Retargeted advertisements’ influential factors and fear of missing out on young peoples’ attitude

Abstract

Retargeted advertisements are proliferating with negligible visibility on the possible eff ects on young people. Our study attempts to understand if young people, ages 13 to 24 years, are susceptible to fear of missing out (FoMO) messages in retargeted advertisements. Specifically, it investigates advertisements that show urgency and scarcity; and how influencing factors impact young peoples’ attitude. We will assess the eff ects that FoMO and the influencing factors in retargeted advertisements have on young people by using Electrodermal Activity (EDA) and pre-post interviews. It is expected that this study reveals contrasting influences, if any, between gender and ages. Background: Retargeted advertisements are online advertisements presented by marketers to customers, who have visited their product website, or would have shown interest in the product (Sahni et al., 2019). Although this advertising approach has become widespread in the industry, academia is lagging on its influence on users. Studies about retargeting are limited. We first conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to identify the influencing factors aff ecting young peoples’ attitude towards online advertising. The six resulting principal factors comprise informativeness, entertainment, credibility, personalisation, interactivity, and irritation. Studies show that individuals who experience FoMO, a type of social anxiety, may compare their lives incessantly with those of others, thinking that other individuals might be living better lives than their own (Przybylski et al., 2013). This feeling comes from within the individual, but FoMO may also be initiated externally (Hodkinson, 2019). In a FoMO-related SLR, we found no studies concerning retargeted advertisements. Based on both SLRs and focus groups, a battery of items was deducted to develop a scale (De Battista et al., 2020). Our study focuses on the externally triggered FoMO; when messages in advertisements show scarcity or urgency to purchase and may cause anxiety to act immediately. We intend to connect the influencing factors and FoMO, in a retargeting environment to understand how these may amplify anxiety and influence the attitude to click on an advertisement for further action. Method: An experiment will be conducted over two months, involving 36 participants in four sets of nine, split equally by gender and age brackets. The experiment will be held in a laboratory with a conditioned atmosphere for a constant experimental field. The setup will entail a personal computer with pre-set mock websites and simulated retargeted advertisements according to the participants’ tastes. Before the experiment, an in-depth interview will be conducted to understand which brands are the most attractive for the participants. Throughout the experiment, participants will wear a non-invasive E4 wristband, to measure EDA and the heart rate variability when participants come across retargeted advertisements. The study will undergo rigorous ethical considerations to safeguard participants. The physiological data is expected to show different anxiety levels during the experimental conditions. After the experiment, participants will be interviewed again to evaluate their experience during the investigation. Conclusion: The study is expected to contribute by investigating the impact that retargeted advertisements have on young people and how they can be improved to facilitate use while diminishing concerns.