Title: Factors influencing intention to accept location-based mobile advertising among young mobile user segments: a social exchange perspective

Authors: Jun Heo; Chen-Wei Chang

Addresses: The Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University, 251 Hodges Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA ' The School of Journalism, Fudan University, 400 Guoding Rd., Shanghai, 200433, China

Abstract: By adopting the notions of social exchange and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, this study discusses how young mobile users weigh between benefit and cost (e.g., perceived risk) when determining to accept location-based advertising (LBA). It also examines the role of trust in the process of the information exchange. In addition, this study explores whether young mobile users can be segmented into heterogeneous user groups and the different groups require a unique application of the theoretically-driven factors. An online survey of college students from US universities reveals that benefits of LBA outweigh the perceived risk and that trust plays a key role in increasing LBA acceptance. Results suggest, however, that the determinants may differently influence different mobile user segments: innovative believers and conventional sceptics. The result highlights the importance of crafting marketing messages uniquely for each of the segments. Implications for theories and practitioners using LBA are discussed.

Keywords: mobile advertising; LBA; location-based advertising; segmentation; social exchange; the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2018.095177

International Journal of Mobile Communications, 2018 Vol.16 No.6, pp.607 - 623

Received: 17 Nov 2016
Accepted: 25 Sep 2017
Published online: 01 Oct 2018 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article