It’s All About Me

The real draw of online is narcissism. Personalization and customization just sound so much better. We count friends on Facebook, links on LinkedIn and followers on Twitter. It’s all about us, for the most part. And then, we pass things off, laugh or engage, raise money or share opinions.

Myself, I just love personalization sites. I never get tired of them and when I do, I just give them to my kids and they keep on playing with them.

Here are three that, recently, I’ve had a blast with:

Axe Hair Crisis
I’m a glutton for rejection, which is probably why I work in the creative industry. The Axe Hair Crisis site was too much to resist. Upload my picture so that 100 women I didn’t know could diss my looks? Sign me up.

This was one of the better personalization sites since it coupled my picture with video and commentary and connected everything with product. Actually, I do need that product.  Best of all, it reminded me of stories of Groucho Marx and how people used to run into him on the street and beg him to insult them. Usually he obliged. That’s what going to the Axe site felt like.

The Hero Factory
Crispin Porter & Bogusky has a fun little site that let’s you create a your own personal superhero. It’s easy, funny and clever. The best part of this is it doesn’t take very long but you get a “personalized” comic book cover. I admit I did it twice, while my kids spent hours playing around with this. There’s not much of payoff and no business angle but there is surely a brand angle for CPB.

Go Insane
Go Insane is a site for a new roller coaster in Stockholm’s Gröna Lund. The microsite uses a horror comic style but the kicker is a scream contest. They want you to make a video of how you’ll sound in the roller coaster and you can win a spot in the new commercial they’re making.

Not only does the site look great (I love that style) but it’s a great, easy to enter competition with user-generated content and a great prize. Simple, fun and creative. It really doesn’t need to be harder than that.

Anyone else playing with anything fun?