The Role of Ad Sequence and Privacy Concerns in Personalized Advertising: An Eye-Tracking Study into Synced Advertising Effects

Abstract

Synced advertising is a relatively new strategy in which ads are personalized based on concurrent media usage. The aim of this study was to explore whether the sequence in which TV commercials and tablet ads were shown in synced advertising affected consumers’ memory and attention toward advertisements in both media. Because of public debate about privacy concerns related to personalized advertising, we examined the moderating role of consumers’ privacy concerns as a personal factor. An eye-tracking experiment (N = 118) showed that, overall, synchronizing ads across media results in the most favorable cognitive responses. The placement of a tablet ad simultaneous to (versus before or after) a TV commercial for the same brand resulted in the most attention toward both ads. However, consumers with higher (versus lower) privacy concerns paid less attention to the tablet ad when it was shown simultaneously with the TV commercial, compared to consumers with lower privacy concerns. The results show that synced advertising is a promising personalized advertising strategy for the industry but at the same time it might be less effective for people with higher privacy concerns.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Liberal Arts Technologies and Innovation Services unit and specifically Andy Sell and Pernu Menheer for their support in data collection. Also, they would like to thank Meng Yang for her assistance in the lab.

Notes

1 The data presented are part of a larger study on synced advertising effects.

2 To increase power, all participants with reliable eye-tracking data were also included for the attention analysis when their survey data were not reliable (e.g., missing attention checks, response patterns).

3 We ran zero-inflated negative binomial regression, which verified there was no systematic difference between the respondents in the three categories relating to who saw the TV commercial or tablet ad and those who did not.

4 No significant moderation effect of privacy concerns was found regarding the impact of three conditions on attention to the TV commercial and was therefore not included.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the American Academy of Advertising Research Fellowship Award.

Notes on contributors

Claire M. Segijn

Claire M. Segijn (PhD, University of Amsterdam) is an assistant professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota.

Hilde A. M. Voorveld

Hilde A. M. Voorveld (PhD, University of Amsterdam) is an associate professor, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam.

Khadija Ali Vakeel

Khadija Ali Vakeel (PhD, Indian Institute of Management, Indore) is an assistant professor in the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship, Driehaus College of Business, DePaul University.