RE: ONLINE ADS>> Is personalization really personal?

From: Ken Cooper <kcooper_at_redshift.bc.ca>
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 14:42:08 -0500 (CDT)

When I read Tim Lee's most recent postings, an old Japanese
saying floated to the surface of my mind, that I'm sure
most of you have heard some variation of. It goes like
this:

"When a man only owns a hammer, he seems to see every
problem as a..."

TIM LEE WROTE:
>I hope next time before anybody writes or publishes an
>article about personalization, implements or helps other
>implement personalization, he/she needs to understand what
>personalization really means.

If one look beyond the atrocious syntax in the above
paragraph, I'm sure I can help Mr. Lee understand from
whence his confusion arose.

"Personalization" is a word that can be found it literature
since around the 1880's. Up until just about 10 years ago
it was most often used within the lexicon the Social
Sciences; psychotherapy to be more specific. It was used
most effectively in its negative form, (as in,
'depersonalization') to describe the phenomenon of an
individuals' feelings of a lack of uniqueness/individuality
within the world. Peppers and Rodgers borrowed the word
"Personalization" from the Socials Sciences as a way to
describe what is needed in marketing in order to retain
loyalty from valued customers.

Peppers and Rodgers second book "The One to One Enterprise"
takes their original concept of one to one marketing, and
introduces their readers to the idea of using technological
tools to help businesses create one to one relationships
with their best customers. Next, the media jumped on the
One to One story and started to run with it, and then
technology companies' P.R. and advertising people realized
that using the word "Personalization" in their copy was the
easiest way to describe their (primarily database)
products.

I'm sure these technology companies' are not kidding
themselves by believing that they are really becoming
PERSONAL, in the truest sense of the word, with any of
their customers. I'm sure that they realize that what many
of their products amount to is, a database with VERY
sophisticated correlation features. It's a databases Tim!
Don't get sucked in by the P.R. hype and overuse of the
word "personalization." P.R. people are famous for taking
words out of there original context and bastardizing them.
Think of how they have make impotent the word "quality.'

Perhaps Mr. Lee wasn't sucked in by the P.R. hype? Perhaps
he was just banging the same old bent nail that he has been
banging for what seems like a year now. The old "anti-One
to One, come to my web site to find out the truth" message.
Me thinks he thinks it will drum up some business for
himself! He was banned from spreading his anti-One to One
message on the I-Advertising list because he was told that
it was not really germane to internet advertising. Perhaps
Mr.Lee is taking advantage of the fact that this list has a
new moderator?

He goes on and on to say:
>Personalization is really not personal. It is a typical
>segmentation solution.

Well yes Mr. Lee, 'Personalization,' as it is used in your
examples lately (Amazon.com this week and some airline a
couple of weeks ago) is not really personal at all. But it
certainly is not a 'TYPICAL segmentation solution' The
technology solutions being used today are not
representative of any type of segmentation solutions ever
conceived of before. It's all brand new, brought about by
the increased sophistication and power of computers and the
catalyst of thinkers like Peppers and Rodgers.

The companies that Peppers and Rodgers highlight in their
weekly newsletter are usually companies that are testing
NEW one to one tools, that can help them to segment, slice,
dice and wrap their customers. Some tools work better than
other, but I'm sure that Peppers and Rodgers would agree
that one of the best ways to infuse the One to One concept
into a company database, is to leave a few blank fields to
be filled in with actual PERSONAL information.

So what Mr. Lee describes as: "excellent example to
illustrate why one to one marketing doesn't work." doesn't
really illustrate anything at all about one to one
marketing. What it illustrates most clearly is that Mr. Lee
seems STILL to only have a hammer in his tool box.

Ken Cooper
kcooper_at_redshift.bc.ca

P.S. No I'm still not working for the Peppers and Rodgers
Group

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Received on Mon Aug 02 1999 - 17:08:47 CDT