A market-oriented approach to responsibly managing information privacy concerns in direct marketing

Marketing communications media technologies have the potential to be intrusive and influence consumers’ perceptions of marketing communication. Aggressive direct marketing (DM) is one communication tool that has the potential to lead to consumer concern about information privacy. Concerned consumers change their behavior: They refuse to buy through risky channels or provide information, thus jeopardizing the aim of DM. Responsible DM can prevent such reactions and build trust. Typical measures taken and recommended to protect consumers from privacy violations are of a regulative rather than a market-oriented nature, which is directly opposed to companies’ profit-maximization aims. We propose a segmentation-based approach for responsible DM, based on consumer heterogeneity regarding privacy concerns and privacy-related behavior. Using two independent samples from South Africa and Australia, we explore consumers’ views on privacy issues and examine the potential of a market-oriented approach to responsible DM.