• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, 8 hours ago

Data shows that consumers are open to holiday advertising. Some 85% who participated in a study by ad-tech company GumGum say they are receptive to receiving ads this year, and 31% noted that they enjoy holiday ads, but despise constant retargeting.

Some 62% are concerned that too many retargeted ads can spoil gift surprises. This has happened to me many times after researching online only to have my husband receive a targeted ad for the product or service. This is a loss of privacy, even in your own household. It does not happen as much to him, because he uses DuckDuckGo.

Cookies track browsing activity across websites, and retargeting uses that data to serve ads for items recently viewed. This year’s findings show that 47% said retargeted ads have spoiled a surprise gift — up from 33% last year — and the share who said it happened “once or twice” rose from 19% to 27%.

Here is an interesting idea. Some 24% of survey respondents said they would prefer shopping with a brand that offered a “holiday mode” to prevent ads from spoiling surprises, and nearly four in ten (39%) said they might prefer it — figures that remain flat year-over-year.

The findings from GumGum’s report are from its global holiday shopping survey of 3,000 consumers across the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Germany, Belgium, and Australia.

Most consumers — including myself —are receptive to holiday advertisements, with 54% saying they feel neutral about them and 31% saying they love them. Only 15% reported fatigue with holiday ads. 

Advertising trust comes down to past relationships. Past brand experience was the top trust factor for 53%, while 44% cited reviews and 32% cited price guarantees. Only 12% of consumers pointed to sustainability or social impact as a reason to trust a brand’s holiday promotion. 

Some 67% of shoppers noted feeling happy when thinking about the holiday season, while 37% pointed to nostalgia and 26% cited anticipation. Eighteen percent noted that the holidays bring stress, and 12% said they feel overwhelmed. 

Despite the accidental surprise reveals, only 61% said they would be frustrated if a surprise was revealed in this way — down from 77% last year — and those who said they would be extremely frustrated dropped to 26%, vs. 44% in the prior year.