The end of choice-based customization

Part of my "Playground" series - where I explore strategic insights through conceptual case studies and creative thinking exercises.
 

Client: Case Study

Case: Ai driven customization

Role: Creative business development

me

STRATEGIC INSIGHT

The end of choice-based
customization.

Remember when Nike launched NIKEiD? Back in 1999, picking your own shoe colors felt like the future. Today, it feels about as revolutionary as cable TV. Gen Z isn't impressed by drop-down menus of color options anymore. They've moved on to something bigger.

Here's the thing: this generation grew up as creators, not just consumers. They don't watch TikTok - they make it. They don't follow trends - they start them. And they're looking at brand "customization" the same way they look at their parents' Facebook accounts: cute, but not for them.

Traditional customization is built on a simple idea: let customers pick from our pre-approved choices. But for a generation that remixes, reimagines, and recreates everything they touch, that's not enough anymore. They don't want to pick from the menu. They want to rewrite it.

This creates a fascinating challenge for brands. The old playbook of carefully controlling every aspect of your product and image is colliding with a generation that sees brands as raw material for their own creativity. And there's no going back.

shoe

CREATIVE CASE STUDY

Make Your Mark®

So I asked myself: what if we stopped thinking about customization and started thinking about creation? Instead of asking "How can we let customers customize our products?" what if we asked "How can we turn our products into platforms for creativity?"

That's where Make Your Mark® came from - a conceptual project that reimagines footwear not just as something you wear, but as something you create with. It's not about choosing the color of your shoes. It's about designing the mark they leave on the world.

Imagine designing your own unique sole pattern - your personal "design DNA" that transforms every step into an expression. A poet in Tokyo could leave haiku in her footsteps. A street artist in Berlin could turn their daily walk into an evolving art piece. An activist could leave footprints that tell stories about climate change.

It's just a concept, but it points to something bigger: Gen Z doesn't want to pick options from a dropdown menu. They want to be the ones creating those options. For brands, that means evolving from gatekeepers to enablers - from selling products to providing creative platforms.

COPYRIGHT © 2025 JO VAN GRINDERBEEK 

STRATEGIC AND CREATIVE ADVISOR

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