Communicators and marketers can now adopt a personalized approach to their work, ideally one based on behavioral science. But the execution lags behind the science while the claims of some marketers as to what personality marketing can do far exceed it. Moreover, public controversies like the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica story threaten personality marketing’s potential before it has really matured.
What Marketers Should Know About Personality-Based Marketing
Public controversies like the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica story threaten personality marketing’s potential before it has really matured. It’s important not to judge a field by its worst actors. Marketers, communicators, and the public alike deserve a better understanding of personality marketing – what it is, how it works, and why it matters. For marketers, communicators, and even public health agencies looking to promote healthier behaviors in large populations (diet, nutrition, exercise, quit smoking), the potential payoff of using personality science is to be able to better match how you engage individuals by personality profile, and to predict behaviors by personality traits. No marketer wants to present a message that is off-key or even irrelevant; personality science offers the chance to empathize with individuals, and engage them with the message, advertisement, or content in a way that is more likely to resonate with them.