I received a marketing email from my favorite desk salad chain last Tuesday. You know the one — where they actually mix the ingredients together instead of leaving you to perform culinary acrobatics with a plastic fork. The subject line? “Your Favorites, Your Way.”

I had a sandwich for lunch that day.

The Personalization Pandemic

In every innovation workshop, strategy session, and brainstorming offsite I’ve facilitated or attended over the past 17 years, it happens like clockwork. The team is generating platforms — those evergreen springboards for ideation that capture an insight and provide focus. And regardless of the industry, the insight, or the challenge, someone inevitably writes on a Post-it: “My [product], My Way.”

It’s innovation’s equivalent of suggesting “synergy” in a business meeting.

Personalization has been heralded as a “growing trend” for nearly two decades now. It’s the trend that never stops trending — the innovation equivalent of a zombie apocalypse. Just when you think it’s finally dead, it staggers back to life, hungry for your brain cells.

The Empty Promise

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most “personalization” isn’t actually personal. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure book with two endings. It’s 31 flavors when you really just want good vanilla. It’s the illusion of choice wrapped in the language of empowerment.

What’s particularly frustrating is that personalization is often deployed as a substitute for actually understanding customer needs. Rather than doing the hard work of uncovering genuine insights, brands slap a “have it your way” sticker on their offering and call it innovation.

It’s not innovation. It’s abdication.

When Personalization Became a Cop-Out

Remember when Coca-Cola launched “Share a Coke” with names on bottles? That was personalization with a purpose — creating moments of surprise, delight, and connection. It worked because it wasn’t about endless choice; it was about emotional resonance. What is kitschy and maybe a little cheesy, sure. But was it also easy to implement and effective? Yes.

Contrast that with today’s “personalization,” which too often means:

* Overwhelming consumers with trivial choices

* Shifting the burden of design to customers

* Creating complexity without adding value

* Replacing expertise with options

The Satisfaction Paradox

The great irony is that endless personalization often leads to less satisfaction. Psychologists call this the “paradox of choice” — the more options we have, the less satisfied we tend to be with our ultimate selection.

When everything is customizable, nothing feels special. When you can have it exactly “your way,” you also own the disappointment if it’s not perfect.

True satisfaction comes not from micromanaging every aspect of a product or experience, but from being genuinely surprised and delighted by something that anticipates needs you didn’t even know you had.

The Innovation Cop-Out

In innovation workshops, “My [blank], My Way” has become the equivalent of the student who writes “world peace” on their application essay. It signals good intentions while demonstrating zero original thinking.

Real innovation requires taking a stand. Having a point of view. Making choices on behalf of your customers based on deep understanding, not offering them a buffet of options and calling it customer-centricity.

Apple didn’t become Apple by asking customers to personalize every aspect of their devices. They made opinionated products based on a clear vision of what the experience should be.

When Personalization Actually Works

This isn’t to say personalization is always empty. It works when:

* It solves a genuine problem (like Netflix recommendations cutting through content overload)

* It’s invisible and effortless (like Spotify creating personalized playlists without requiring input)

* It’s meaningful, not trivial (like customizing medical treatments, not sandwich spreads)

* It creates genuine emotional connection (like Stitch Fix stylists adding personal notes)

The difference? These examples start with genuine customer needs and use personalization as a solution, not a strategy.

Beyond “My Blank, My Way”

So what’s the alternative for innovation platforms? Try:

* Identifying the real tensions in people’s lives

* Finding the overlooked moments that matter

* Solving problems people haven’t articulated yet

* Creating experiences worth talking about

The next time you’re tempted to write “My [Blank], My Way” on that innovation workshop Post-it, challenge yourself to dig deeper:

* What’s the actual tension your customer is experiencing?

* What would delight them without requiring their input?

* Where could your expertise create magic they couldn’t imagine themselves?

* What’s the problem behind the desire for personalization?

True innovation isn’t giving people exactly what they ask for. It’s giving them what they never knew they needed.

As for me, I’m still looking for that marketing email that says: “We’ve created something so perfect for you, you won’t need to customize a thing.”

Now that would be personal.