The photo heavy email, to my surprise, was personalized to me by gender. A link at the bottom indicated there is a women's version of the email campaign, raising awareness of the gender specific versions of the email.
Express has personalized the campaign based on gender, and out of curiosity, I clicked the link to the women's version. It had commonalities - a similar message detailing the army clothing. The photos were in a different ordering and sizing of the included photos varied. Here's a comparison, a thumbnail of the women's version:
The men's version featured a photo of men wearing clothing as the lead photo. The women's had a fashion photo of two women leading.
Transparency into Personalization
As advertisers become more sensitive to consumers needs on the internet, more personalization makes sense and will become easier and more cost effective. The major concern is privacy and awareness - communicating to the consumer that the ad had been personalized.
The Future of Privacy Organization has proposed a little icon for advertisers to include to convey this in a standard manner. I am curious if Express and other clothing companies will voluntarily adopt this icon.
