Marketing through personalization

Many companies these days spend millions of dollars on advertising and marketing. When you are driving on a freeway, or just driving in town, you see tons of posters of nike, adidas, and other goods that the distributers want you to buy. All of this is advertising and marketing. The question is then is that the only way where you can advertise, through posters? Definitely NO! many companies advertise through word of mouth, through promotions, discounts and many other methods. As I was reading this article, I thought the way this company approached their marketing strategy was very interting and creative. Apparently, there are more than 26 million golfers in this world. That is a lot of people. All of these people are probably at least in the middle class range of their social status. All of these people most of the time use the same old, plain, white ball during their rounds of golf. But what this company thought of was genius. They came out with personalized balls. You could design it, order it, and use it during your game. It doesn't mention in the article what the sales margin were, but to me it seemed like it would be something that would work great. I think one of the reasons why facebook has become so popular is, you customize or personalize your own site by adding features and other fun tags to your site. Our generation is all about uniqueness and standing out. I think that personalizing products will attract consumers because it will make them feel special. Nike, in instance is seen everywhere, and it seems like it has lost its value because of them being everywhere. But what if there were only one pair of sneakers that only one person owned? Now, that would be pretty special. I think this is an excellent way to market your company or industry.