Personalized marketing communication in context Studying the perspectives of consumers, industry and regulators

Today, advertisers have access to a wide range of data about consumers that they can use to adapt the content and distribution of marketing communication to personal characteristics, interests and behaviors of individuals. This phenomenon, called personalized marketing communication (PMC), has transformed the traditional advertising into so-called personalization landscape. This landscape is inhabited by three main actors: consumers, the industry, and the regulators. So far, academic research on PMC has strongly focused on the perspective of consumers. A broader investigation that would consider the all three perspectives and would allow to fully describe the phenomenon is missing. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation was to bring together the perspectives of the three actors in order to draw a more nuanced picture of the utility and impact of PMC on consumers and the industry, as well as to scrutinize the role of the law in this “personalization landscape”.
Results show that PMC strongly influenced by two factors: technological progress, and privacy and ethical considerations. With respect to the personalization landscape, consumers are at the center of it as they “produce” data necessary for PMC as well as are the recipient of the personalized messages and are protected by privacy laws. At the same time, they feel resigned and frustrated, which undermines the potential of rights guaranteed by the regulator. In this situation, the industry is the most powerful player in the personalization landscape.
All in all, this dissertation provides important multiperspective insights into the personalization landscape.