Walking the Privacy Line: A Phenomenological Study of Marketing Managers' Lived Experience of AI-Driven Consumer Personalization

Abstract

This study explores how marketing managers experience the tension between personalization precision and consumer privacy when operationalizing AI-driven personalization. A phenomenological design informed by Moustakas's transcendental phenomenology guided semi-structured interviews with ten marketing practitioners across diverse sectors. Data were analyzed through horizonalization, clustering of meaning units, and textural–structural synthesis. Five interrelated themes emerged: drawing the precision–intrusion line in targeting decisions, reading and managing perceived consumer surveillance, mediating between algorithmic recommendations and brand ethics, role transformation from campaign planner to data steward, and tension between personalization return on investment and long-term brand trust. The findings suggest that marketing managers function as active ethical gatekeepers of AI personalization systems, continuously drawing and defending boundaries that formal policy often leaves unspecified. This study contributes an experience-near, practitioner-centered account of AI personalization governance, complementing outcome-focused literature with a grounded understanding of how practitioners negotiate the ethical boundaries of data-driven marketing.