Customization hate it or love it… I’ve been discussing this topic before (Marketing Monday #4: Custom-I-zed). But that column left some dust in the air. Marketing Monday #4 described if customization was possible and to what extent. What were peoples’ driving forces to participate in customization processes. After that I received several emails from readers questioning whether I regard customization to be possible on all products or that I think there are specifications to the products that can be customized. Well I can briefly answer with saying: “All products can be customized!”.

I really believe that a products’ have the ability to be customized, however in most occasions or the product or the people aren’t ready yet for the customization. Therefore I think we can add some new dimensions to the well-known product life cycle. As you probably know the PLC (product life cycle) originally contains five stages namely, development stage, introduction stage, growth stage, maturity stage and decline stage. This last stage will be redefined.

The decline stage is known as the period in the PLC in which the product growth in dollars stabilizes and finally will start to decline. However there is some room for product revival. This revival will be the part in which the path to customization will be defined. The first time a product enters the revival it comes as a unisex product, there is hardly any room for differentiations. The product should appeal as much to everyone. During this revival there are 3 possible outcomes. Genderization, Categorization and Customization. Each outcome has a higher degree of differentiation in it.

The first time the product enters the revival it will get genderization. Males will be separated from the females, the most simplistic way of differentiation. The second time the product enters the revival it will get categorization. More specific categories are defined and the products are adapted to each category’s demands. The third and final time the product enters the revival it will receive the customization. The product is differentiated to the customer and the customer knows how the handle this luxury.

As well as all stages of the PLC can be used with all products I think all steps to customization can be used upon each product. But products can’t be rushed into them. They first have to follow each step before they are ready for customization. Because a unisex product can’t successfully be turned into a customized product before it has been genderized and categorized.

And to give you a little example… Sneakers, onces only used as a way to cover your feet while walking the dusty roads, later genderized with the stiletto heels, used as a way to tell others to which group you belonged and nowadays used to express yourself, to differentiate yourself from others. Therefore you can go to this website, download this pdf and send in your customized sneakers to this address (before August 27th) and before you know, you might own your customized pair of sneakers.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 18:16 and is filed under Column, Competition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.