Issue Summary
September 2025 (Vol. 65, Issue 3)
Editor’s Desk
A Call to Embrace GenAI in Academic Research
In his editorial in this issue of the Journal of Advertising Research, Editor-in-Chief Colin Campbell calls on the academic community to shift from a fear-driven stance on generative AI (GenAI) to one of curiosity and thoughtful integration. While emphasizing the need for guardrails — especially to prevent cheating, low-quality research or undermining foundational learning — Campbell argues that GenAI holds transformative potential across the research lifecycle, from ideation and literature review to data collection, analysis, writing and dissemination. By embracing GenAI as a partner rather than a threat, researchers can accelerate innovation, strengthen rigor and expand the reach of their work. The piece urges the field to develop shared norms and best practices, encouraging openness and experimentation so that GenAI enhances, rather than diminishes, the creativity and impact of academic research.
From Reactance to Response: Crafting Effective Digital CTAs
Explore how the phrasing of calls-to-action (CTAs) and the use of emojis shape consumer engagement in digital brand content. Across two experiments, the authors show that consumer-focused CTAs (e.g., framed around personal benefit) generate higher compliance intention than firm-focused CTAs, which can trigger psychological reactance. However, adding a heart emoji helps offset negative reactions to firm-focused CTAs by softening their self-serving tone. Meanwhile, the type of gesture emoji matters: right-pointing emojis support compliance when paired with consumer-focused CTAs, but down-pointing emojis convey dominance and reduce effectiveness—even undermining positive consumer-focused appeals. The findings suggest marketers can strategically use consumer-oriented language and carefully chosen emojis to lower resistance, enhance persuasion and increase consumer responsiveness to brand content.
When Virtual Influencers Disclose Sponsorships: How Users React Online
This mixed-method study examines how sponsorship disclosure influences audience reactions to virtual influencers (VIs), focusing on Instagram posts by the well-known VI Lil Miquela (@lilmiquela). An analysis of over 48,000 user comments found that disclosures (e.g., #ad, paid partnership labels) were linked with more positive sentiment, though users frequently expressed confusion about whether the VI was human or artificial. Despite this, experimental results showed that non-sponsored posts generated stronger parasocial interaction and higher engagement than sponsored ones, contradicting the Persuasion Knowledge Model, which predicts greater skepticism after disclosure. Overall, findings reveal that while audiences may appreciate transparency, sponsorship signals still dampen interaction, and user responses remain polarized—ranging from admiration and affection to discomfort and rejection.
Why Matching Ads with TV Content Boosts Viewer Attention
This large-scale study uses more than 4.8 million TV ad viewing observations from TVision to examine how “ad-program congruence”—the alignment between ad content and program themes—affects audience engagement. Results show that ads placed within thematically congruent programs attract significantly more visual attention, especially in entertainment and financial categories, while food ads sometimes see negative effects and government ads showing little impact. Importantly, the congruence advantage holds regardless of whether ads appear early, mid or late in a program, though entertainment and financial ads placed later in programs capture the most attention. These findings highlight the value of strategically aligning ad content with program themes and timing, offering advertisers practical guidance to maximize engagement in an era of fragmented viewing.
Why Cultural Capital Works Best for Luxury Ads
Investigate how cultural capital appeals—advertising that highlights sophistication, art, history or refined taste—affect consumer purchase intentions depending on product price. Across three experiments in the UK and China, using wine, bottled water and face masks as test products, the authors found that cultural capital appeals significantly boost purchase intentions for high-priced products but not for low-priced ones. The effect occurs because consumers process congruent pairings of cultural capital and high price more fluently, making the message feel more persuasive. Importantly, the effect held across product types (hedonic and utilitarian) and cultural contexts, underscoring that cultural capital appeals work best when aligned with premium pricing. The findings provide clear guidance to advertisers: positioning high-priced products with cultural capital cues can enhance persuasion, while such appeals offer little benefit for low-cost goods.
Less Is More: How Frequency and Timing Shape Skippable Ad Acceptance
This study examines how often and how regularly viewers encounter pre-roll skippable ads influences and how this affects their willingness to watch them. Using dynamic linear modeling on clickstream data from 10,000 users of a South Korean video platform, the authors find that frequent ad exposures reduce viewers’ acceptance propensity, while irregularly spaced exposures increase it. In other words, when ads appear too often, users are more likely to skip, but when exposure is less predictable, acceptance improves by reducing ad fatigue. The analysis also shows that older viewers, men and those watching on PCs or on weekends are more likely to watch ads longer. These findings extend ad repetition theory by emphasizing the role of irregularity, offering advertisers a clear takeaway: planning fewer and less predictable ad placements can increase acceptance of pre-roll skippable ads and enhance their effectiveness.
Blurry or Clear? How Backgrounds Shape the Power of Video Ads
This research explores how the visual clarity of video ad backgrounds influences consumer response, showing that effectiveness depends on how the ad’s message is framed. Across a field test and multiple experiments, the authors demonstrate that blurry backgrounds enhance click-through rates and purchase likelihood when paired with concrete, detail-focused messages, while clear backgrounds are more persuasive with abstract, big-picture messages. The underlying mechanism is processing fluency: when background style and message type are aligned, viewers find the ad easier to process and respond more favorably. Importantly, these effects held across different contexts and individual viewer differences, highlighting that even subtle background design choices can significantly impact ad performance. For practitioners, the findings suggest a simple but powerful tactic—match visual background style with message type to maximize persuasion.
Smarter Spending: Optimizing Ad Budgets Across Movie Release Stages
How should film studios allocate advertising budgets across sequential release stages—such as theatrical runs, post-release weeks and digital distribution—to maximize overall profit? This study investigates. Building on the limitations of earlier models that relied on logarithmic transformations, the author develops a near-optimal rule based on true profit values. The rule suggests allocating budgets proportionally to both the size of each channel’s expected profit and the long-term effectiveness of advertising, including carryover and spillover effects across stages. Simulations using data from 152 movies show that this approach significantly improves profitability—by up to 22% over prior models—while providing managers with an intuitive, cascading formula applicable to any number of release stages. Beyond movies, the framework can also guide budget allocation for other sequentially marketed products, such as books, games and omnichannel retail.
From Fear to Gratitude: Rethinking Emotions in Health Advertising
This research investigates whether health messages are more effective when framed with fear or gratitude, and how anthropomorphic cues (such as portraying the digestive system as a humanlike character) moderate those effects. Across three studies, the authors show that fear-based appeals work best without anthropomorphic cues, activating self-protection motives that encourage healthier choices. In contrast, gratitude-based appeals are more effective when paired with anthropomorphism, triggering affiliation motives that foster openness and prosocial behaviors. By demonstrating that fear and gratitude operate through distinct psychological pathways, the study highlights the risks of misaligning fear with anthropomorphism and underscores gratitude as a more sustainable and transformative strategy for encouraging healthier consumption. For practitioners, the findings suggest that using gratitude appeals alongside humanlike imagery in health campaigns can improve effectiveness and long-term behavior change.
Stability in Change: Why Life Transitions Make Repeated Ads More Effective
This research explores how life transitions—such as moving, starting a new job or becoming a parent—shape consumer responses to repeated advertising. Across four experiments, the authors find that individuals in a life transition, compared to those not undergoing change, show greater enjoyment of repeated ads and more favorable brand attitudes after multiple exposures. The studies reveal that during times of uncertainty, consumers prefer the predictability of familiar ads over the novelty of new ones, leading to sustained ad enjoyment and positive brand evaluations. Importantly, a real behavioral choice experiment confirmed that people in life transitions were more likely to choose to rewatch the same ad rather than view a new one. These findings suggest that life transitions represent a valuable segmentation opportunity for advertisers, who can use signals such as online searches or social media activity to target consumers with repeated ad exposures at moments when they are most receptive.
Balancing Recall and Reception: Comparing YouTube Ad Strategies
This study compares the effectiveness of YouTube’s main advertising formats—skippable ads, non-skippable ads and brand placements—both individually and in combination. Using experiments with over 590 U.S. participants, the authors find that non-skippable ads deliver the strongest brand recall but are perceived as the most intrusive, while brand placements foster more positive brand attitudes by integrating naturally into content. Skippable ads strike a middle ground, offering choice but lower recall. Importantly, combining brand placements with either skippable or non-skippable ads significantly boosts recall, achieving levels similar across both combinations. However, these pairings can weaken brand attitudes compared to brand placements alone, as they make the persuasive intent more obvious. The findings highlight key trade-offs: if advertisers prioritize memory, combining placements with commercials that work best, but if attitude building is the goal, brand placements alone may be the most effective.