consumer attitudes

• Research & Data Quality
• Article

2025 TOP MEMBER QUESTIONS with ANSWERS

The ARF Knowledge Center provides secondary research services for ARF and ARF-MSI members on a broad range of topics, especially in advertising, marketing and research best practices. Continuing the core trend from previous years, members tended to ask questions specific to their category or business interests. However, there were also a few hot topics that popped up across membership, such as sports marketing and sponsorships, influencer marketing and AI. In addition, there were some larger, broader trends in themes specific to each constituency, outlined below.

• Article

The ARF 8th Annual Privacy Study (2025)

• Targets & Segments
• Article

Privacy, Trust & AI: How U.S. Consumers Are Rewriting the Rules of Advertising

• ARF Original Research

The ARF’s latest privacy study shows that U.S. consumers are more informed, more trusting and more engaged with artificial intelligence than ever before—yet still cautious about how it and other technologies use their data. Drawing on responses from more than 1,200 adults, the 2025 study reveals rising openness to data sharing when clear benefits exist, persistent skepticism toward certain targeting practices and growing expectations for transparency, especially around AI. For advertising researchers, the findings highlight a shifting privacy landscape where relevance, trust and first-party data strategies are increasingly intertwined.

• Article

ARF KC Key Takeaways: Consumers and CGI/AI in Advertising

• Research & Data Quality
• Article

When AI Takes the Survey: Evaluating LLMs as a New Tool for Consumer Insight

• ARF
• MSI

The study in this MSI working paper evaluates whether large language models (LLMs) can serve as a reliable source of consumer preference data—potentially transforming how market research is conducted. Using conjoint-style survey questions, the researchers compared LLM-generated choices with human responses to estimate willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a variety of product attributes. They find that LLMs often approximate human preferences surprisingly well, especially when fine-tuned with prior survey data, though important limitations remain. For marketers, the research highlights both the promise and the boundaries of using AI-generated insights to accelerate testing, concept screening and early-stage innovation work

• Targets & Segments
• Article

The Persuasive Power of Pets: New Insights for Influencer Strategy

• ARF
• JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

A recent Journal of Advertising Research study presents the first empirical evidence that petfluencers can outperform human influencers in driving engagement and willingness to pay. Across four studies—including a real-world A/B test and controlled experiments, the researchers show that pet influencers benefit from higher perceived sincerity, and that message framing matters. When temporal cues align with consumers’ propensity to anthropomorphize animals, the persuasive impact increases further.

• Article

Defying Gravity: How Brands Stand the Test of Time

• Creative & Branded Content
• Article

Defying the Odds: What Long-Term Brand Winners Do Differently

• ARF | ARF Cognition Council
• ARF ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Based on two decades of Brand Asset Valuator (BAV) data and a complementary custom study, this ARF Cognition Council report examines why some brands maintain strength over long periods while most decline. The research identifies differentiation, consistency, cultural relevance and sustained visibility as critical drivers of long-term brand resilience in the face of market and consumer change.