Harley Cromer

Yeah, hello David, thanks for having me.

Well, it's happened all the time.

And I think that feeling that we observe with many brands, many consumers is exactly what drew us in.

So I think a lot of people had such moments and now with digitization and AI even more so.

So the brands, they personalize their ads and we think, wait, how did they know that?

And we felt that the marketers and the researchers talked a lot about privacy and personalization.

But no one really understood what's the actual emotional experience that people have when they feel something's creepy.

And we wanted to understand what makes that feeling happen, how it unfolds, and what does it do to the brand.

So we wanted to take a closer look, a deep dive, to really understand what is creepiness.

We wanted to understand how the emotion itself evolves, but we also wanted to understand the consequences, potential negative consequences for the brand.

And we found that can be quite problematic, that consumers feel like...

someone is stalking me, it's intrusive, and there's a reactance towards the brand.

So if you feel creepy, you feel something is odd, something is wrong here.

And we found also in our research that, well, this can have negative implications for the brand, that people have negative feelings towards the brands as a consequence, and may even avoid the brand.

So on the one hand, we have positive benefits of personalization,

You talk, your vacuum cleaner doesn't work anymore.

And then you get personalized ads from Dyson, for example.

So there's a potential benefit that you say, oh, great, now I can watch the ad.

But on the other hand, people feel, oh, that's creepy.

And maybe then they move on and transfer this negative feeling towards the brand and don't even buy it.