Impact of personalized marketing communication on brand attitude is mediated by usefulness: Empirical investigation of surrogate shoppers

Surrogate shoppers are the commercial enterprise hired by consumers to help them make selection decisions, have a significant role to play in the decision making process, and they take decisions differently than consumers. Therefore, it is important to study their response to promotional communication by marketers, a topic which has not been investigated so far. The researchers’ aims to fulfil this gap in the literature by examining the response of surrogate shoppers to personalized marketing communication. Using stimulus organism response theory, 271 responses (134 responses from travel advisors and 137 from financial advisors) have been analyzed with structural equation modeling. This study finds, surrogate shoppers find personalized marketing communication useful and usefulness results in positive brand attitude which results in eWOM and further commitment. Surrogate shoppers are not found to be monomorphic as privacy concerns are not relevant for the travel industry but are important for finance industry. The B2B practitioners who want to target surrogate shoppers, should use the personalized form of communication by making it useful and incorporate rigorous privacy protection measures in the finance industry. The study makes conceptual and empirical contribution by developing and testing new theoretical linkages between personalized marketing communication and related constructs.