Have it your way: consumer attitudes toward personalized marketing

Abstract

An emerging new strategic approach is termed “mass customization” or “personalization” whereby elements of the marketing mix are individualized for each customer. This paper describes an empirical study in which 608 adult US consumers were interviewed with regard to their experiences with and attitudes toward mass customized products. The principal findings were that attitudes toward mass customization were generally positive, nearly half reported buying a personalized product, these buyers were very satisfied with their purchase, and the most likely buyers of this type of product tend to be younger, more well educated consumers, with higher than average incomes. Managerial, theoretical, and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.