How Do Advertisements Affect Consumer Behaviour
Back To Blogs List
Do you ever get the feeling that internet advertising knows more about you than you would think? Have you ever questioned why you're being presented with a product ad, only to discover afterwards that you're the type of person who would want to buy it?
If this is the case, the adverts that show on your screen were most likely behaviourally tailored.
Behavioural targeting selects advertisements that marketers believe will appeal to you based on your unique online activity - clicks, searches, social media, what you've bought and browsed.
Here is how advertisements affect consumer behaviour:
Predictive ability
Behavioural targeting grew in popularity during the next decade, thanks to advancements in monitoring and prediction. The behavioural targeting technique was standardized to create user profile scores based on regency, frequency, and intensity of clicks, which decide to advertise, according to a patent submitted by Yahoo! in 2006.
Target appropriately brought the predictive value of consumer data in marketing to the public's attention. In 2012, the store foresaw that a client would get pregnant long before the young woman informed her father.
Target achieved this by developing a model that tracked customer purchases and projected pregnancy based on certain goods (e.g., multivitamins, lotion, and cotton balls). While the article's monitoring and advertising took place offline, it did show marketers' capacity to gather and exploit individual-level activity to convey marketing messages.
Recognizing behavioural targets
How can you know whether an advertisement has been behaviourally targeted?
Examine some of the advertisements you encounter on your favourite websites, such as Yahoo or Gawker (unless you have an ad blocker running). Do you see a small blue triangle in the upper right corner of the advertisement? Perhaps a small "AdChoices" script? If that's the case, BINGO!
The AdChoices icon is a symbol on an ad that indicates that it was chosen for you based on your previous internet activity. Even though there is no legal requirement to declare whether an ad is behaviourally targeted, the Digital Advertising Alliance — an industry body that regulates privacy policies – responded to FTC recommendations by encouraging advertisers to use the symbol and attempting to educate the public. Both projects are focused on resolving customer privacy concerns.
While advertisers may prefer behavioural targeting since it leads to more excellent click-through rates and sales conversions when compared to advertising that isn't behaviourally targeted, consumer opinion is mixed.
Advertisements as social labels
Giving someone a name has long been recognized to influence their behaviour, according to social scientists.
For example, famous research discovered that being labelled "generous" after contributing increases the likelihood of making a second gift compared to not being termed charitable after donating. Labels from others can influence our identity, and we act accordingly with whom we feel we are.
We discovered that receiving a behaviourally tailored ad may alter a person's self-perceptions to match personality qualities linked with the product in the ad in a series of experiments just published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Because behaviourally tailored advertising operates as implicit social labels, this is the case. When you see a behaviourally tailored ad, it's as if a marketer is telling you, "You care about the environment" or "You have sophisticated preferences."
When consumers believed an ad for an eco-friendly product or an intelligent restaurant was behaviourally targeted, they felt more "green" and "sophisticated," respectively, compared to a control condition. They did not perceive the ad was behaviourally targeted. Because consumers realize that the ad is linked to the previous activity, receiving a behaviourally tailored ad works as a label.
It's crucial to be precise.
Our findings are encouraging for readers concerned that behaviourally tailored advertising may lead them to think untrue things about themselves. Our results show that precise targeting is required to have a substantial impact on self-perceptions.
If you've never done anything online that suggests you're interested in luxury eating (maybe you Google "how to microwave supper" and "quick food restaurants"), seeing an ad for an upmarket restaurant isn't going to make you feel like you're suddenly a sophisticated diner. While you may realize that the ad is aimed at this type of individual, you're more likely to dismiss itas an unimportant term because it has nothing to do with your actions.
Conclusion:
The main message is that behavioural targeting is not just widespread and successfully raising click-through rates and purchases. Still, it also has the potential to be impactful in previously unanticipated ways. Consumer Behaviour Assignment Help and assignment help online providers also influence students from advertisements.
The Ad Choices logo, which was created to make consumers feel more comfortable with behavioural targeting, might be a significant driver of these effects, as it's only when consumers are aware that an ad has been behaviourally targeted that it can alter their perceptions of themselves.
Comments