"Nope," says the people, "we don't want personalized ads."

Marketing in its very essence is about reaching the right people at the right time for that sweet conversion. Online advertising ushered in an era of high-touch and engagement. Brands and platforms are obliged to know as much about the target consumers and track them with the hope of ultimately scoring a sale. To brands and platforms, it's a fair trade--a superb free service in exchange for personal information, so they can continue to deliver great products and services. The logic continues: if consumers were going to see ads anyway, might as well see things that they are tangentially interested in. After all, humans are drawn to familiarity. The mere-exposure effect, the psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop enjoyment from familiar things, is an integral part of our humanity. 

A new study that came out this week might have poked a hole into the marketing premise as we know it. In a survey of 1,100 US internet users, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) found that 93% of respondents said they would be willing to share their gender with a website, but that dropped marginally to 90% if it meant the data was used to create a personalized ad experience. Approximately 91% said they would share their race or ethnicity, but that dropped to 86% for a personalized experience.

This data provided a glimpse into customer psychology: while marketers may think customers want personalization, there’s growing consumer skepticism over those experiences. The ARF survey also found that, in general, people were slightly less likely to share their data in 2019 than they were in 2018. 

The bombardment of ex·po·sé in the news about Facebook and other tech giants have invariably made an impression in our collective consciousness and augmented our understanding of ways personalization connects to the loss of privacy. As a society, we are increasingly aware of how personal data can be used to influence and drive decisions. Marketers will have to think creatively on ways to reach consumers without the compromise of data and privacy.