CustomWeek 2011: MC companies collaborate to generate awareness for MC in general public

A group of more than 40 custom and personalized product companies will start a week long collaboration (starting at June 6) to bring attention to the growing “mass customization” movement by showcasing the breadth of customizable products now available in the market at http://www.customweek.com.

Custom Week 2011 is the first annual voluntary industrywide promotion for the mass customization and personalization industry. The event has been organized by volunteers from TreehouseLogic, GemKitty, and Create-A-Mattress to draw attention to the maturity of the mass customization movement, highlight companies currently offering thousands of customized and personalized items across a spectrum of categories, and emphasize that mass customization is a trend that’s here to stay. 

At customweek.com, consumers can discover a wide range of custom products, designing and creating everything from unique purses to new flavors of ice cream.  They can also enter to win a $2,500 “Customize Your Life” Grand Prize package, and take advantage of exclusive purchase discounts.

In April, Forrester Research issued a report titled, “Mass Customization is (Finally) The Future of Products” asserting, “Mass customization has finally hit an inflection point.”  The report continues to predict custom products will “explode” with accelerated growth in the coming years, painting a vivid picture of a consumer marketplace brimming with “rich, pervasive customization.”

The report also suggests made-to-order products will affect global economics as manufacturing is more likely to be in the USA or EU instead of Asia.

Inexpensive technology, advances in production techniques, and rapidly-evolving buyer expectations have unlocked the door to mass market customization.  These factors have advanced industrialization from a mass production/assembly line age into a new age where products are created or completed based on customer design choices.

I believe this to be a great initative to educate consumers and the press that customization of consumer products is here and a major market segment already, not an oddity or small niche!

Comments

[MyBlueWardrobe]

I fully agree with the comment above. Those of us in the mass customization/co-creation industry do not believe we are some "niche" market. Consumers are becoming acclimated to an environment where they can get “whatever I want whenever I want it”. Companies like Amazon, Netflix, Pandora, Rhapsody, and iTunes offer consumers virtually unlimited choices in real time. What I think mass customization allows is a company that operates in a physical goods environment, like our company www.bluewardrobe.com, the ability to offer the customer essentially anything they want without the burden of physical inventory.