| "New" market conditions and technological advancements in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector will drive the marketing concept to a next level: that of personalised products, services and experiences (e.g. Sheth, Sisodia and Sharma, 2000; Wind and Ramgaswamy, 2000; Ine and Gillmore, 1999). Such a development constitutes a next logical step in sequence of developments of business orientations: production, sales, marketing, sevices, experiences, peronalised experiences (Pine and Gillmore, 1999). Central to the development of highly peronalised marketing interactions with consumers is the fact that the consumer becomes a co-developer in the value exchange process. The consumer will provide perosnal input into the value exchange and will receive in turn "a marketing offering tailored to his or her peronel needs and requirements" (which may but need not imply mass customisation in production). This step extends beyond previous approaches in that it is more customer centric (Sheth, Sisodia and Sharma, 2000; Wind and Rangaswamy, 2000) from the fact that personal information is exchanged in a personal information is exchanged in a personal/individualised interaction and the consumer/customer is in that sense an active, involved co-designer of the consumption experience. We will adopt Wind and Rangaswamy's (2000) term mass cunstomerisation to differentiate it from mass cusomisation. Different from mass customisation, mass customerisation is IT intensive at the marketing side rather that at the product side. Customerisation is a logical extension from personalisation and one-to-one marketing in that it is more customer centric. In customerisation, demand and supply side are no longer separated. They are integrated in the sense that the customer is now a codesigner of the marketing solution (peronalised product, service and/or interaction). Although customerisation is centainly technologically feasible, there are still a lot of uncertainties on how this would materialise and how consumers would evaluate and appreciate such development. This project will develop a conceptual framework for the understanding of consumer response to individualised solutions on the basis of exchange of personal information. Although the conceptual framework will be generic in scope, applications will be specific to the food context. The key objective of ths research is "To understand the consumer added value of different types and formats of ict interfaces as well as the way in which firms can respond to this understanding, for health (e.g. based on genetic information, lifestyle characteristics and/or biomarker values) and other credence motivations (e.g. tracking and tracing information on safety and sustainability)" This objective is substantiated in the following research questions:1. What is the role and context of personalisation within the marketing concept? 2. What is the motivational side of personalisation to the consumer, both in erms of costs and benefits ("give and take") and the interaction between the two? 3. How can marketers design and exploit different types of ict interfaces that facilitate personalisation, in terms of products/services, distribution, pricing and communication (information) and consumer decision support systems? 4. What should be the optimal marketing strategy behind personalised ict interfaces? 5. Can the model and hypotheses be substantiated in a case study for a health based consumer decision support system (genomics and biomarker based or based on individual sensitivities to food allergens)? |
