Runway (opens in a new tab)), and Captions bans "suggestive" inputs (Mirage (opens in a new tab)). Keep the flirtation in confidence, humour and styling.

Keep her original. Don't base her face or voice on a real person. OpenAI bans using someone's photorealistic image or voice without their consent in ways that could confuse people (OpenAI (opens in a new tab)). TikTok bans using a private person's likeness without consent (TikTok (opens in a new tab)).

The name

A good persona name is:

• easy to say, spell and search for
• available as a handle on every platform you plan to use
• not the name of a real celebrity or an existing brand
• a fit for her personality

Check the name everywhere before you commit. It's frustrating to build on one platform and then find the handle taken on another.

The personality

Give her three core traits and a few voice rules. For Alexis: playful, confident, kind. She teases but never mocks. She writes in short sentences with the odd bit of slang. She's warm with fans and never pushy.

Then write down how she'd handle common moments:

• a compliment
• a rude comment
• someone asking "are you real?"

For that last one, Alexis's answer is simple: she's openly AI, and happy to talk about how she's made.

The niche

Your niche is the topic your content keeps coming back to. It decides who follows you, and that decides which campaigns fit.

Why lifestyle and gaming niches fit. Casino and sportsbook campaigns suit audiences who already treat nights out, sport and games as entertainment.

• Lifestyle content (city nights, travel, style, match-day moments) gives you natural, everyday things to post.
• Gaming content builds communities who like to chat and play together.

The catch: audience age. Some of these audiences, especially in gaming, can include a lot of teenagers. In the UK, age-restricted ads, including gambling, must not appear where under-18s make up more than 25% of the audience (ASA (opens in a new tab)). UK guidance also says a personality with at least 100,000 under-18 followers across all platforms is likely to count as strongly appealing to children (ASA (opens in a new tab)).

So choose adult angles within your niche, like watching sport, city nightlife and travel. Once you have followers, check your audience age stats regularly.

Alexis's persona card (illustrative)

Your "never" list

Every persona needs lines she won't cross. Alexis's list:

• No explicit or sexualised content.
• Never claims to be a real person.
• Never promises wins or presents gambling as a way to make money.
• No content aimed at under-18s.
• No gambling promotion on platforms or in countries where it isn't allowed.

Add your own. Later, when you're unsure about a post, this list decides for you.

Next lesson: turning your persona card into images that look like the same person every time.