Pay Phrase

Has Amazon.com figured out something really personal about me?

I’m wondering, because Amazon’s new Pay Phrase feature has me a bit disconcerted puzzled.

Pay Phrase: Two words that mean….what, exactly?

Amazon has this new feature, called “pay phrase”, where you pick out a unique phrase, attach it to a pin number, and then use the phrase to verify your account as you check out. In order to tempt you to use this feature, Amazon suggests a phrase just for you.

I was intrigued to see the phrase that Amazon recommended to me is “Scrupulous Integrity”. Sounds pretty good, no?

And, if I didn’t like this phrase, Amazon also recommended:

Conscientious Imagination        Diplomatic Ingenuity
Fastidious Performance             Conscientious Affection
Conscientious Caution               Sweet Ingenuity
Strict Determination                  Scrupulously Visible

Pay Phrase: A Style Statement?

These phrases are all so lovely, so positive, so aspirational, so style-y.

Pay Phrases sound nothing like an e-commerce tool. Instead, they sound like “Style Statements“, those “two profoundly descriptive words that capture your essence“.

Clarifying your personal Style Statement is a process for “creating a compass for living an inspired life that’s true to you”. It is, in fact, it a really powerful authenticity ‘technology’ that I’d recommend to anyone.

These phrases above sound pretty good to me. Since I haven’t actually clarified my own Style Statement, maybe I should just be all about “Scrupulous Integrity”.

But I’m wondering, how did Amazon choose these phrases? Are they specifically for me?

Is Pay Phrase some kind of twist on behavioral targeting?

Did Amazon select these words based on some computerized review of my recent purchases (which include such titles as Activism, Inc.: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns Is Strangling Progressive Politics in America, the exciting Spanish Verb Workbook, and Friday Night Lights: The Third Season)?

Is the Pay Phrase just a bunch of nice words (like the mission statement generator) that anyone would like?

Identity Aspiration?

Maybe Amazon somehow has some secret insight into attributes I’d love to have as part of my identity… maybe Amazon wants me to be more “me”?

Then again, the Pay Phrase could be something much more banal. The Pay Phrase could just be an added little trick that would make me feel better about shopping on Amazon, since every time every time I’d buy something, I’d be reminded that I’m “scrupulously integrigated”?

Worst case, it would be some interesting ‘auto-communication’.

Just wondering about the identity implications of this tool. What do you think?

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