Effects of the Personalisation-privacy paradox on online personalised marketing campaigns – marketing practitioners' view

Abstract

The research study is concerned with understanding the practitioner's perspective on the effect the personalisation-privacy paradox may have on personalised marketing campaigns. The problem exists whereby consumers value the benefits of personalised marketing and communication provided by marketing practitioners, but at the same time have concerns about the protection of their private information (Cloarec, 2020). The paradox consequently has an impact on marketing practitioners who use market based assets such as personal data and innovations such as personalisation to design and execute personalised online marketing campaigns because consumers have privacy concerns that can influence their behaviour and consequently influence their willingness to share the data needed to enable personalised experiences. The objective of the research is to address the gap in understanding the personalisation-privacy paradox, namely it addresses the need for the provision of a comprehensive knowledge base that will provide insights and practices to better manage the paradox, whilst still deriving value for the business. Additionally, the research will seek to determine the contributing factors to the personalisation-privacy paradox, as seen through marketing practitioners lens. Additionally, the study provides insights on how marketing practitioners can strike a balance between leveraging data for the personalised campaigns, adhering to privacy laws, achieving business objectives, and instilling online consumers' trust . The research makes use of the Resource Based Theory (RBT) which refers to the organisations ability to identify key valuable resources and use them to gain a sustainable competitor advantage (SCA). The findings identified key insights for addressing the paradox and provided possible mitigating strategies for alleviating its existence. The empirical evidence further demonstrates that marketing practitioners can protect the privacy of personal data whilst still deriving value for the organisation. Further findings provides knowledge on how marketing practitioners can implement ethical practices when managing personal data by implementing internal processes, and governance processes. These recommendations will equip future marketers to continue to use valuegenerating market based assets to protect customers, achieve performance and build unique relationships which will lead to sustainable competitive advantage.