Putting one-to-one marketing to work

The provided text, an academic article from 2008, offers an extensive overview of one-to-one marketing, specifically focusing on the differences, applications, and challenges of personalization and customization. It explains that personalization involves the firm tailoring the marketing mix based on collected customer data (like Amazon's recommendations), while customization is when the customer actively specifies elements of their own marketing mix (like designing a Dell computer). The authors summarize the current knowledge gaps and key challenges from empirical, economic, and consumer behavior perspectives, addressing issues like the cost of implementation and potential invasion of customer privacy. Ultimately, the paper concludes with a summary of future research opportunities needed to better understand and optimize one-to-one marketing strategies.