Month: October 2011

Hello Everyone,

As Christopher Matthew notices in his blog post Gamers Unite! some if not most of the experiences of gamers of different platforms can be extended well beyond these platforms and could actually extend into other genres of games as well. When I watched the posted video showing all these iconic characters in this epic storyline with the conclusion of the actual player being the real hero of countless battles I could not help but feel heroic, epic, mighty even and all of this although I have never played any of the shown games as I do not own a PlayStation and never did but I can still identify with the medium. Some of these characters are so iconic that many if not all gamers of regardless what platform have heard of them and have some positive association with these franchises.

When I watched it first I did not know that this is an ad for PS3 but rather regarded it as a general advertising for games in general. Maybe just maybe the targeting segment for future games developers should not be the platform that the games run on but rather some common trait that most/all gamers share alike. Successful cross-platform games developers such as Electronic Arts have known this for a long time and subsequently positioned their products in a way that appeal to common gamer characteristics without making the platform they are developing for a major segmentation basis. I personally think that this is the way to go for games developers because as focusing on only one platform undoubtedly has its advantages the disadvantage of a loss of a major(!) segment of the gaming industry for which the product in theory could easily cater to outweighs the advantages.

The take home point I want to convey here is that one has to be very careful in choosing the segmentation basis and use reasonable, effective and meaningful segmentation basis and in my opinion games platform does not fulfill these criteria thus it should not be used as a major segmentation basis.

 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…)