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Kantar NZ Insights Applied - Pitfalls of Personalisation
Avoiding the pitfalls of personalisation
New Zealanders want efficient, relevant online experiences, but brands need to be aware that consumers are reluctant acceptors of brands collecting and using their data.
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Personalisation is a critical pillar of brand trust, with consumers favouring brand experiences where they feel like they are being treated as an individual. In online interactions, where personal contact is more limited, personalisation can be delivered by tailoring content based on a combination of previous preferences and machine learningbased recommendations.
Our survey of New Zealand consumers illustrated this desire for relevant content, with 41% wishing they were able to use the internet more productively rather than aimlessly browsing.
Delivering more personalised, tailored content seems like an obvious solution which would enable a more time-efficient browsing experience, but this generally requires consumers to share their data with brands or websites in some form. The majority of consumers were aware of the different ways that social media sites, websites and search engines can collect or mine personal data to deliver tailored content. But when those who were aware were asked how they felt about their data being used in this way, only a third or fewer were happy for this to happen.
Similarly, when consumers were asked to trade off directly, only 19% expressed a willingness to give websites access to their data in exchange for free content tailored to them. While younger internet users were more willing to share their data (29%), there was still a considerable amount of resistance to the idea. The group most open to trading data for tailored content were the heaviest internet users (45%), a cohort who are also amongst the most likely to want to find more productive ways to use the internet. Heavier internet use is also linked to increased use of ad blocking software which may limit the effectiveness of message targeting efforts.
Our research showed that consumers tend to react positively to overtly tailored content when they have initiated the engagement with a brand (e.g. a supermarket asking whether they’ve forgotten to add common items to their online shopping basket). However, delivering personalised content in communications initiated by brands needs to be a lot more subtle in nature, to prevent it feeling like a hard sales approach. A brand which gets this right will be the most effective in delivering a positive tailored experience while also maintaining and growing levels of trust.
