I took this photo from an Automotive Shopping Behavior Study from Google. The graph compares what people usually do when they visit the website of an OEM (=original equipment manufacturer and in this case mostly the car company’s website).
It turns out that the most popular activity on those websites is to play with the configurator. In 2010, about 35% of all visitors to a car website ended up building their own car. That’s huge - especially since creating your own dream car seems to be even more popular than looking for offers!
However, keep in mind that this only supports the idea that “creating your own” is fun - something we know from The Customization 500 study. What is also interesting in this chart is that the popularity of “build your own” dropped dramatically - from nearly 45% to approximately 35%. At the same time “search inventory” is the only activity that is stable. Now, we don’t have the data to really understand why that is - it could be that the website visitors are more practical in 2010 compared to 2009 because they are more likely to afford cars now, or maybe there were so many deals that customers just wanted to take advantage of them quickly instead of waiting to receive their custom built car. It’s something to look out for though - how is the interest in design-your-own changing over time?
This is pretty straight forward. “Design Your Own” and “Create Your Own” is a subset of mass customization. On a “design/create your own” website, you can use a configurator to specify the different elements of a product (the base chocolate and toppings of a chocolate bar, the color of a bike, the fabric, cuffs and pockets of a shirt, the shape and leather of a shoe, the style and gemstones of an earring, …). Then the provider of that website makes the product for you according to your specifications.
In short, the two defining aspects of Design-Your-Own are that you are able to pick and choose different modules of a product in a configurator, and that it’s an experience that is meant to be fun.
The experience
A service that is fun or enjoyable is essentially a good experience. Take your last visit to the hair salon: If your visit was only about the end-result (a nice hair cut), they probably wouldn’t have bothered much about the ambience of the store or the water temperature when they washed your hair. But your time in the hair salon is an experience, something that more and more service providers recognize.
A mass customized good is very much related to a service, and with that it has the potential to be a good experience. The act of making a product just for you has many aspects of a service - it’s personal, and it’s an activity that the company engages in just for you. Also, the design-your-own offering is mostly online, where consumer experience not only can but should be optimized based on the wonderful data that is provided to you thanks to Google Analytics and the likes.
In the “Customization 500” study, it turned out that the “fun of configuration” had the highest impact on the net promoter score for design-your-own offering. What that essentially means for you, the mass customizer: If you can make the design process on the website fun, if you can turn it into a wow-ing experience, you are likely to generate word of mouth and with that essentially free marketing. “Fun on configuration” scored significantly higher than “usability of configurator”, “added value of product” and even the “basic value of the product”. So, go and optimize your website - for fun!
p.s. For more on mass customization and experience, follow @joepine on Twitter.
The configurator
A configurator most typically lets you choose from different “modules” that make up the product - such as colors in the design of a sneaker with NikeiD, or the base chocolate and toppings for a customized chocolate bar with chocri. Also, design your own includes a configurator such as Zazzle provides it, where you can upload your own images and enter your own texts to create a personalized product.
Configurators based on Flash or similar usually have great visualizations (see for example laudividni.com), but are harder to to update. But the better the visualization, the easier it is for the “designer” to devise a creation they like. Keep in mind that most people don’t have deep expertise in the product - thus an easy to use and visually strong configurator is important.
The Holiday Season is upon us! No, really, I’m not kidding. People are already searching for Christmas and Hannukah Gifts, and you, dear provider of wonderful personalized gift items, need to be prepared!
I participated in a webinar today where Symphony IRI presented their findings after surveying over 1000 consumers, and I’d like to talk about the points from that webinar that are relevant to customizers:
1) Consumers will spend less this year than they did last year
“Recession over” what? The total budget for most consumers is below $500, and 32% of all people surveyed plan to spend less on holiday gifts - partially by purchasing fewer gifts, but 15% also will spend less by making gifts themselves. For the busy person, this is where customization comes in! In comparison, a personalized gift is much more unique and thoughtful and thus more valuable than, say, a piece of jewelry.
2) Consumers will shop earlier this year, and they will care a lot about availability
Google will tell you that people search for keywords like Christmas and Holidays in August - and this study strengthens the claim that consumers go looking for holiday gifts early. The idea is that consumers don’t want to spend all of their the holiday budget all at once, so they stretch it out overtime. Keep in mind though that intention does not equal action :) A primary concern for consumers is also availability - another reason to shop early. In regards to availability, we mass customizers have an advantage -we produce on demand! But do make sure you have enough capacity to satisfy last minute orders.
3) Consumers will shop online, and they will make a holiday shopping list
Even if not everyone buys holiday gifts in September or October, they do compare prices, and they are making a list (and checking it twice). You have to be sure to be on that list! 54% of all consumers surveyed stated in the Symphony IRI study that they would purchase some of the gifts online, and that group was skewed towards the wealthier individuals of the survey.
4) Have gift cards available
Two thirds of consumers plan to give gifts cards this year. That is a huge potential for customizers, because a gift card to a design your own website is not only just giving an object, it’s also giving an experience. Creating your own stuff is actually fun - a gift card for a design your own website has a lot more value than a standard gift card. If you don’t have any gift cards yet, you might consider building that functionality.
Lately, three big companies have embraced mass customization in the same category: beverages. I find that a big coincidence and thought I’d portray them here:
The video says it all - you can create your own bottle design on the site. Only downside - you can’t actually order anything, it’s all virtual. It’s a campaign to market a new bottle of theirs that has a surface that you can draw on in real life. Still, really fun concept. (sorry about the formatting here, but “content trumps pretty”)
I made this bottle by choosing first a base design (color, style), and then I was able to personalize it with images and text (that’s my Dad - it’s Father’s Day after all). The cool thing here is that you can actually buy these bottles! Downside is - it’s only in Ireland. Which is surprising, since I’ve seen very little demand for customization and personalization come from the islands (GB and Ireland).
When you click on the link, make sure to find the Heineken Ireland site (a little hidden).
Very famous already, Starbucks lets you play on their website with a create-your-own Frappuccino tool. Like Heineken, you design your own Frappuccino online, and then go to the real world (read: Starbucks around the corner) to recreate what you “planned” online. I say - better than nothing, and they’ve done a great job at creating a fun interface and posting “create your own” all over it.
THE SO WHAT
Left to ask - where are these coming from? Why now, and why in the beverage industry? My two cents are that the beverage world essentially just learned from the food world, in-store customization and create-your-own is already very common in even a Burger King. I wouldn’t be surprised if Heineken was inspired by German startups like BeerStickr that allow you to personalize stickers for (generic) beer bottles. I believe that Starbucks just picked something they’ve always been doing - creating custom drinks right there and then - as something to talk about in a new marketing campaign.
What I really think all this means is that the trend mass customization is ringing in the ears of marketing executives at big, yet creative companies. Is it ringing in your ears yet?
I’ve collected a few places where you can learn more about mass customization/ personalization:
Directories:
milkorsugar.com -an international directory of customized products. Not completely comprehensible yet and not very easy to search through, but fun to browse. Use it as a discovery tool
configurator-database - literally a database of all places that let you configure something. Really helpful if you’re looking for something specific
egoo (Germany only for now)- a magazine and directory about customized and personalized products in Germany. The only comprehensive directory I know of, and moreover, the only magazine I know of that really doesn’t miss anything. This is kind of a secret, but you might soon be able to read it in English and US products… more soon
Blogs:
Well, you found this one, so that’s good :)
Prof. Piller’s Blog - you can’t ignore this one. It has all the important events in the mass customization space, and Prof. Piller looks at the scene in general with some great, evaluative comments. He has a broader view on mass customization, including also some of the concepts related to the traditional idea of “design your own” portals
Anita Windisman’s Blog- this is a fun way to learn about new personalization and design-your-own products with witty commentary and thoughtful reviews. Anita also has a special thing for personalized marketing - e.g. campaigns that integrate you in the experience
Dave Gardner’s Blog - takes a more traditional look at Mass Customization as a Manufacturing principle, and does a great job explaining it to large companies
The Treehouse Logic Blog- Treehouse Logic is a technology provider for customizers who want to become mass customizers, and they do a great job explaining on their blog what your website should look like to create a good experience for your customer
Made for One - Another blog on the topic with blog entries on some specific customizers.
Recent Articles on the subject:
Chris Cameron at Read Write Web has been on top of the trend in the US - read his article “Mass Customization Round Up” that summarizes some of his articles AND has good tips on what books to check out. He also covered the 500 Customization study here.
Mashable collected some cool examples of mass customization.
People:
LinkedIn Group- Check out this LinkedIn Group if you want to connect with customizers. I’m managing the requests to this group and will keep the scope narrow - you might have to tell me what your connection to mass customization is.
A mass customized good is very much related to a service, and with that it has the potential to be a good experience. The act of making a product just for you has many aspects of a service - it’s personal, and it’s an activity that the company engages in just for you. Also, the design-your-own offering is mostly online, where consumer experience not only can but should be optimized based on the wonderful data that is provided to you thanks to Google Analytics and the likes. 
In the “Customization 500” study, it turned out that the “fun of configuration” had the highest impact on the net promoter score for design-your-own offering. What that essentially means for you, the mass customizer: If you can make the design process on the website fun, if you can turn it into a wow-ing experience, you are likely to generate word of mouth and with that essentially free marketing. “Fun on configuration” scored significantly higher than “usability of configurator”, “added value of product” and even the “basic value of the product”. So, go and optimize your website - for fun!
The Holiday Season is upon us! No, really, I’m not kidding. People are already searching for Christmas and Hannukah Gifts, and you, dear provider of wonderful personalized gift items, need to be prepared!
Even if not everyone buys holiday gifts in September or October, they do compare prices, and they are making a list (and checking it twice). You have to be sure to be on that list! 54% of all consumers surveyed stated in the Symphony IRI study that they would purchase some of the gifts online, and that group was skewed towards the wealthier individuals of the survey. 
