The continuous evolution in marketing – from mass to segment based targeting – is a testament to marketing’s pursuit for reach and relevancy. This has been further fuelled by the ever increasing digitisation of these media touchpoints.
Thanks to advancements in technology and evolution in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) capabilities have enabled hyperpersonalised marketing to the audience of one.
To reap the benefits of this technology-enabled art of the possible, brands need to master three areas. These are the timing of personalised messages before (and not after) the purchase, aligning the online personalised creative with the offline proposition, and engaging consumers with personalised cultural content beyond branded content.
1. Focus on spotting and accelerating emerging trends
Harnessing the unstructured digital data sources can uncover niche opportunities that might become ‘big’ tomorrow. The power of hyperpersonalisation is in shaping and accelerating the emergence of a trend by personalised targeting of the subcultures who are spreading the trend.
For example, the emergence of coconut oil in cooking can be linked back to seven subcultures, with different requirements, who accelerated the adoption of this trend. New catalytic applications like this help drive the relevance of hyperpersonalisation and extend the brands targeted advertising.
2. Blend mass media communications with the benefits of digital micro targeting
The focus, until recently, has been mostly on technology and cross-device synchronisation to enable programmatic buying in real-time. This has mainly been based on customer behaviour in the moment.
However, we can significantly increase the relevance of hyperpersonalised targeting by first developing a clear picture of the audience of one (based on their integrated behaviour history and attitudes across channels), and then refining it over time based on ongoing behaviour.
In a traditional marketing world, the beverage brand (below) would have focused on one creative content
route for TV based on their ‘lift-me up’ positioning. Today they are grappling with an increasingly complex marketplace. More competitive, more nuanced and with countless touchpoints to manage.
That’s why, now more than ever, this specific hot beverage brand needed to focus on the right micro-segments.
By harnessing unstructured consumer conversations via AI algorithms, Kantar TNS identified nine micro-segments of which five would provide the highest return.
Such an integrated, hyperpersonalised strategy is fundamental to effective programmatic planning and dynamic content creation (two have been highlighted in the example below).
3. Develop a real-time intervention strategy to drive behavioural change and ROI
Brands need to consider the importance of customer experience in driving value through hyperpersonalisation.
However, every bespoke experience will not necessarily result in an action different from what it would have been via a non-personalised experience.
For instance, in the case of campaigns, adapting the creative and/or media focus (among a relevant audience) based on analysing consumer feedback in the first few days of the campaign can double consumer engagement.
Enabled by technological advancements, hyperpersonalisation has the potential to produce more efficient marketing.
In conclusion, hyperpersonalisation will drive the convergence of strategy, innovation, media, customer experience and brand development as a single integrated piece of marketing, rather than functions brought together by interpretative inferences.
It doesn’t matter whether hyperpersonalisation is viewed as a marketing evolution or a new revolution. The key challenge for brands is the effective activation of hyperpersonalisation and not just the enabling technology.
Sunando Das is the head of analytics and data science at Kantar TNS