Is Personalisation Personal?

Author: Danish Chan

There’s this awkward moment at a party. We all know this moment. A guy from across the room gives you a knowing smile and starts to walk towards you. You smile back, racking your brain for who this person could be. Have you met before? Maybe? It must have been years ago.

You start mentally listing names, hoping it triggers something. John, Peter, Paul, Ringo? You will realise you’re just listing apostles or maybe members of the Beatles. It doesn’t help.

Before you know it, he’s standing in front of you. And before you can do anything, he affectionately calls your name, hugs you and proceeds to ask you about your new job and even newer girlfriend. You spend the next 10 minutes asking vague questions like, “how’s work?” and “what’s new?”, hoping someone will come by and say hello using his name, releasing you from this social purgatory. That someone never arrives.

This is a true story.

And for most people, this is what it’s like on the receiving end of “brand personalisation”. More awkward than meaningful. More superficial than helpful.

In a 2015 study by Deloitte, three in four people said they receive too many emails from brands and as a result more than half are avoiding brands that contact them with poorly targeted communications. Less than one in five people reported receiving relevant information from brands whether that be supermarkets (20%), banks (13%) or technology brands (12%)[1].

In a different study by Forrester (2015), 66% of marketeers rated their efforts to personalize their communications as ‘very good’. In contrast, only 31% of customers felt the same way about the communications they received. A staggering 40% of people said they don’t receive anything of interest from brands. Put simply, brands are under delivering on the promise of personalisation.

The truth is, as marketeers we have more data and technology at our disposal, which means we know more about our customers than ever before. But, much like a stalker or awkward guy from a party, just knowing facts about a person doesn’t make it a relationship.

And it definitely doesn’t make it personal.

We party like it’s 1999.

In March 1999, smack centre of the dot.com boom, Seth Godin released his iconic book “Permission Marketing”. He observed that the most effective campaigns were those that asked people permission to engage. That permission marketing would leverage digital technology in ways traditional media never could. It would create a relationship between brand and customer that was reciprocal and personal. That marketeers could create communications that were relevant and most importantly wanted. This was the promise of mass personalisation.

The question is; 16 years on, have we improved on the concept Seth explored in his book or has technology just allowed us to remove the explicit permission we once valued so highly?

Personalisation, like many things today is a concept outpaced by technology. An umbrella approach that refers using a collection of data points about behaviours, users, profiles and situations to better target and tailor our messages. The concept of personalisation continues to evolve when businesses have access to new data points, new technology and promises of better ROIs. But are customers better off now than they were in 1999?

The ugly truth is that most strategies around personalisation begin with data and technology, and often neglect the most important consideration. Does it make things better for our customers? Does it improve the value equation? Does it create anticipation?

It sounds obvious, but personalisation at its best, is personal. And that means meaningful, helpful, generous, and reciprocal.

This isn’t about better data, smarter data, or rarer insights. This isn’t about better technology, or finding the balance between customer creepiness and customer intimacy. This is about leveraging the power of personalisation into something truly personal.

Three ways to make personalisation more personal.

1. Personalisation, an antidote to content overdose.

In 2013, digiday media looked at who was winning the content wars.

The New York Times had a global newsroom of 1,000 people and produced 350 stories a day. It garnered 17 million page views each day.

Forbes had 50 in its editorial team and more than 1000 contributors. In a day, Forbes would create 400 pieces of content and received approximately 4 million page views.

And there’s The Huffington Post. With 532 on staff at the time, they pumped out a dizzying 1,200 pieces of content and garnered 43 million page views every day.

Of course journalists are not alone in this content war. In 2015, 400 hours of video content was uploaded to YouTube every minute. This doesn’t even touch on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and advertising.

This is the foundation of the attention economy. The shift from a supply driven content market to a demand driven one, where attention is the currency. People happily leave sites with the understanding there are dozens of alternatives.

Forrester Consulting famously reported in 2009 that two seconds was the average time a shopper was willing to wait for a retail site to load, before abandoning their mission[2].

Brands have two options.

They can disrupt to attract attention. They can try to be more interesting, more entertaining or more topical. The challenge remains though; they are still competing against the likes of The Huffington Post.

The alternative is to leverage personalisation. To challenge the ever shrinking attention span with hyper-relevant content and context.

The right message, at the right time, in the right context, to the right person.

This is the approach behind Google, Netflix, Amazon and more recently FMCG brands like Coca Cola and Nutella.

What is Google if not the internet personalised? The world wide web brought to you based on location, time, past behavior and 55 other data points.

Take that one step further. Google Now is a service that connects previous search activity with a user’s current location, by sending out unprompted “why not buy now?” nudges when they are close to a purchase opportunity.

The Guardian has an attention data tool called Ophan to track rising stories and to help journalists, editors and developers understand in real-time where the audience is and what they are interested in reading about. It’s equally scary and wondrous. Data changes the course of journalism and dictates the content created by a business designed to lead the conversation.

Another interesting example is Tesco’s facial recognition technology. A collection of video screens at their checkouts which can identify your age and gender and consequently feed you the most relevant advertising.

In each of these examples, personalisation is seamless and customers don’t have to do anything.

These examples leverage personalisation to not only cut through the clutter, but avoid it all together. According to Deloitte, well-executed personalisation based on content and context can deliver five to eight times the return on investment on marketing spend and lift sales 10% or more.

2. Personalisation as branded service

Like most people, I have become blasé about the conveniences of today. I don’t think twice as I sit in the back of “my” Uber, streaming Dexter on my mobile, as I go home to a waiting box of wine I ordered yesterday.

Expectations have become so high, that personalisation could easily go unnoticed. The challenge is to leverage personalisation in such a way it’s not disruptive, yet still has the power to surprise and delight customers.

In short, think of personalisation as a form of customer service. They both form the foundation of stronger relationships by forming 1-to-1 experiences between brand and customer.

Research tells us that experience is everything. In a recent Eye on Australia study (2016), customer experience was found to be the second most powerful driver of purchase, surpassed only by word of mouth[3].

Also quite compelling is that more than 40% of customers are willing to forgive mistakes made by brands if they feel the brand knows them personally[4].

So instead of thinking of personalisation as a form of targeting, think about it as customer service. Let’s borrow its key elements to make personalisation more personal.

Respect — Use our data to make our customers feel important, appreciated, and treat them as individuals.

Understanding — Identify and anticipate our customer’s needs. It’s always useful to remember that people don’t buy products as much as they need solutions. And the better the solution to their problem, the more satisfied they are.

Always Listen — Always listen to what people are saying and aren’t saying. Read between the lines offline and online.

Respond Positively –Every point of contact, across every channel, on any device is an opportunity to build that sought after 1-to-1 relationship.

Today’s technology and personalisation allows us to take customers by the hand and guide them on their unique customer journey, navigating a myriad of options and distractions. Now that’s service.

It might sound counter intuitive, but one of the biggest opportunities to transform personalisation into something more personal is by connecting the digital and physical worlds.

Imagine for a second your local bakery, the place that knows you love apple Danishes. They text you to let you know that a fresh batch will be out of the oven in 15 minutes. Why 15 minutes? Because they also know that’s how long it will take you to get from home to the shop at 3pm on a Tuesday.

Now that’s personal and that’s service.

3. Personalisation and emotion

If emotional marketing hinges on our brain’s ability to make compelling, lasting and deep associations, would creating more personalised journeys leading up to and out of those experiences make a difference?[5]

The answer must be yes.

Content that pulls at the heart strings is more easily processed and more influential in decision making. In fact, emotions influence 80% of our purchase decisions, versus just 20% from the rational, intellectual end[6].

But what is truly promising is that emotion and personalisation play to the same brain triggers.

In an ideal world, personalisation should have emotion inextricably embedded in its DNA. It’s this intersection between emotional messages that shift behaviour and personalisation which finds the right time, place and message to maximise the impact.

Imagine the power of P&G’s iconic “sponsors of moms” campaign amplified and extended by the power of personalisation. Supportive 6am messages to mothers waking up to take their daughters to practice.

Imagine if brands could tap into the real joy and panic of becoming a parent for the first time or heighten the moments of anticipation as people line up to watch the latest blockbuster movie. Right time, right place, right feeling.

Unfortunately, more often than not, we start with data and technology when thinking personalisation, and emotion takes a back seat. Instead emotion should be the third piece to complete the puzzle.

In conclusion…

Personalisation is effective. Personalisation that’s personal is undeniable.

It becomes more than just a targeting tool. It becomes a way of creating 1-to-1 relationships with customers en masse.

Next time you think about personalisation, think about its true potential.

Its potential to liberate people from the onslaught of content and deliver information people actually want to spend time with.

The ability to listen, respect, anticipate and solve the problems of people anywhere, anytime.

The potential to tap into the emotion of context, not just the setting.

I said it before, but it’s worth repeating.

Personalisation at its best, is personal. And that means meaningful, helpful, generous, and reciprocal.

This essay first appeared on Warc, Admap Prize 2016

[1] The Deloitte Consumer Review — Made to Order — The rise of mass personalisation.

[2] Akamai & Forrester Research (2009)

[3] Eye On Australia — Helping Australians fall back in love with brands (2016)

[4] Verint Study in Data Privacy (2016)

[5] Getting Even More Personal: The Power of Personalisation and Emotional Marketing (2015)

[6] Anderson, Jamie. The Power of Emotional Decision Marketing (2015)