Marketers may not be familiar with the concept of the uncanny valley, but they should be: The personalization movement sits at its trough, and consumers are clamoring for them to pull it out.
Proposed in 1970 by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, the uncanny valley concept was first applied to humanoid robots. When an entity appears almost — but not quite — human, it evokes in people a sense of unease.
As it turns out, however, “almost human” designs....