iSpy? Tailored versus Invasive Ads and Consumers’ Perceptions of Personalized Advertising

This research examines consumers’ perceptions of personalized advertising (PA), a new and emerging trend in online advertising, within the context of social networking sites. The practice holds great promise but has been associated with a number of privacy issues, and thus needs further investigation. Utilized as a theoretical lens by which to conduct our investigation, privacy calculus theory is used and extended via its integration with constructs from other streams of literature. Both antecedents and outcomes regarding consumer privacy concerns toward PA are empirically investigated, in order to help uncover the factors that determine whether the practice is perceived favorably or invasively by consumers. We also assess what effects those perceptions have on consumers’ behavioral intentions toward PA. The results show that a number of factors, such as invasiveness, privacy control, perceived usefulness, and consumer innovativeness influence consumers’ behavioral intentions concerning PA. Implications of these results for managers, researchers, and consumers are discussed.