Future States

• Audience & Media Measurement
• Article

How Changing Privacy Frameworks Are Affecting Marketing & Measurement

• ARF Research Initiatives

A growing number of privacy regulations and data deprecations are creating a highly complicated landscape for marketers to maneuver through. To help us better understand how these forces affect marketing and marketing effectiveness measurement, the ARF recently gathered a group of experts on privacy-related topics from both practitioner and academic backgrounds, to discuss the key issues and outline ways forward. This report is the result of that effort. It includes an overview of the latest privacy-related macro-trends, implications for marketing and measurement and actionable recommendations.

• Research & Data Quality
• Article

JAR Calls for Papers: Immersive Technologies & Prosocial Advertising

• JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

Editors at the Journal of Advertising Research have launched two new calls for papers on timely themes — one on immersive technologies and the other on prosocial advertising messages. Interested in contributing your robust work in these areas? Read on to learn about goals for each call and the journal’s resources and support toward submitting a successful paper.

• Research & Data Quality
• Article

TV Deconstructed: Latest Findings from DASH

The ARF Universe Study of Device and Account Sharing (DASH) is a nationally projectable enumeration study of consumer behavior in TV and digital media. DASH records in granular detail how US households connect to and consume TV, use digital devices, and interact with and share streaming media and ecommerce accounts. Launched in 2021, this syndicated study is designed to serve as an industry standard truth set for insight and data calibration. The report just released by the ARF highlights findings from the first wave of DASH 2022. Data and findings from the full 2022 data set will be available in January 2023.

• Creative & Branded Content
• Article

New Research Methods Strengthen Ad Creative’s Impact

• CREATIVE COUNCIL

Advertising creative is critical to driving business growth and positive business outcomes for brands, several studies have shown. It is also crucial to the overall ecosystem and brands’ ability to reach their marketing goals. Given the importance of good creative, the ARF Creative Council put together a white paper to inform and educate members on new methods and approaches for generating and optimizing advertising creative content. These fresh and innovative methods offer potent insights during the creative development process. The white paper focuses on tools that can be leveraged in the early stages of creative development, particularly those that take advantage of state-of-the-art technology.

• Audience & Media Measurement
• Article

Explainable AI (XAI) Helps Minimize the Impact of Errors

• MSI

The use of AI-based voice assistants is becoming ubiquitous, and this technology continues to develop at a rapid pace. Now, Explainable AI (XAI) can help customers understand things better and help mitigate certain kinds of errors. This research discovered that XAI can help consumers forgive minor social faux pas (violations of social norms) but not minor technical errors (failures of the algorithm interface). The series of studies also found that XAI helps consumers overcome their reluctance to use such AI-assisted technologies.

• Research & Data Quality
• Article

The ARF Attention Validation Project: The How & Why

Today, there is much discussion and debate on the definition of attention, how to measure it properly and whether we should be measuring it at all, or if inattention instead should be what we assess. Plus, is the highest form of attention always desired, or do we want low levels of attention for certain kinds of ads, such as emotional ones for TV? As a result of all these questions, the ARF has announced the Attention Validation Project. Its goals are to help define attention, evaluate the methods available to us and what their rightful application is, whether it be analyzing advertising creative or the media environment.

• Targets & Segments
• Article

How AI and Deepfakes Could Reshape the Advertising Industry

• JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

Artificial intelligence is already changing advertising, but how will it reshape it moving forward? Researchers unpack the potential effects of three different forms of AI—analytic, interpretive and creative—on seven categories of advertising industry stakeholders. Can those who embrace the evolving creative AI mechanisms get ahead of competitors?

• Research & Data Quality
• Article

Can Observational Methods Assess the Causal Effect of Ads?

• MSI

While Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are ideal for advertising measurement, it is not always feasible to conduct one. Until advertising platforms are willing to provide more information about how they deliver targeted ads or implement auctions, alternative observational methods are unlikely to reliably estimate causal effects. That includes utilizing newer machine learning techniques.

• Analytics & Data Science
• Article

Optimizing Interventions Along the Customer Journey

• MSI

Random controlled experiments for A/B testing help improve things like a company's marketing or customer service. However, individually optimizing interventions may not always capture interactions across the entire purchase decision journey. To optimize interventions more holistically, use a Bayesian reinforcement learning model. It can integrate multiple historical experiments, which can improve both current impact as well as future learning.

• Audience & Media Measurement
• Article

The ARF Attention Report

• ARF & THE ATTENTION COUNCIL

The ARF partnered with the UK’s Attention Council on this project, whose aim was to gauge the level of interest in attention metrics among ARF members and the Wonks community. Sixty-three participants took the survey in January of this year (2022). The qualitative study focuses on variations among the industry’s sectors in their outlook on attention metrics. The differences in outlook between researchers and the buy-side were particularly interesting.