Privacy concerns about personalized advertising across multiple social media platforms in Japan: the relationship with information control and persuasion knowledge

This study examines the relationship between persuasion knowledge and personalized advertising-related outcomes, such as ad avoidance and attitudes toward personalized advertising. The persuasion knowledge model is used to investigate privacy concerns and information control as a mediator and moderator in this relationship, respectively. The study also examines the degrees of these personalized advertising outcomes and their variances across social media platforms. An online survey of 600 Japanese participants indicates that privacy concerns mediate the relationship between consumers’ information control and ad avoidance and between consumers’ information control and the perceived intrusiveness of personalized advertising. In contrast, information control moderates the relationship between persuasion knowledge and privacy concerns. Moreover, participants are more concerned about their online privacy on Twitter and evaluate Twitter ads negatively. On the contrary, Instagram’s effect on personalized advertising-related outcomes is less negative than that of other platforms.