Reducing Reactance to Ads by Voice Assistants: The Role of Ad Customization, Ad Personalization, and Privacy Customization

Voice assistants are adopted widely, but they have proven challenging for advertisers because persuasive communication via this new medium has evoked negative user reactions. As a potential solution, this study examines four information tailoring techniques that may reduce ad reactance by affording more control to users: ad customization, overt ad personalization, voice deletion, and voice recognition. To do so, a 16-condition full-factorial experiment was conducted, using a voice-assistant app developed for this study (N = 405). Ad customization reduced ad reactance via increased sense of control and decreased threat to freedom, but only when accompanied by covert (rather than overt) ad personalization. When voice deletion was offered, the presence (or absence) of both ad customization and voice recognition led to lower ad reactance. On the other hand, when voice deletion was not offered, ad customization tended to decrease ad reactance regardless of the presence of voice recognition. Theoretically, the findings highlight the role of control afforded by customization as a precursor to reactance reduction by alleviating threat to freedom. Practically, the findings inform ways to secure the positive effects of ad customization, by employing more transparent and effective personalization and privacy features.