Useful personalisation depends on a careful balance: greater relevance without compromising privacy, trust, or a customer’s sense of control.
Mildberry
2021
5 minutes
Personalisation depends on data. The more tailored a product, service, or message becomes, the more information a brand may request in return. That exchange is only sustainable when people understand its value, know where the boundaries are, and retain control over what they share. Consumers welcome relevance; they do not want to feel monitored, surprised, or manipulated.
Ask for data only when it produces a benefit the customer can recognise: a better recommendation, a more relevant product, useful rewards, or a more convenient service.
Relevance has limits. Sensitive inferences, unexplained targeting, and excessive collection can quickly make personalisation feel intrusive.
Privacy should be more than a policy. Product controls, safer defaults, and recognisable privacy features make a brand’s position tangible.
People need to understand what is collected, why it is needed, and what choices they have—without having to decode legal text.
People are more willing to share information when the outcome feels useful and proportionate. The North Face uses its loyalty programme to reward members with points, tiered benefits, and access to brand experiences. Scentbird begins with a preference quiz to tailor a fragrance subscription. Other services make the same exchange more explicit through a deeper degree of personalisation. Spotify developed running playlists that respond to pace; 23andMe uses DNA samples to provide ancestry and genetic-health insights; Persona turns answers about lifestyle and needs into personalised supplement recommendations.
The underlying principle is simple: customers should be able to see what their data makes possible.
PERSONALISATION EARNS PERMISSION WHEN ITS VALUE IS OBVIOUS.
A brand can become too relevant. The Target pregnancy-prediction case illustrates the risk. By analysing purchase patterns, the retailer inferred that a teenager was pregnant and sent baby-product offers before she had shared that information with her family.
The issue was not data analysis itself, but the customer’s loss of control over a sensitive inference. Personalisation works best when brands use the minimum data required, avoid surprising people with intimate assumptions, and make preferences easy to change.
HELPFUL SHOULD NEVER FEEL LIKE SURVEILLANCE.
Privacy can function as both a product feature and a competitive signal. After WhatsApp announced updated data-sharing terms in 2021, Telegram gained users by positioning itself around data protection. Lush stepped back from selected social platforms and focused more on direct customer conversations and its own channels.
Technology brands have also turned privacy into something people can see and use. Lenovo introduced laptops with physical webcam shutters; Apple made privacy central to its product communication; and Brave built its proposition around greater control over browsing data. Google’s plans to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome were part of this wider shift, even though the original timeline later changed.
Privacy-oriented objects make the same idea physical. Reflectacles developed eyewear intended to interfere with infrared facial recognition; Argodesign proposed a conceptual privacy ring; Alexagate offered an accessory designed to mute an Amazon Alexa device; and Secured Sphere promoted RFID-blocking protection against skimming.
These concepts differ in maturity and use case, but they reflect one shared expectation: people want data protection to be visible, accessible, and actionable.
THE MORE INVISIBLE DATA COLLECTION BECOMES, THE MORE VISIBLE CONTROL NEEDS TO BE.
A privacy policy can be legally sound yet fail as customer communication. A New York Times review of privacy policies across 150 companies found that many were difficult to read and could take substantial time to understand. When terms are opaque, consent becomes a reflex rather than an informed choice.
Ticketmaster used visual and video-led privacy communication to explain how it handles customer data. The approach does not replace legal documentation, but it makes the practical questions easier to answer: what information is collected, why it is needed, how it is protected, and what controls the user has.
CLARITY IS NOT A SIMPLIFIED VERSION OF TRUST. IT IS PART OF TRUST.
Responsible personalisation is not about collecting as much information as possible. It is about asking for only what serves a clear purpose, delivering a benefit that justifies the request, and giving people meaningful control throughout the experience. When those conditions are met, personalisation feels like service—not surveillance.
KNOW ENOUGH TO MAKE THE EXPERIENCE BETTER. NEVER SO MUCH THAT THE PERSON FEELS EXPOSED.
Mildberry Think Tank