Personalised advertising based on offline conversations A quantitative study examining people’s perceptions of perceived surveillance of conversations through smart devices

Recently, countless stories have been reported in which users claimed that their smart devices are listening to their offline conversations and displaying tailored advertising based on them. In current literature, this perceived surveillance of conversations is still in its infancy and requires additional studies in order to comprehend the phenomenon to the full extent. Ergo, the main objective of this thesis was to fill the research gap and delve deeper into users’ perceptions of surveillance through smart devices and conversation-based advertising. Based on this aim, the first research area of this study examined the extent to which people perceived to be surveilled by their smart devices. Other objectives were to analyse behavioural outcomes that the perceived surveillance of conversations might affect; specifically, attitudes towards smart devices, attitudes towards seemingly personalised ads, and purchase intentions of products or services in those seemingly personalised ads. Last, but not least, this thesis focused on personality traits (i.e., openness, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) as antecedents of the perceived surveillance of conversations. Guided by these research questions, a survey was created to measure people’s perceptions effectively. A total of 187 valid responses were collected. The results show that 76.4% experienced being surveilled by their smart devices strongly or to some extent. Moreover, 86.1% of respondents have already heard similar stories from their acquaintances. Regarding the behavioural consequences of perceived surveillance of conversations, the analysis showed that with higher levels of perceived surveillance, the attitude towards smart devices decreases. No relationship was found between attitude towards personalised advertisement and purchase intention towards the advertised products. Similarly, personality traits did not affect the perceived surveillance of conversations. The results proved that perceived surveillance of conversations is an undeniable issue connected to the use of smart devices and personalised advertising perceived by the majority of social media users. This finding brings out several implications for vendors of smart devices and marketers, such as the need for a better explanation of the data privacy and data collection associated with the smart devices and personalised advertising. Since the topic of perceived surveillance of conversation is still in its novelty, it also offers a plethora of new research possibilities. For instance, further scrutiny is needed on the possible antecedents of the perceived surveillance, including technical knowledge of the users of smart devices, as well as behavioural outcomes such as users’ attitudes towards social media platforms and the companies who are advertising the products.