#128—David Edelman: Personalization as Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI

Outthinkers

David Edelman is a Harvard Business School Fellow and Executive Advisor at BCG. David spent over 30 years as a chief marketing officer at Aetna/CVS, as well as building consultancy businesses in digital and marketing transformation while with McKinsey, Digitas, and BCG. He now teaches marketing at Harvard Business School and serves as an advisor to top executives in startups, private equity, and larger enterprises.

In this discussion, we dive into David’s book, Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI, coauthored with Mark Abraham, which helps executives learn how to put personalization at the center of their strategy, accelerate growth, and capture their share of the value personalization creates.

In this episode, he shares:

• How personalization has radically shifted in the past decades to create unique value for customers, going beyond just marketing.
• How data and AI play a pivotal role in this shift, governed by ecosystems where companies collaborate to deliver solutions rather than just products
• The five promises businesses should focus on to seize the personalization advantage: empower me, know me, reach me, show me, and delight me
• How to measure your solutions’ effectiveness with a custom Personalization index tool

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Episode Timeline:
00:00—Highlight from today's episode
1:00—Introducing David+ the topic of today’s episode
3:20—If you really know me, you know that...
4:25—What is your definition of strategy
05:05—The true meaning of personalization
06:55—A surprising experience in personalization
10:04—Technological advances enabling personalization
13:10—Ecosystem-based personalized solutions
17:40—The five promises of personalization
21:25—Starting with empowerment before data collection
23:34—The sequential implementation of personalization
26:41—Measuring personalization effectiveness with a personalization index
30:06—How can people follow you and continue learning from you?
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Additional Resources:
Personal website: www.edelmanadvisoryservices.com
Link to book: Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/daveedelman

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