The placebo effect in web-based personalization

Abstract

Prior studies on web-based personalization have discussed various ways to personalize a message by incorporating the message recipient’s characteristic information in the message content. The current research argues that personalization effects depend not only on message content, but also on message context. Using the placebo effect framework, it is demonstrated through an experiment that a personalized message is more effective than a non-personalized message when the message receiver “expects” it to. When the person has no such expectancy, however, a personalized message does not outperform a non-personalized message. This placebo effect in personalization is especially salient for individuals with a lower level of need for uniqueness.