8 years ago at a friends wedding I was handed a pack of M&M’s, in which every single one had been personalised with the bride and grooms name. At the time I thought a great piece of personalisation to mark such an occasion.
Since then personalisation has moved on leaps and bounds but the one constant throughout was that the consumer always added the personalisation, whether that be personalising a holiday, a night out or a wardrobe full of clothes. I myself was part of a team that
produced 10,000 Chalices for Stella Artois, each engraved with a personal message chosen by the winner.
Then Coca-Cola completely flipped the game, taking this to a whole new level by mass marketing the personal element for you with their ‘Share’ campaign. You no longer needed to think of what personal message you would add to your loved one, they had already done it for you! Saturating the market with bottles for Andrew, Abby, Mum, Dad and even saucy message for them secret crushes with Gorgeous and Beautiful. The campaign was an instant hit, a great idea, brilliantly executed!
Since then a lot of brands have joined the craze, most with great success. North of the border, Irn Bru cheekily producing limited edition ‘Fanny’ bottles, Kellogg’s have a personalised spoon and Jaffa cakes have just produced special ‘Dad’ packs for Father’s Day.
No doubt the rest of 2015 and 2016 will see more personalisation but there is an increasing sense that the more mass personalisation is used the less personal it seems.
The real challenge for brands and agencies is how personalisation is evolved, how can we innovate and develop the trend to make it different, stand out, must have? Instagram Live Printing is one feature that is starting to increase that personal touch at brand experiences.
One thing that’s for sure personalisation is here to stay and as long as consumers keep buying into it, it will only increase with brands continually looking for a way to add personal touches to consumer’s lives.
What you think the next big personalisation craze will be?