December 12, 2018
Research: Personalized Ads have Positive Impact
Tyler Shanahan, left, and Dr. Trang P. Tran
Back in March 2018, ECU College of Business professor Trang P. Tran and MBA-graduate student Tyler Shanahan submitted a paper to the Association of Marketing Theory and Practice annual conference. For their efforts, they won the Best Paper Award for the social media/internet/mobile/direct marketing track.
Having incorporated reviewer comments, Tran and Shanahan, with additional co-author Erik Taylor, have published the updated paper in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. Titled ”Getting to Know You: Social Media Personalization as a Means of Enhancing Brand Loyalty And Perceived Quality,” the paper suggests there is a positive impact that personalized ads have on customer perception about brands advertised on social media.
“With the advance of technology and the internet, online activities have become a part of our routine; we either search something, or buy a brand, or comment on a friend’s Facebook post. However, one “a-ha” moment that surprised us is that we didn’t know that online companies could utilize the information and convert it into a potential marketing solution,” said Tran, who’s with COB’s Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management. “The results of this research show there are new opportunities for marketing officers who are looking for ways to promote and advertise their brands — including services and products — on social media.”
The abstract of the paper can be found below. To download the research paper, visit this link.
Abstract
Social media has become one of the largest environments of human interaction, with more than 80 percent of Americans using social media and firm spending on social media marketing more than quadrupling in the past decade. However, little is known about the effects of ad personalization in the social media context. This research develops and tests a comprehensive model of personalized advertising in the development of consumer’s brand perceptions using 242 responses collected from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Results suggest perceived personalization positively impacts consumer brand engagement and brand attachment, both enhance perceived quality and brand loyalty of brands advertised on Facebook.