We all love a bit of personalisation

Comedian Robin Grainger was feeling deflated, but not undeterred, when he found out he’d only sold one ticket to his Edinburgh fringe show. 

Instead of giving up, he gave it his all, tailoring his hour-long routine to the one person watching – Mike Cass, a radio director from Leicester. 

Cass loved the show so much that he tweeted his support and when the story went viral, ticket sales soared. Now it’s almost sold out its run and Grainger has become an overnight success.

What does this tell us? That we all love a bit of personalisation.

Take the success Coca Cola’s Share a Coke campaign of 2014 when we all went nuts for cans with our names on. 

Something others are still copying now:

Coca-Cola says the reason the campaign was so successful was because it communicated directly with its consumers.

We like to feel special. 

But can it go too far? There’s a fine line between getting a ‘Hi Faith’ email and ‘Hi Faith, how was the cheese and pickle sandwich you ate at 1pm?’

Take for example, a new type of New York cab that shows adverts that change depending on the car’s location.

Lyft’s halo cars’ ‘hyper-personalised’ LED screens show ads that are calibrated to the neighbourhood, the weather and even consumer profiles in the area (age, income etc) in order to target people in an extreme way.

It’s very Minority Report, and a far cry from being shown the same old ad every single week for years on end no matter who you are - for example the ones you see in the back of the Sunday supplements for beige slacks that seem to have been there since the dawn of man. 

So is hyper-personalisation effective or too creepy? 

The former it seems. Halo's engagement stats are impressive, and cab drivers benefit too - using the screens has led to higher ratings and tips. 

So don’t be afraid to personalise your marketing communications even more than you are already – clients love it, and the FCA will too…

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