Years ago, I was part of an org called Dance Spree. We got a lot of amusement from the mass-mailed envelopes that said “D. Spree” has won $ 1million.”

Deception just doesn’t work. Properly used, however, personalization does work.

–Shel Horowitz, award-winning author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First

With behavioral, attitudinal, and contextual data more available to marketing teams, it’s all to easy to blur the lines from helpful to super creepy. (You know, every marketing exec I’ve talked to about mobile brings up the “wouldn’t it be great if you walked by X and we could send an offer about Y right to their phone?” That’s creepy.)

To avoid such an utter lack of privacy and disconnect with the real world, I always recommend my clients find what’s most valuable to their customers in the context of their brand. Use research to discover how their customers accomplish everyday goals, tasks, and needs with/around/through the company’s product(s). (I find this type of data usually comes from observational research, like contextual inquiry, and less from–arguably meaningless–focus groups.)

Then, with that knowledge, one can provide content that connects customer value with corporate brand in a context that’s meaningful, and well, not creepy.