We’re all advertised. Name by Name

Since Database Marketing has been introduced, profiling techniques refined and web cookies have reached full speed, more and more in-depth information about our consumption behaviour are collected and processed. Thanks to this, highly targeted advertising messages are designed and delivered to us as an attempt to overcome our defences against current pervasive communications.

Experts say the exploitation of the files about our likes and dislikes is what is going to drive advertising strategies for a long time to come.

So, how can a TV commercial (caged in its one-to-many broadcast limit) compete with these custom-made messages?

The great idea is to shift the personalization from the message to the product itself.

No more camera-look, straight eye contact messages saying I want you. No more testimonials performing their "personal" real story and make the audience identify with the product or the brand. Now it’s time to advertise the same mass-product as if it was tailored on each single buyer.

Coke started worldwide and Nutella followed shortly on the local market so now the labels of cans and jars show first names together with brand names and logos. The first case is a suggestion to share the drink, addressed to teenagers. The second case is meant as a property sign, much more suitable for younger consumers.

Further developments of this idea are soon expected. For example, Youtube is presently hosting a TrueView ad by MediaWorld that shows the picture of a young lady handing a Christmas packet. The voce-over says roughly: I know Laura and at MediaWorld I have found the right present for her. It’s just as there was her name printed on it. This case is something in between ads featuring testimonials and the personalized mass-products tactic we have just mentioned. After all it would be impossible to have different first names printed on every product sold in the megastore.

Other commercials using a name by name approach to customers and prospects include brands and products whishing Marry Christmas to role models from their target audience, fictional characters called by name. It would wrong to list these ads here though, just because the association between the name and the product (or a line of products) is too weak.

What other shapes will this tactic soon take? We’ll see.