The intended and unintended effects of synced advertising: When persuasion knowledge could help or backfire

Developments in digital technologies have extended the abilities of marketers to collect, process, and share consumer data to optimize personalized messages across media in real time, a strategy known as synced advertising. Previous research has found promising effects related to synced advertising. At the same time, consumer knowledge appears to be low, and informing consumers could increase their critical attitudes towards synced ads. Our eye-tracking lab study (N = 163) showed that informing consumers on synced advertising helps them to understand and increase their knowledge about this new marketing strategy. Moreover, this strategy increases recall of the product mentioned on TV as well as perceived surveillance. Finally, we found that all participants closed the synced ad with an average of 6.5 s and fixated on it for an average of 1.3 s. This study contributes to the growing literature on synced advertising by empirically investigating the impact of consumer knowledge on the tensions and opportunities of this new marketing strategy.