Re: ONLINE ADS>> Is personalization really personal?

From: Tim Lee <TLee_at_webcmo.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 16:11:23 -0500 (CDT)

LEO SHEINER WROTE:
>This has to be one of your favourite topics and I follow
>your endless stream of messages on the topic in many lists.
>I have finally caught up on reading all my back copies of
>discussion lists.

Thanks! I am glad there are people there reading my posts
from different lists.

As a matter of fact, I remember it was one of your posts
about one to one branding that made me get involved in this
one to one marketing discussion. I believe I am one of very
few people (if not the only) in this world who tries to
point out the problems of one to one marketing theory.
Recently I used examples from Peppers and Rogers' web site
to illustrate how poor their success stories are in
supporting one to one marketing theory.
http://www.webcmo.com/ebook/1to1/


LEO SHEINER CONTINUED:

>You have never understood one to one marketing because you
>insisted on treating it as a targeting mechanism and looking
>at it from the vantage of conventional and outdated
>statistical marketing models. Now you have finally made the
>leap that one to one marketing is about the users experience
>when interacting with the seller.


I am afraid that the problem is you could not understand
what I have been saying. One to one marketing theory is
based on the assumption that each customer has different
needs therefore you should treat each customer differently.
(If you don't understand this point, you don't understand
one to one marketing theory.) I don't know why you think
that I " insisted on treating it as a targeting mechanism
and looking at it from the vantage of conventional and
outdated statistical marketing models".

By the way, would you please tell me which statistical
marketing models are OUTDATED and WHY?

I have noticed at the very beginning that one to one
marketing is about the user experiences. Here are the
description from Peppers and Rogers' one of their
highlighted success stories of one to one marketing:

"So, you're a frequent flyer. A very frequent flyer. You
travel one airline at least 10 maybe 12 times a month. You
always request the same onboard magazines, a vegetarian
meal, and you order the same drink."

Do you believe anyone will want the same food, drink and
magazine 12 times a month? But it is the necessary condition
for one to one marketing mechanism.

It seems one to one marketing theory can easily drives
people to think 'beyond' common sense.

LEO SHEINER ADDED:
>Why do you think Amazon (whom you mention as your example)
>has fought off the big latecomer Barnes and Noble?
>It is because of one to one marketing.

It is so obvious that the GREATEST competitive advantage of
Amazon is its early appearance on the Internet. If it is
because of one to one marketing, Barnesandnoble is easy to
imitate this strategy and close the gap. But we won't see
such thing happening in the near future.

LEO SHEINER THEN WROTE:
>Amazon are NOT assuming that you will buy the same books.
>They are not advertising. They are providing a useful
>service.

Leo, I don't think you have read my post carefully. I was
discussing Amazon's book recommendation system. When it
recommends a book to you, what does it assume? If it does
not assume you are likely to buy the book, why on the earth
does it recommend it to you?

LEO SHEINER CONCLUDED:

>Service is a key strategy for building community. Service is
>about anticipating what my needs might be, and that is what
>the web is all about. Pretty simple really, it doesn't take
>any statistical model to figure it all out either.

One to one marketing is about treating each customer
differently. But my argument is we don't need to treat each
customer differently but to TREAT EACH CUSTOMER AS A
CUSTOMER. Your experience with Amazon just proves my
statement. "Anticipating" never means treating customers one
to one.

But "anticipating" is not that simple. If you knew marketing
research techniques, you would easily segment your customers
into different groups based on their needs and treat them at
the segment level. That is really much simpler than you
treat customers one to one.

One more advise: please don't criticize statistics when you
have little knowledge about it.

Regards,

Tim Lee
Editor -- Journal of Web Marketing Research
http://www.WebCMO.com
Innovations in web marketing research & strategies
Participate in "Web Design Strategy" survey to receive FREE report
http://www.webcmo.com/mis/survey.htm

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Received on Fri Jul 30 1999 - 18:45:34 CDT