A trend that has evolved out of the ‘me’ generation of the modern-day world is the desire for personalization. With an outlet of social media being constantly used for self-expression, the self trend has greatly increased.

From a commercial perspective, let’s take a look at two personalized ad campaigns that recently rocked the marketing and packaging world – Coca-Cola and Oreo.

“Taking personalization to an unprecedented level, the campaign became a runaway success…”

Coca-Cola has spent 100 years successfully flaunting its iconic red and white bottles. However, in recent years the firm has seen sales of their sweet drinks dropping. The now famous #shareacoke campaign became their redeemer. Taking personalization to an unprecedented level, the campaign became a runaway success, giving consumers the option of finding a loved one’s name on a Coke product. By printing random names on their bottles and cans, Coca-Cola took personalization to a new level. The campaign helped reverse a decade-long decline in US Coke consumption.

And another – Oreo, the cute black and white cookie loved by generations, has had just as much success with a similar concept. Oreo launched package personalization in three major countries, giving options to personally color and decorate the label of a bag of Oreos by way of an online app. Statistics tell us you are doing well if you can keep the average consumer engaged on your website for more than 2 minutes. After Oreo launched the personalization app, they were averaging 11 minutes! Oreo had successfully used personalization to better engage with consumers which in turn greatly increased their chance at making a sale. In short – people want things that are their own. They want products that represent who they are. And although many products cannot be personalized, through modern printing technology the packaging can.