Aiming the Mobile Targets in a Cross-Cultural Context: Effects of Trust, Privacy Concerns, and Attitude

ABSTRACT

With the rapid growth of mobile phone use, mobile advertising has increasingly become a powerful tool for marketers to reach targeted consumers worldwide. This study investigates how attitude, trust, and privacy concerns influence mobile advertising effectiveness in a cross-cultural context including China and the U.S. Our results show much similarity between Chinese and American consumers. Overall, in both countries, we found that beliefs about mobile advertising significantly influence consumers’ attitudes toward mobile advertising, which in turn influence the intention to use mobile advertising and purchase intention. Specifically, perceived informational usefulness, perceived entertainment usefulness and perceived ease of use emerged as significant predictors for consumers’ attitudes toward mobile advertising. Perceived social usefulness is a significant predictor among Chinese consumers but not among Americans. In both markets, trust positively and significantly influences attitudes, whereas privacy concerns are a significant negative influencing factor.

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Notes on contributors

Ying Wang

Ying Wang is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Youngstown State University. She earned her Ph.D. from Kent State University in the U.S. after receiving her undergraduate degree at Renmin University in China. Her research focuses on new media advertising and global marketing communication.

Ebru Genc

Ebru Genc received her Ph.D in Business Administration/Marketing at Temple University. She holds an M.S. degree in Finance from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She previously worked at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and Abdullah Gul University in Turkey as Assistant Professor.

Gang Peng

Gang Peng is an associate professor at Mihaylo College of Business and Economics, California State University Fullerton. He earned his PhD from the University of Washington, Seattle. His research interests include adoption, diffusion, usage, and impact of information technology.