Thursday, April 24, 2008

"Olay for You" is a Success in Providing Personalized Online Product Recommendations

Proctor & Gamble started a digital initiative back in January called Olay for You, which has proven to be extremely successful. Olay for You is an online product recommendation system. It was developed because of the proliferation of Olay products, and confusion among consumers new to the brand in regard to what each product does and what products they need.

Olay for You uses a very graphic, iterative interview process and a soothing female voice in order to "interview" users and get them to answer numerous questions in order to be able to recommend products to them.

Consumers are increasingly finding the offline shopping experience to be annoying, especially when they aren't sure what product to by or can't find the product they're looking for. As a result, retailers want to tap inot the convenience and functionality of online tools. Wal-Mart is an example of this. Wal-Mart has now begun testing an in-store version of Olay for You via in-store kiosks.

It's very interesting how the shopping experience in big box stores has come full circle. Online shopping used to be thought of as lacking the "warmth" of in-store shopping. However, with the proliferation of large stores and the lack of sales personnel to help the shopper, the online experience is now becoming more pleasant. Online, a shopper can find the information she needs, and with the advent of initiatives such as Olay for You, can even obtain personalized product recommendations. Now stores are trying to mimic the advantages of online shopping. Who would have thought that would ever happen?

Article: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=126543

No comments: