Mass Product Customization Campaigns
Heard about NikeID or Share a Coke? Do something similar for your brand.
Customization Campaign Examples
You might be familiar with the most famous mass customization campaign in the world, ‘Share a Coke‘. This campaign has been running for over 9 years since it first launched in Australia, 2011.
This campaign allows customers to purchase a bottle of Coke with their name on it. The stellar sales results speak for themselves.
But, this technology isn’t just used by large global brands. Smaller brands like a niche, a local chocolate company in Melbourne, used our personalized product packaging technology to customize every gift order during popular gifting days throughout the year. This galvanized their customer base and led to additional publicity as well as higher-margin sales.
Why haven’t you tried a personalization campaign? We’ve made it easy.
The Benefits
If you ask 10 customers, which would they prefer – a product that is able to be customized to their own requirements or not? Invariably, the answer will be that the customer will always prefer to have something that’s been made for them.
So the question has never been about whether personalization is something that people want – everybody wants personalization. They are prepared to pay more for a personalized product (~40% extra) and they’re prepared to wait longer to receive it. This provides a golden opportunity for businesses that are serious about innovation.
The problem has always been execution because business operations have historically been designed around product standardization, not personalization.
Why Customization Campaigns work
By enabling customers to be involved and feel like the product is their own, they invariably end up becoming more attached to the purchase. This leads to:
- Increased sales volume
- Increased sales revenue and margins (people will pay a premium)
- Opportunity for increased publicity and social media vitality
- Superior brand experience – deeper connections with the brand leading to increased buyer advocacy
- Projection of technical superiority for the brand within the category – modern but personable
Personalization or Customization?
What’s the difference between personalization and customization? Are they the same thing?
They are two terms that are thrown around together as if they’re the same thing, but they’re very, very different. The easiest way to explain the difference is the level of work that goes into personalization is a lot higher than the customization process.
With personalization, the customer is actually asking to add their own content. So that could be typing a message, adding an image, choosing from illustrations, or positioning something in a particular area, specific colors, etc.
Customization is about choosing from pre-selected inventory-based options.
Campaign Playbook
Successful product customization campaigns don’t just simply list a new product on an eCommerce website and expect sales to automatically follow. Successful Campaigns:
- Ensure the customization has a reason behind it – it answers, ‘why customized?’
- Creates a competition around the best-customized designs
- Spurs virality and sharing of these customized products among friends and family
- Supports the campaign with significant, multi-channel promotional marketing
- Sells the product directly to the customer via a DTC website
- Integrates the new production process into their fulfillment operations
A Word From Our Founder
“What we’ve created is an entirely new marketing channel and brands probably aren’t aware of how lucrative it is. Without getting too much into it, because some of it’s still pretty sensitive, someone that’s partnered with us is going to be at the forefront of what personalization and customization can do. Brands have started to realize that their packaging should more be classed as a communications piece rather than a branding exercise.
Packing is a bit of a lost opportunity. You always think of packaging as something that is standardized, so when we say that you can personalize it at scale, the lost opportunity sinks in. It’s a communications piece too. The best example of why packaging is so important is Apple. I’ve still got the boxes my iPhone four came in and that’s standardized. We can automate a scalable personalized unboxing experience. We are doing it at the moment with a customer I can’t say just yet who, but you know, that’s pretty cutting edge. Taking this to the next level, we have got augmented reality which can be layered on top. We launched the first-ever commercially sized, personalized augmented reality campaign in December last year. There are a few companies who are doing AR where you hover your camera over the packaging and an animation plays in AR, but none are doing personalized dynamic AR. Offering the same AR experience to everyone is one thing, modifying it per person, is another thing entirely.”