EN UNDERFÖRSTÅDD ÖVERENSKOMMELSE

Executive summary
A challenge for every digital marketing company is reaching out in the so-called “media noise”. Therefore, targeted advertising can be seen as a natural part of all social media user’s everyday life. The digitization has resulted in people being increasingly monitored online where companies and advertising agencies are using their users’ digital footprints to create targeted advertising in order to maximize their revenue. Targeted advertising is a well-studied subject, however there are less studies with a focus on comparing two generations of people
and their attitudes toward this phenomenon with integrity as a perspective. This inspired us to explore how youth and seniors relate to personalized advertising with integrity as a perspective, which is the purpose of this study.

This study will compare a younger and a senior generation’s attitude toward targeted advertising with integrity as a perspective. Our method involved conducting fourteen semistructured interviews with seven respondents in the younger group (ages 15–25), and seven respondents in the older group (ages 60–75). To achieve the purpose of this study we have asked the following questions: 1) Which are the motives for youths and seniors to use social media? 2) Which attitudes do youths and seniors have towards targeted advertising on social media? 3) How do youths and seniors experience advertising on social media from a
perspective of personal integrity?

The theoretical frameworks of this study consists of Uses and Gratifications, Communication Privacy Management Theory and Model of Attitudes toward Web Advertising. As a complement, earlier studies about motives to social media consumption and attitudes towards
advertising in social media and digital integrity were also used.

Our results showed that the youths and seniors have different motives for their social media use. The most central motive is interpersonal utility, in other words having social interactions with friends and family, also to satisfy the need to stay up to date with trends and other
people’s lives. Another motive is the ability to be informed of social events, happenings and other interests. These were all found across both generations, unlike entertainment and passing the time which were unique to the younger generation.

The senior group had a stronger negative attitude towards targeted advertising whereas the younger group preferred it over “general advertising”. To a greater extent, the older generation actively tries to distance themselves from targeted advertising by actively blocking
the advertisements, while the younger generation are instead mostly unbothered or in some cases even welcome the targeted advertising.

For the younger group there is an ambivalence in attitudes towards integrity and personal information being used, being positive to targeted advertising while having a negative attitude towards the collection of personal data. Compared to the senior group which have a uniform negative attitude towards targeted advertising and the collection and usage of personal data.