• 0

Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.

  • Campaigns
  • Speaking
  • About
  • Cartoons
  • Contact
  • Book
  • 0

one-to-one personalization

May 12, 2019

  • Paid licensing options include high resolution download.
  • Presentation $40 Add to Cart
  • Newsletter or Website $125 Add to Cart
  • Corporate Blog/Sponsored Post $60 Add to Cart
  • Looking for other licensing options? click here
  • View Cart
TweetLinkedInFacebookEmail

Twenty years ago, in early 1999, the HBR published a pioneering article on the future of personalization titled “Is your company ready for one-to-one marketing?”

Reading it is a flashback to the heady days of the dot-com era, with Amazon as case study number one. The article states:

“Relationship marketing is grounded in the idea of establishing a learning relationship with each customer, starting with your most valuable ones. Think of a learning relationship as one that gets smarter with each interaction. The customer tells you of some need, and you customize your product or service to meet it. Every interaction and modification improves your ability to fit your product to this particular customer.”

Today, the customer no longer has to “tell you of some need”, the machine learning personalization algorithms can figure that out. More than 80% of the TV shows and movies people watch on Netflix are discovered through the Netflix recommendation platform. When we think we are choosing what to watch on Netflix, we’re really just choosing from decisions made by their algorithm that increasingly and accurately predicts what we’ll like.

That approach to personalization is starting to spread to marketers everywhere. Evergage recently published a “2019 Trends in Personalization” report and found that usage among marketers of machine learning/algorithmic personalization is up from 26% last year to 40% this year.

Your Ad Ignored Here
"If marketing kept a diary, this would be it."
- Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs
Order Now

They also found that 85% of marketers believe that their customers and prospects expect a personalized experience, but only 32% believe marketers are currently getting personalization right. Among marketers who use machine learning, 78% described personalization’s impact on customer relationships as “strong” or “extremely strong.”

As with so much marketing technology, we’re in an awkward adolescent period, where technology is increasingly making this 20-year old promise a reality. And yet, we’re working through the myriad unintended consequences of machine learning, and continually figuring out the line between cool and creepy.

Here are a few related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years:

“Personalization” November 2014

“The Future of Advertising”, August 2013

“Marketing with Personal Data” May 2014

Filed Under: data-driven

  • Paid licensing options include high resolution download.
  • Presentation $40 Add to Cart
  • Newsletter or Website $125 Add to Cart
  • Corporate Blog/Sponsored Post $60 Add to Cart
  • Looking for other licensing options? click here
  • View Cart
Your Ad Ignored Here Book Image

15 years of Marketoonist compiled for your marketing pleasure.

Order Now

About Marketoonist

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne a career marketer and cartoonist. Learn More...

Browse Blog Posts

Most Popular Cartoons Browse Categories

Marketoon Campaigns

contentmarketing

Content marketing with a sense of humor.

Learn More

Keynote Speaking

speakingworkshops

Insightful, funny, and visual keynote talks and workshops.

Book Tom to Speak

Search Blog Posts

Interested? Let’s Talk!

Footer Form - Let's Talk

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Marketoons

Browse Categories
Spacing Things Out

About Marketoonist

Tom Fishburne is the Founder and CEO of Marketoonist, a content marketing studio that helps businesses reach their audiences with cartoons.

© 2025 Marketoonist