Marketing Communication
Critical Reflection: Zarouali et al.'s (2017) paper on retargeted advertisement's effect on purchase intention
Zarouali et al. (2017) explored how retargeted Facebook advertisements (ads) – unlike non-retargeted ads – affect 16-18-year-old adolescents’ purchase intention. They have found a positive effect that becomes negative, when textual debriefing (that is, disclosing information about the advertisement’s targeting intention, if we accept the cookies). This is due to the debriefs’ effect of increasing their concerns for privacy. This is not the case when they are not reminded of their data being used for retargeted advertising. The study is insightful for marketers using (textual debriefing with) retargeted advertisement. Yet, their study has some academic implication, particularly on the grounds of methodology and the relevance (generalisability) of the final conclusions.
First, methodologically, the sample’s female (61%) bias (Zarouali et al., 2017, p. 160) could have been resolved. The dominance of female respondents’ data being analysed is problematic. This is because former research – prior to this study of Zarouali et al. (2017) – has pointed out that women have higher concerns about their privacy (Grubbs & Milne, 2013). Importantly, they have found so in the same context of Facebook (Grubbs & Milne, 2013), which has been analysed by Zarouali et al. (2017) as well. This issue could have been resolved before or after the data collection. Before data collection, they could have taken gender into account by stratified sampling (Bryman, 2016, pp. 192-193) in the classrooms involved. Alternatively, weighting could also have been an – although, unpopular – option, to make the sample representative post-hoc. Weighting could have been done in accordance with the male – female representation ratio of all the 11th and 12th grade classrooms, from which participants have been selected (Field, 2017, pp. 851-852). Zarouali et al. (2017) did not only miss to correct this, but also, to report on the effect of gender, even though, it has been included as a control variable in their model (pp.161-162).
On a sidenote, besides gender, and age, the method could have also included participants’ financial situation, status, or economic class as a control variable. Since financial backgrounds play a key role when it comes to what people would buy – that is, their purchase intention (Wekeza & Sibanda, 2019, p. 956). Some might find a sunglass not worth spending money on (due to their financial situation), as a pre-existing condition, regardless their familiarity with the product, which was the pre-test measurement for stimulus-choice (Zarouali et al., 2017, p. 160).
Second, the conclusion of 16–18-year-old adolescents being concerned about their privacy to the extent of taking action for protecting it, only when they are informed by cookies about retargeted advertisements, is problematic. The paper argues that retargeted ads –combined with higher level of privacy concern and textual debriefing – increase scepticism about advertising, and lead to lower purchase intention (Zarouali et al., 2017). Yet, on the internet, porn is a product that is being looked for by teenagers (Wright et al., 2021), and while they do take action to protect their privacy (by searching for it in private search windows) (Gao et al., 2014, pp. 10-102), their ‘purchase’ intention of consuming pornography is not declining. Instead, it is increasing (Lim et al., 2017, in Scott & Armitage, 2017). In other words, there are products, which reject the findings of Zarouali et al. (2017). In the case of porn, for example, teenagers concerned about retargeted ads do take action to prevent uncomfortable situations (e.g., to see their preferred porn-genre on their Google tab, especially in an uncomfortable setting, surrounded by family or friends), by browsing in anonymous search tabs (Gao et al., 2014, pp. 10-102). Yet, without decline in their ‘purchase’ intention (Lim et al., 2017, in Scott & Armitage, 2017). The case of ‘innocent’ sunglasses therefore cannot be generalised to all products on the internet, limiting the results’ external population validity.
In summary, Zarouali et al.’s (2017) insights on how adolescents’ purchase intention is negatively affected by – textual debrief- and privacy concern mediated – retargeted advertisement, the paper has been limited methodology- and conclusion-wise. Methodologically, the sample’s bias towards more privacy concerned women is problematic when it comes to ecological validity. This issue could have been resolved before data collection, as well as post-hoc. In addition, the conclusions of the study are limited in their generalisability (population validity), which could have been noted by the researchers.
References
Bryman, A. (2016). Social Research Methods (5th ed.). London, UK: Oxford University Press.
Field, A. (2017). Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (5th ed.). London, UK: SAGE Publications.
Gao, X., Yang, Y., Fu, H., Lindqvist, J., & Wang, Y. (2014). Private browsing: An inquiry on usability and privacy protection. In Proceedings of the 13th Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (pp. 97-106). https://doi.org/10.1145/2665943.2665953
Hoy, M. G., & Milne, G. (2010). Gender differences in privacy-related measures for young adult Facebook users. Journal of interactive advertising, 10(2), 28-45. https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2010.10722168
Scott, S. & Armitage, R. (2017, June 29) Porn use on the rise among teens, researchers find link with mental health problems. ABC NEWS. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/teenagers-porn-use-on-the-rise-research-says/8664842
Wekeza, S. V., & Sibanda, M. (2019). Factors influencing consumer purchase intentions of organically grown products in shelly centre, port Shepstone, South Africa. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(6), 956. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16060956
Wright, P. J., Paul, B., & Herbenick, D. (2021). Preliminary Insights from a US Probability Sample on Adolescents’ Pornography Exposure, Media Psychology, and Sexual Aggression. Journal of health communication, 26(1), 39-46. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.1887980
Zarouali, B., Ponnet, K., Walrave, M., & Poels, K. (2017). “Do you like cookies?” Adolescents' skeptical processing of retargeted Facebook-ads and the moderating role of privacy concern and a textual debriefing. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 157-165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.050
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