Personalisation vs. Adaptation in International Pharma

For years this mantra been drummed into us “…personalisation is the key, if you want everlasting engagement you MUST personalise”, and yes to certain extent we do, our audiences are not a homogenous bunch of group thinkers, however they are also likely to be from similar backgrounds, with similar education & training and therefore have a high degree in similarity in what they need, so I pose this question to those working in international (ex-US) pharma;  “Should we strive to personalise all communications or create an ecosystem that is enabled to adapt to the individual and provide the most appropriate content rather than the most individualised?”

So how have we got ourselves into this situation?

Thankfully marketing and communication strategies have evolved significantly since the mass market approaches of the huge consumer brands of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s that drove that homogenous group think, where we must all dress the same, drive the same car, go on the same holidays and eat the same junk food, because if you didn’t, well, you were just wrong.  With the advent of smart technology, and social media came the rise of the multi-channel and laterally omnichannel warriors where there was now the channels and technology that allowed the targeting of different groups in different ways, with different messages.  Then layer on all the trillions of data points being collected through all the digital channels and now companies knew exactly what to say to which individual at...