From luxury brands to digital platforms, consumers are consistently looking for increasing levels of personalisation. With most products these days being mass-produced, consumers seem more and more intent on finding those special items to surround themselves with and give away to their friends and family.
With the rise of retailers such as Not On The High Street and Etsy continuing to harness popular consumer trends of craftsmanship and personalisation, we also see a larger group of consumers who are concerned about buying from and supporting smaller businesses who makes their products locally. Why are we seeing this trend, and what are brands doing to harness it?
At the luxury end of the scale, brands such as Burberry and Louis Vuitton are offering a level of personalisation that includes monogramming and embroidery for high-end goods. Meanwhile, bespoke Bamford Watches offers one-of-a-kind customised watches at a serious price, customising Rolexes starting at £15,000 and modifications adding a further £1,000. For this market, personalisation is essentially about exclusivity of status; bespoke designs offer individualisation that comforts with the thought that no one else in the world will own the same thing. As products from luxury brands become increasingly available to the masses, high-end consumers seeking prestige through exclusivity need to turn to personalised items or small, bespoke producers to get their fix.
We are also seeing a burgeoning market for personalisation in the digital space, from brands using real-time data to bridge the gap between online and offline interactions to brands using big data to push personalised products derived from digital input. Lifesum is a health tracking app that has crunched data from its London users to create a bespoke Green Juice that will replenish all the nutrients they are missing based on analysis of the data provided within the app. This is an excellent example of benefiting consumers through contextualising the data they are willing to share in the first place and delivering personalised digital experiences.
From A To You is one brand making the most of this consumer desire for personalisation. From A To You is a premium gift brand offering bespoke, personalised items handcrafted by Scandinavian designer and illustrator Heidi Stanhope. Underscore undertook a full activation for this brand, creating the name, identity and e-commerce website. Our key objective with this project was to establish a personal connection between the brand and the individual receiving the gift through the brand’s name and positioning as an intimate, bespoke service. The changing ways in which consumers search for and interact with brands online also stands to benefit the brand. As technologies improve, artisan companies like From A to You will grow their personalised ranges by sharing them across the social platforms where the discerning shopper looks for the ideas or brands that underpin their individuality.
To see more of our work with From A To You, follow the link here.