Oct
6
Kicking Mass Customisation into Overdrive.
Posted by: marvinamm | October 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment
On this post on Canadianmarketingblog.com the author talks about How CocaCola has brought Mass Customisation to a new level. New Veding machines that have been put up in the US allow the customers to blend an individual mix of all the CocaCola brands to their own taste. It is said that this allows for over 3500 different beverage combinations. I found this article last week when I was preparing for my first marked blog entry but have decided against this topic in favour of the post about Carsharing (don”t know what I am talking about? Click here.) but now seems the perfect time to talk about this topic. Not only because we have been discussing the topic of targeting and thus also mass customisation in class today but also because I myself have some ambitions to set up a business that is quite heavily focused around the idea of Mass Customisation (for more details send me an email or leave a comment).
So why is Mass Customisation so important? Well… To have a successful marketing mix one should position his/her product in a way that fits the target segment as closely as possible. This leads to billions of dollars being spent on marketing research to find out what the customer wants and trying to anticipate or make an educated guess as to how the customer would react to the given product. But there is a much more effective and efficient way: Enter Mass Customisation. If you want your product to fit your customer why not just ask them directly what they want or better still give them the tools so that they can create their personalised products that best meet their individual demands.
And there are even more advantages to mass customisation. As the customer gets exactly the product he/she wants he/she is is very likely to be satisfied with the product. By making each product slightly personal customers meet their need for uniqueness as there are few things that are worse than turning up to a party in the same dress as someone else (at least some people would argue that but they obviously do not consider things like war, rape, murderer and many more of the things that human beings do to one another. This however is a different topic that is only marginal related to marketing). Luckily Converse with its customisable shoes as well as youtailor (custom tailored clothing over the internet) alleviate this pressing issue. Mass Customisation seems to have become the wonderpill in marketing and I can hardly blame the companies. In my oppinion there is hardly anything that provides more benefits for both the customer and(!) the company. Food producing businesses do it (Burger king, starbucks, subway etc. clothing manufacturere (Converse, youtailor) computer manufactureres (Dell, Apple, Alienware) Car manufacturers have been doing it for ages (even though one could argue that is is much more “customisation” rather than “Mass Customisation”
Long story short: Mass Customisation of your products leaves everyone better off. There is (arguably) noone who knows better what the customer wants than the customer itself so why not just ask them?!
That is why I live by the motto: “If you want something, just ask for it!”
(And of course I am again way over the word count…)