Using Consumers’ Digital Footprints for More Persuasive Mass Communication

Matz Sandra () and Kosinski Michal ()
Additional contact information
Matz Sandra: Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior, Columbia Business School, New York, NY, USA
Kosinski Michal: Professor of Organizational Behavior, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford, CA, USA

NIM Marketing Intelligence Review, 2019, vol. 11, issue 2, 18-23

Abstract: Powered by better hardware and software, and fueled by the emergence of computational social science, digital traces of human activity can be used to make highly personal inferences about their owner’s preferences, habits and psychological characteristics. The gained insights allow the application of psychological targeting and make it possible to influence the behavior of large groups of people by tailoring persuasive appeals to the psychological needs of the target audiences. On the one hand, this method holds potential benefits for helping individuals make better decisions and lead healthier and happier lives. On the other hand, there are also several potential pitfalls related to manipulation, data protection and privacy violations. Even the most progressive data protection regulations of today might not adequately address the potential abuse of online information in the context of psychological targeting, highlighting the need for further policy interventions and regulations.

Keywords: Digital Footprints; Personality Assessment; Psychological Targeting; Persuasion; Digital Mass Communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2478/nimmir-2019-0011 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:gfkmir:v:11:y:2019:i:2:p:18-23:n:2

DOI: 10.2478/nimmir-2019-0011

Access Statistics for this article

NIM Marketing Intelligence Review is currently edited by Christine Kittinger-Rosanelli

More articles in NIM Marketing Intelligence Review from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().