I followed the personalization trail for a number of years and fondly remember the PrintExpo demos from Scitex and Adobe.
A couple of thoughts:
Anita mentions the problems for designers with the database element. That's right. But there's also a problem with the data in the database.
Is the data itself valid for the customer? Most companies looking at personalization don't really want to spend the money to make sure of their data. It's more than just getting the customer's name right.
We can see this problem online at a place like Amazon, which tracks your viewing habits and makes suggestions for other titles. If I accidently click on a page or look at something that sounds interesting but really isn't, then I wind up with a "wrong" profile.
And the personalization itself can be problematic. I see these all the time online. Here's one I received the other day:
"What if... You , #recipient# , could cut through the clutter, and gain access to data that proves average people are making full time incomes from simple Home Based Business Systems."
First, my name isn't Mr. recipient. But will I believe in a personalized message for Home Based Business Systems (no hypen between the Home and Based, and why the caps?)
How do we proof personalization, especially for a dynamically created page on a digital press?
It's the data and the database that's a problem
I followed the personalization trail for a number of years and fondly remember the PrintExpo demos from Scitex and Adobe.
A couple of thoughts:
Anita mentions the problems for designers with the database element. That's right. But there's also a problem with the data in the database.
Is the data itself valid for the customer? Most companies looking at personalization don't really want to spend the money to make sure of their data. It's more than just getting the customer's name right.
We can see this problem online at a place like Amazon, which tracks your viewing habits and makes suggestions for other titles. If I accidently click on a page or look at something that sounds interesting but really isn't, then I wind up with a "wrong" profile.
And the personalization itself can be problematic. I see these all the time online. Here's one I received the other day:
"What if... You , #recipient# , could cut through the clutter, and gain access to data that proves average people are making full time incomes from simple Home Based Business Systems."
First, my name isn't Mr. recipient. But will I believe in a personalized message for Home Based Business Systems (no hypen between the Home and Based, and why the caps?)
How do we proof personalization, especially for a dynamically created page on a digital press?
daviD m.