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Skills you'll build
Why saying "Good Afternoon..." is usually a waste of time
The common mistake with recommended content
How Nike uses showmanship to create personalised experiences
Personalised experiences usually generate more revenue, have better conversion rates and create stickier products.
No wonder "add personalisation" is on the roadmap of every start-up, ever.
But here's the problem: it's really hard to do well.
From personalised greetings to recommended content, personalisation is everywhere. The problem is that it often doesn't work.
In this case study, I'll explain why most of the attempts you'll see don't work at all.
And then I'll show you a few tricks that Nike uses to make their recommendations feel really personal.
You'll enjoy this one {your_name}.
Case study
Key takeaways
1. You need to believe it
When designing a personalised experience, you need to consider two things:
👑
1. Is the experience personalised
i.e., technically.
💭
2. Does the user believe that it's personalised
i.e., do they actually believe you
We all know that Netflix is personalised to us.
But how would we really know? How would we ever actually notice if they suggested the same things to everyone?
This is why they contextualise the relationship between things you've watched, and things they're suggesting.
It's a subtle difference, but Netflix's feed of suggestions only work if you believe that it has some idea of what you like, and is able to find similar titles.
This is what Nike are doing with their "shoe matching" animations.
I mapped all of the outcomes and they actually are suggesting different shoes—but without the animations, (and the illusion that they create), you might not believe them.
They're not fooling you, they're just helping you visualise what is happening behind the scenes.
2. The opportunity cost
Through my consulting, I've run a lot of experiments, in a really broad range of businesses. I don't think I've ever seen a "Good Morning {Name}" title do anything.
The truth is, most of the time the conversation goes like this:
"We have space for a title, and we have their name, let's just put it there".
And then nobody ever removes it, even during internal fights for screen space.
Why? I think it's because removing their name would feel like depersonalising an experience, which feels very negative. That's a hard argument to win.
But it's an important argument to have, because personalisation isn't always a good thing.
When it feels good ✅
When it backfires ❌
When you have a relationship with that company.
If you're wondering how they got your name. Did they buy it from an online database?
In natural language (e.g., "You liked these 4 case studies").
When it's forced (e.g., "Good Morning Peter, it's 3.03pm where you are!")
When you believe the personalisation is in your best interest (e.g., the right pair of shoes).
When you think that the suggestions are in the company's best interest (e.g., to sell you the most expensive pair of shoes).
As a signal that you've logged in (i.e., if you log in with multiple accounts regularly).
When you only ever log into one account, and you can only access it logged in (like a bank).
As an example, as soon as I created an account with Adidas, they showed me a "just for you" recommendation.
That's such an unbelievable claim to make, given that I've not looked at anything yet, that it makes me less interested in the items they're showing me.
Maybe I am interested in football shirts. I might have clicked if that said "the best home kits of this season".
Instead they've broken the trust that they're ever showing me truly personalised suggestions.
Besides, you need to consider the opportunity cost of "neutral" personalisation, like "Hello Peter"—sometimes a less cluttered screen would perform better.
UX Exercise
Question 1 of 1
BFM+
Why is this an effective animation for Nike?
Select an answer
Written by Peter Ramsey
Published
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