In current competitive market, personalization has been a buzz word used by a large number of consumer product marketers for the product differentiation. However, no consensus of the clear definition of the product personalization has been achieved in the literature yet. We think the power of personalization would be underestimated if it is considered as equivalent to mass customization as many researchers do, because many mass produced products can also become exclusively personalized over a period of interactions between the consumer and the product. Consistent with the finding in a large number of existing business practices of personalization, the understanding of product personalization is proposed from the consumer experience perspective, an attribute that exhibits a property of s...[ Read more ]

In current competitive market, personalization has been a buzz word used by a large number of consumer product marketers for the product differentiation. However, no consensus of the clear definition of the product personalization has been achieved in the literature yet. We think the power of personalization would be underestimated if it is considered as equivalent to mass customization as many researchers do, because many mass produced products can also become exclusively personalized over a period of interactions between the consumer and the product. Consistent with the finding in a large number of existing business practices of personalization, the understanding of product personalization is proposed from the consumer experience perspective, an attribute that exhibits a property of strong resonant emotional attachment to a particular person. The significant advantages in such understanding are the possibility to overcome the limitation of the sophisticated flexible manufacturing techniques required by mass customization, as well as the opportunity to build long-term relationship with the consumer through whole product lifespan.

Based on the theories in consumer-product-attachment and psychological ownership, it is suggested that a personalized product addresses a consumer’s innate higher level needs in self-identity and self-efficacy, as well as achieving satisfaction in performance and appearance. Incorporating key factors in personalization and various types of existing personalization approaches, a conceptual framework of design for personalization is developed based on the theoretical inference and the case analysis, which elaborates requirements, product models and various business models in developing a personalization strategy. The essence is to consider the consumer playing a dominating role in delivering a personalized product while the designer offers sufficient assistance to the consumer’s creation process. The framework can offer an analytic view to understand the existing successful business practices as well as the guideline for the designer to plan the business models of personalization.