How Much Personalization Is Too Much in AI Ads?

Where’s the line between “helpful” and “a bit creepy”? In this episode, Dr. Pengfei Xie joins me to unpack findings from his Journal of Advertising Research article, “The Inverted U-Shaped Effect of Personalization on Consumer Attitudes in AI-Generated Ads: Striking the Right Balance Between Utility and Threat,” coauthored with Hongjie Sun and Yan Sun.  

We break down their core result: consumer attitudes peak at a moderate level of personalization—then drop off when ads get overly tailored. Pengfei explains the psychology behind it (a utility-vs-threat trade-off they call PUTD) and why privacy concerns make that curve even steeper. We also talk through their trio of experiments across categories (travel, sports drinks, smart speakers) and what it means for marketers in practice: segment for privacy sensitivity, be transparent about data use, and shoot for the “just-right” middle.

Read the full paper here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218499.2025.2462405?src=exp-la

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