Hyper-Personalization: MOVING FROM A BUFFET TO A PRIVATE TEA-PARTY

The skincare industry is one of the most competitive markets. Every brand wants to be the best by selling their products and creating a niche for themselves. Most of the products that the skincare brands manufacture follow the techniques and ingredients from a set spectrum. Once a customer buys a brand and it works for them, they tend to stick to it. So when a woman wants to try something new, she has at her disposal more than 100 brands presenting the same product, some cheap and some expensive. The woman then must choose one from the 100, which if you think about it, is slightly overwhelming. Because if all you want is a moisturizer and you have 100 options to choose from, on which criterion will you choose one?

Hyper-Personalization - What is It? 

In the world of one-size-fits-all, customization has taken a leap in the form of hyper-personalization. It’s become trend to watch out for in 2020. What is hyper-personalization? Hyper-personalizaton is much more than taking into account the type of your skin.  It is the use of technology to provide especially curated product and services that suit your requirements.   A client centered approach that keeps them at the centre of their services.  Personalization of products for a customer is good: a simple idea, easy to implement; hyper-personalization is a debate. Once anything has hyper as the prefix, you have to be (at least) slightly wary of it.

So let’s dive into the good and bad of hyper-personalization.

The Good

When you have more than 10 options of moisturizers to choose from, a little help never harmed anyone. The purpose of the hyper-personalization is to make it easier for you to buy what you need. In many cases, experts even study your skin and suggest a product based on that. A dry skin, sensitive skin, rough skin, oily skin, all of them need different types of moisturizers. Plus, although the goal of the product is the same(to hydrate your skin), they are made differently, and the concentration is different. This is what makes each brand different. If you are not an expert, then how would you know which moisturizer is best for you. The same goes for lipsticks, nail paints, face masks, and, every other skincare product. The last thing you would want is a product to react adversely. Hyper-personalization helps you choose the best product out of a big pool to choose from. It helps you have in your collection the skincare that definitely works and make you look good. In hyper-personalization, luck gives way to efficiency and innovation. 

The Bad

The problem with hyper-personalization(and this is what makes it hyper) is three-fold. First, the more personalized a product, the more issues it will face in terms of manufacturing efficiency. The paradigm shift from mass production to customization had a huge impact on the ability to produce the items because instead of one big cake that everyone gets a share of, each individual is given a different cake with varied ingredients and toppings. Secondly, it becomes difficult to cater to the customers’ expectations after a point. There would be as many expectations as there are customers and the brand would need to draw a line somewhere and say “ This far and no further”. Lastly, the more hyper-personalized a product, the more high-end and expensive it becomes severely limiting the affordability of such products to a very large customer base.

Hyper- personalization takes you many steps closer to the look and feel you want and makes you stand out from the crowd. There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a personalized product. In fact, when you’re buying a skincare product it is best to seek the advise of the experts. However, to hyper-personalized it to the extent of making a product only cater to an elite base of customers defeats the purpose of the skincare industry of reaching out to a broad-based audience. 

To help and not to hinder is where hyper-personalization should be used.