Consumer response to online behavioral advertising in a social media context: The role of perceived ad complicity

Abstract Brands and social media platforms are two main players in online behavioral advertising (OBA), but the extant literature overlooks the interaction between them. Although advertising brands invest considerable resources to target potential consumers through social media advertising, our analysis indicates that publisher‐platform‐related activities can elicit negative consequences. Thus, we examined the role of perceived ad complicity, that is, consumers' perception regarding advertisers partnering with the social media platforms in the OBA process. We used perceived ad complicity as a moderator to explain the variation in consumers' negative responses to OBA in a social media context. Our results indicate that consumers with high perceived ad complicity experience greater perceived ad intrusiveness. This effect directly impacts their attitudes toward publisher platforms and advertising brands but consumers react more negatively toward brands (vs. publisher platforms) regarding this practice. Furthermore, we found that consumers who are more sensitive to social norms experience stronger perceived ad complicity and that informing consumers about why they are seeing specific ads on their social media platforms does not change their views on ad complicity.