When are personalized promotions effective? The role of consumer control

The development of technology-mediated media has enabled marketers and advertisers to use personalization when interacting with customers. In this article, we explore two boundary conditions (i.e. task difficulty and relevancy) and two consumer controls (i.e. behavioral control and cognitive control) that affect the effectiveness of personalized promotions. In Experiment 1, we find that consumers working with difficult tasks exhibit higher behavioral control and higher patronage behaviors when they receive personalized than non-personalized promotions. In Experiment 2, we show that when consumers receive any promotion with irrelevant items, they exhibit higher cognitive control and higher patronage behavior with non-personalized (with many irrelevant items) than personalized (with one item) promotions. An additional test validates that behavioral and cognitive control play significant mediating roles in the relationship between contexts (i.e. task difficulty and relevancy) and patronage behaviors. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications for the development and management of personalized promotions and consumer control in new media-oriented environments.