Making It Personal

Citation

McMellon, C.A. (2003), "Making It Personal", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 20 No. 6, pp. 591-593. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760310499165

Marketers face a new and daunting challenge. The more personal information they collect on individuals, the more personalized their efforts can be to meet the individuals’ needs. At the same time, these same individuals are concerned about invasion of privacy, which restricts their willingness to part with personal information. Thus, the challenge marketers face is how to overcome these privacy fears so that both the individual and the marketer can benefit.

Bruce Kasanoff, the author of Making It Personal, defines personalization as using technology to treat customers, employees, suppliers, and partners as individuals. This entails knowing who they are, what they want, and interacting with them in a manner that leads to both satisfaction and profits. This book argues that personalization, which is a key tool in relationship building, is an important development in marketing. This is because personalization can make an individual’s life easier, such as allowing quick access to Web sites, and it can fulfill their needs, like when Amazon.com recommends new books of interests to customers. Personalization accomplishes this while helping marketers increase profits.

Kasanoff begins this easy‐to‐read paperback with the argument that if personalization is executed correctly it is a win‐win situation. For marketers this means reduced costs, increased revenues, and stronger customer or employee loyalty. For customers, it means time and money savings and more and better information. For employees, it means promotions and pay raises. What this book does is to put the issues on the table in a straightforward manner and discuss them from an intelligent and practical point‐of‐view. Marketers should read this book to give them direction for their information technology policies and to make sure they stay competitive.

Chapter 1 covers the basics. For example, it points out that consumers have the right to control information about themselves and that the relationship is consistently evolving. Kasanoff helps the reader formulate the key questions to create a level of trust, which motivates individuals to give information. The author discusses many real‐life examples with the mantra of: “Never make a customer tell us the same thing twice.” One interesting aspect of this book is that the author intersperses the discussion with fictionalized episodes to reinforce and explain specific points. In addition, at the end of many chapters is a “thought exercise” that will help managers think through the possibilities.

In Chapter 2, the focus is on employee’s and customer’s fear of privacy. The chapter also covers potential regulation. For employees, knowledge accumulation can also help when you know where the experts are but:

Here’s the trade‐off. To get significant value, you have to share information about yourself. The more information you reveal, the more likely the system will be able to tailor its services to your needs. You can chose to be discrete, but doing so may put you at a distinct disadvantage as systems such as these proliferate and your peers – and your competitors – start to use them (p. 50).

For customers, the fear of invasion of privacy is not so much from the firms who gather information but if they sell that information. Marketers tend to gather all the information they can on their customers to better serve them and to sell them more product. Kasanoff suggests that firms should become more customer oriented and less product oriented because as customers learn more about what information is gathered they will become more concerned.

In Chapter 3 the author takes the questionable position that firms should be aggressive in developing protocols that anticipate new laws. To support his position, the author uses the:

…“what if” technique to point out the possible extremes to which technology may go. For example, when face identification technology was used in the 2001 Superbowl the author writes, “But what if this same technology was used to identify every person who: drank excessively, shouted obscenities, moved to a better seat and, littered” (p. 71).

The author uses this technique to bolster the possibility of consumer fears and the subsequent enactment of new laws. Importantly, this legislation might stifle flexibility in the firm, force competitive secrets into the public domain, and not be compliable because of cost or available technology.

The last part of this chapter is devoted to another what if: “what if opt‐in becomes the law”. Opt‐in will be the law in Canada in 2004 and the author feels it will be in the USA soon. So the author argues, it is better to do it now and try to build a relationship with your customers.

Chapter 4 examines why firms should focus on the needs of the individual with personalization, not just on the needs of the firm. The history of personalization is discussed through interviews with leading practitioners. In addition, the positive and negative aspects of personalization are discussed. One positive example is collaborative filtering, which is the type of software used by Amazon.com that recommends new books to users based on past purchases.

In Chapter 5, based on Maslow, the author presents a “personalization ladder” to show the firm where they are and where they should go with their personalization process. Real life examples are used such as Ann Taylor, Stop & Shop, and others. To make this chapter practical, the author offers “Eleven ways to make it personal”. This is the payoff of the book – after making his case for personalization – he pays off with eleven practical steps such as merging or sorting information and incorporating a trigger action when appropriate. The “thought exercise” for this chapter asks the manager to rank their firm on a corporate needs ladder. Then the manager is asked a series of probing questions to evaluate and direct present and future personalization at the firm.

Chapter 6 covers the unintended consequences caused by the complexity and rapid technological changes in personalization and privacy legislation. For example, complex systems tend to fail more than simple systems. The author asks some important questions such as, “Are firms prepared for the increased costs to maintain personalization?” There are other examples in this chapter including security, trust, cost, and behavior. To avoid these unintended consequences, firms need to be watchful and set boundaries.

Chapter 7 is the author’s “how to” discussion. Here, principles are stated and methods to achieve them discussed. For example, to deal with the problem of not being able to reach the ideal, the author suggests two practical changes a firm could take with employee compensation and privacy that could easily be applied. This points out a weakness in this book because it jumps back and forth from customer to employee situations, which can be a bit confusing.

Chapter 8 looks to the future of personalization such as personalization controlled by the individual. In the final “thought exercise,” author Kasanoff asks:

Armed with your own experience and the ideas collected here, what could you do today to better balance personalization, privacy, and profits? Success in this area provides a rare opportunity for motivated people like you to enjoy personal rewards while simultaneously helping many others around you. All it takes is initiative.