Today people want things personalized; they don't want a product that looks exactly the same as what everyone else has. Luckily, the Digital Age has allowed this customization back into the market. Different companies are now using technology to employ mass customization strategy. They are able to still produce and sell large quantities of products, but now are able to do so in a way that does not require every product to be the exact same!
Nike and Puma are both currently using this strategy to sell shoes. Both companies have created an site in which you can "customize" and create your own personal shoes. I decided to look at both of these sites, create a shoe, and see which site is offering customers the best experience.
On NIKEid you are brought to a home page where you can either select a range of colors that you want your shoe to have, or a style.
Once you select a shoe as your starting point you can then being customizing your own. You can change the color of the base, sides, panels, laces, tong and more. The cool thing about NIKEid is they also let you add a personal ID to your shoe, insuring that your shoe is truly one of a kind!
Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ is based off the same concept. You select a style shoe that you want to work with. Then you are able to customize the shoe. One cool thing about this site is that they don't only allow you to select different colors, they allow you to select different patterns and textures!
Puma also took their customization a step further. When arriving at the home page, you enter a restaurant where you are greeted by a chief who tells you to "Grab your chief hat and preheat your creativity" and daily specials are displayed. The site also tells you it is grabbing "your own ingredients." This aspects of the site really adds to the experience. It makes it stand out and in my opinion, made the site more memorable.
Overall, I liked both the sites a lot. Both sites gave customers the ability to create a shoe of their own. And, the process of creating it was actually kinda fun! The Puma site seemed to have more options for designing your shoe. Yet, NIKEid took the personalization a step further and actually allowed you to create your own ID and print it on your shoe. After doing further research, I also found out that both brands have selected retail stores that allow you to come into the store and create your own shoe, which is also a great idea.
Puma's site was really creative and eye catching. NIKEid site was more basic. Yet, when on the NIKEid page, I knew I was at a Nike site. The site had Nike in the corner, and had the same design elements that they always use. When on the Puma site, it is not really clear where you are. All over the site it says "Mongolian Shoe BBQ," not Puma. The site design and layout does not match Puma's at all. This poses a big risk to the company. Consumers may remember the site and their experience, but not the brand. So although Puma is creating an overall more interactive, fun customer experience, I think this lack of brand recognition will make their site less successful.
So what does this mean for other companies? Well the fact is that pretty soon every company is going to need to personalize their customers experience if they want to be competitive. A company is not going to be able to get enough "hits" to "leave a mark" on their websites unless they start customizing their customers experiences!
