Personalisation overload.(Observations)

Most marketing conferences these days feature topics such as "relationship marketing", "permission marketing", "1:1 marketing", "personalisation" or "CRM". In fact, finding one without one of these subjects would be hard. Relationship marketing has been the "new black" for quite a while now, and rightfully so. As the costs of acquiring new customers continue to increase, and those customers are bombarded with ever growing numbers of marketing messages, many scholars argue that spending money on your existing customers is a better bet than continuously running after new ones. The growth in relationship marketing is fuelled by studies showing that the cost of attaining a new customer is often substantially higher than the cost of keeping an existing one. Through web-based technologies and customer database mining, firm can now be highly "personal" and "interactive" with a lot more people at a far lower cost than before. Consequently, consumers are now routinely greeted by their name and preferences whether using the laptop, PDA, mobile phone, or TV.

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In fact, the notion of relationship marketing and "personalisation" is far from new, and originates from theories in social psychology. Marketing eagerly adopts insight from interpersonal relationship theory in particular, suggesting that relationships develop over time with personal interactions. However, everyone who has been involved in a personal relationship, whether, deep or shallow, would agree that relationships need to be balanced, and both parties must on some level agree on the pace of relationship development. If one party is too eager to become too intimate too soon, the other party might feel trapped and uncomfortable, and the chances of marriage and happy kids will recede.

Psychologists often use the term "psychological reactance" to explain why people, when feeling that their personal freedom is being threatened, react negatively to attempts to persuade or influence them. One can argue that reactance also occurs when consumers receive highly personalised communication from firms and brands. If a newly purchased brand suddenly pretends to be your best friend and uses personal information about your date of birth, social ...