Mass Customization Made Easy: When Individual Fantastical Thinking Matters

Mass Customization (MC) is nowadays regarded as the new frontier for competitive effectiveness even in mass markets. Nonetheless, companies investing on MC are not fully benefiting by this strategy given that often customers do not engage into these processes, which appear to be too complex for them. This paper proposes that leveraging on individual fantastical thinking is the way to go: it acts a cognitive booster able to make customers perceive MC as being trouble free. Four experimental studies show that: (1) individuals in a high fantastical thinking state develop stronger demand for self designed products; (2) Fantastical thinking reduces perceived effort and increases enjoyment in the process; (3) Individuals in a high fantastical thinking state are better able to design products of good quality and novelty; (4) Fantastical thinking can be primed by employing an effective and applicable procedure.