When does personalization increase the perceived value of a product or service? What's the advantage to the customer of being able to personalize the products and services you offer? What is it worth to them? What is it worth to you to offer that service?
We've been tracking both personalization—personalizing the experience you have online, including the information you see and the offers you receive—and smart customization—the design of easy-to-customize and personalize products and services—for some time. A personalized product is really a customized product—it's a product you can design or customize for yourself or for someone else.
Customized/personalized products are usually worth more to customers because they put a lot of themselves into the creation of the product. It's a product that expresses a good deal about its creator. Sometimes a customized product is more valuable because it has the precise configuration that somebody feels they need (e.g., special shoe size, particular pockets in a purse or backpack, custom logo, etc.).
Like sneakers, custom-designed and printed T-shirts are a huge category in mass-customized products. Spreadshirt is one of the most mature companies in this space. It was founded in Leipzig in 2002 by Lukasz Gadowski and Matthias Spiess, and quickly became a European market leader in personalized clothing. The original idea wasn't a direct-to-consumer play, but an online shop partner that would empower small retailers to create and sell their own branded goods. With the combination of a well-designed Web infrastructure and custom manufacturing expertise, the firm grew from a prototype to a multimillion Euro global company.
CNN partnered with Spreadshirt to enable customers to make T-Shirts out of CNN headlines.
Jana Eggers is now the CEO of this company, which has offices in Leipzig and Boston. "We're a creative, personalized apparel company. We have millions of direct customers and over 300,000 shop partners."
Jana told the story of the refocusing of Spreadshirt. "About a year ago, we refocused. We were producing a lot of custom merchandise: puzzles, clocks, lanyards, mugs, and, of course shirts. We went through a transition from "you think it, we'll print it" to a laser focus on making it about them—the customers and the products that carry the most emotional impact for them."
They did a lot of soul searching and research. "We asked our employees first; then we went to our customers." They asked customers: "What made it "your own label?" Jana explained. What they discovered is that wearable apparel packed a lot more impact than any other customizable object. And that telling a story or making a statement about yourself is the key emotional driver. Jana said that the phrase that really summed up the customer research for her was: "I wear my shirt every time it's clean." This was the big epiphany. "Shirts are very personal to them. People comment on them. They wear them proudly. We also learned that the process of creation is a really important part of the perceived value of the experience. Many customers commented that they wanted to spend more time in creating their customized shirts; not less."
Dan Michael, the R&D Director of Mars Direct, told "the story of how and why a personalized chocolate business was started and grown within a mass market snack food company." He briefly described the evolution of Mars Direct which currently sells, manufactures, and delivers personalized M&Ms and Dove Chocolates. "We're not a candy company; we're a personalized expressions company," Dan emphasized. "We make special moments more magical. The giver makes meaningful moments more magical through personalization." Personalized M&Ms are used at birthdays, weddings, company bashes and sporting events. "My Dove" chocolate bars, with specially printed messages on the foil wrap, have been used to propose marriage as well as to celebrate events.
For each order, you select from among 22 colors and create the verbiage you'd like. Add imagery, including photos.
My M&Ms. I have personal experience with My M&Ms®. I've ordered them for my grandkids' birthdays. They're always a big hit. I learned about them from an online ad at myrecipes.com. It's quick and easy to go to the mymms.com site and use the online tools to select your colors, type in your message(s), and select your packaging. As of June, 2008, you can also upload an image or a logo and have it printed (in black) on a colored M&M.
One of the things the My M&M team has learned is that customers not only want to personalize their candy to tell a story or to commemorate an event. They also want to customize the packaging they select. Depending on the event, customers may choose to have the personalized candy delivered in bulk (so they can pour it into bowls), or wrapped in cellophane bags, or delivered in boxes or tins. Dan reports that the most popular options are currently the 7 ounce cellophane wrapped bundles and the bulk delivery.
My Dove. The customization of M&Ms packaging gave the Mars Direct team the idea to use custom packaging as the personalization mechanism for other snacks—ones that don't lend themselves to printing on the candy. The personalized expressions that customers create for My Dove candy bars are printed on the foil paper used to wrap the candy.
When you visit the Mydovechocolate.com site, you'll discover a wealth of seductive personalization and customization options. You can select the type font, create multiple messages, and select the color of foil wrapping. You can select among a wide variety of gift boxes, with different types of chocolates and different packaging options, e.g., ribbon colors, and so on.