Mass personalisation: The future or foe of successful brands?

Is mass personalisation the future of brand growth or the foe? Thinkerbell’s Adam Ferrier and PHD’s Stewart Gurney debate.

Adam Ferrier, founder of Thinkerbell, says people don’t want personalised messaging from brands because they like to follow and any brand that promises to be real, different or personalised is bullshitting. Stuart Gurney of media agency PHD disagrees. He says there is evidence to support the effectiveness of personalisation but right now, confining the practice to the bottom of the funnel and using it to only drive short term results is giving it a bad name.

According to Ferrier, mass personalisation is on the fast track to killing brands. PHD’s Gurney took the opposing stance.

Ferrier came out swinging...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands