How People’s Reactions to Personalized Advertising on the Internet depend upon Perceived Quality of Personalization and Need for Uniqueness

Description

Purpose: Personalized advertising on the internet, often conveyed without people’s consent, has become very popular. However, scientific research on its acceptance and effectiveness is scarce. The present study explores people’s attitudes and behavior toward personalized advertising on the Internet as a function of perceived ad characteristics and individual differences. Specifically, it is investigated whether the amount of perceived quality of personalization and individuals’ need for uniqueness (creative choice, similarity avoidance) are related to more or less favorable attitudes and behavior (clicking on the ad, searching for more information, ignoring the ad, active avoidance). Methodology: An online survey was conducted and distributed via social media. About 500 individuals participated in the survey; n = 247 provided full questionnaire data. SEM was used to analyze the data. Results: Creative choice was associated with more positive and less negative attitudes and behavior, whereas similarity avoidance was related to less positive and more negative attitudes and behavior. Quality of personalization was not significantly related to reported behavior, but tended to go along with more positive attitudes. Limitations: Results are limited by the correlational design and self-reported data. Implications: Future research might investigate in more detail why and in what situations the dimensions of need for uniqueness show divergent relations to attitudes and behavior. Value: This is one of the first studies on personalized advertising on the Internet. Results indicate that not only advertising characteristics, but particularly individual differences seem to be crucial for explaining reactions to personalized advertising on the Internet.

Period	21 May 2015
Event title	17th congress of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology
Event type	Conference
Location	NorwayShow on map