Communicating a company's higher purpose to conscious consumers through online behavioural advertising

Abstract

In the 21st century, the use of Internet and web applications have become a major component of advertising. The advantage of online advertising is that advertisers can monitor the online behaviour of consumers and show personalised advertisements to targeted consumers. There has been a phenomenal rise in the number of conscious consumers who believe that a company's values should match their own. Some organisations work to achieve a higher purpose. There arises a need for such conscious consumers to be identified, based on their characteristic features, as a separate segment. The values of this particular segment should match with those of a purpose-driven company. The best way to do this is by showing personalised online advertisements to these target consumers so that they are aware of the higher purpose that the company wants to achieve. Thus, this research paper attempts to present a conceptual framework to identify the segment of conscious consumers and inform them about the higher purpose which a conscious business wants to achieve through online behavioural advertisements, and instil in their minds an implied social label.