Digital advertising has never been more important for brands that are seeking to communicate and engage with their customers than it is today. At the same time, privacy advocates and legislators are concerned that practices like behavioral targeting are ripe for abuse.
Prior research conducted on consumers' attitudes toward behavioral targeting, such as the recent Annenberg-Berkeley study Americans Reject Tailored Advertising, September 2009, claimed consumers did not want targeted advertising – That consumers' concerns for online privacy are greater than their desire for relevant advertising messages.
However, this prior research on consumers' attitudes toward behavioral targeting has largely employed simple, single-option preference questions, and, as such, they have provided an incomplete and misleading view of consumers' real-world perspectives on online advertising, and which, in turn, has misinformed public discourse on this topic.
In an effort to contribute to a more informed and balanced course of action for the online advertising industry, PreferenceCentral sought to build upon past research with its consumer survey, which asked consumers to state their preferences for tailored online advertising within the context of real-world, value-for-value trade-off options. And with this more realistic approach, this PreferenceCentral survey found that over half of consumers surveyed indicated that they prefer relevant targeted online ads as a trade-off for access to free content.
Led by Dr. Karl W. Lendenmann, the survey was conducted with 1,050 Internet users in May 2010 with support from Survey Sampling International. The results are meant to help the industry establish benchmarks and tracking tool for understanding consumers' evolving perspectives on online advertising relevance and audience measurement, which will help:
- Inform public discourse with a more complete and balanced understanding of consumers' preferences;
- Assure consumers that their interests, concerns, and preferences are being considered;
- Guide policies for behavioral targeting that are optimal for consumers, as well as, advertisers and publishers; and
- Support refinements in industry best-practices
