Plastic pollution is one of the biggest environmental problems in the world. In modern society, the consumption of single-use plastics in the food service industry has increased along with the increase in food-away-from-home. The COVID-19 pandemic has attacked the consumption of single-use plastic in the restaurant industry. During the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the US has retracted the related laws and policies regarding using single-use plastic for fast food and carry-out food, and customers have increased their use of single-use plastic for fast food and carry-out food due to worries about hygiene. Even though sustainability has been a novel topic in hospitality literature, a majority of studies have focused on the consumers’ perception, attitude, or behavioral willingness toward sustainability. To fill this gap in research, finding an effective way to influence consumers’ behavioral change becomes important and necessary.

This research intends to examine whether these types of data – behavioral versus social networking data – affect consumer response to personalized ads. With the advancement in technology, marketers have access to various types of personal data, including their online/offline behaviors and social networking activities, and use those data to retarget consumers. Moreover, this research examines the moderating role of SNS privacy concerns on consumer response to different types of retargeted ads. The findings of this research may offer theoretical and practical implications to understand consumers' responses to retargeted ads that use social networking information.

This study aims at identifying a novel framework that further explains the relationship between brands and customers in the online context at different touchpoints (e.g. social media, website) of the customer journey. In pursuing this goal, authors expect online brand experience as the main trigger in determining specific customer brand engagement (CBE) behaviours.