Modes of transport
Creating this level of mutual trust is essential because we are reaching the point where there is too much information being created and disseminated for people to absorb. Bruce Kasanoff, managing director of the Now Possible personalisation consultancy, points out that every industry on earth has been shaped by limitations of the human brain. For example, a doctor can typically diagnose 300 to 500 ailments. This isn’t because there are only 500 human illnesses or diseases, but because doctors can’t keep much more information than that in their heads. Kasanoff says that personalised medicine firms are discovering critical differences between the “same” cancer afflicting two different people. There is a lesson for marketing here – customers want different things and companies provide them. The digital sphere offers a great opportunity to target more personally because it can aggregate data and home in on an individual’s interests and preferences.
Kasanoff believes some companies’ websites could reshape themselves to serve an individual customer’s current needs. These instant reshapings, or “modes” as Kasanoff defines them, describe a customer’s state of mind, such as “in a hurry”, “just browsing” or “I need fashion advice”. Companies can no longer ignore the fact that people’s needs or moods change from moment to moment. Classical segmentation does not take this into account, but digitally we’re able to do something about that. “As a consumer,” Kasanoff explains, “I don’t want more targeted marketing; I want my computer to work better with merchants’ computers.”x There is a whole generation growing up that expects its content to be delivered in the way it wants to receive it. We need to adapt to this demand, and, although there is a need for consistency, perhaps tailored websites are one way to achieve this.
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