effectiveness
- Creative & Branded Content
- Article
How Unfamiliar Message Cues Can Improve Ad Recall in a Multitasking World
As media multitasking becomes the norm rather than the exception, advertisers face growing challenges in capturing and sustaining audience attention. This research demonstrates that introducing unfamiliar cues—such as technical or uncommon terms—into ad content can trigger selective attention and meaningfully improve ad recall, but only when audiences are multitasking in ways that are congruent with the message. Across multiple experimental studies, the findings show how curiosity-driven engagement can help ads break through distraction and be remembered more effectively.
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- Future States & AI
- Article
Improving AI-Driven Marketing Content Using LLM-Generated Knowledge
As generative AI becomes a central tool for producing marketing content, firms increasingly rely on fine-tuning models using engagement data, such as A/B test results. This MSI working paper argues that optimizing only for “what works” risks reward hacking, clickbait and poor generalization. The authors propose a knowledge-guided alignment framework in which large language models (LLMs) generate and validate hypotheses about why content performs well, and then use this knowledge to guide fine-tuning. Using more than 23,000 A/B-tested news headlines, the study shows that knowledge-guided AI produces higher engagement, avoids clickbait and generalizes better—especially in low-data settings.
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- Creative & Branded Content
- Article
When Confidence Cuts Through: How Arrogant Visuals Capture Attention—and When They Convert
Can arrogance work in advertising? New research shows that visually arrogant expressions—such as confident, unsmiling, upward-tilted faces—can significantly increase consumer attention and brand recall. But attention alone doesn’t guarantee sales. Whether arrogance helps or hurts purchase intention depends on how well it aligns with a brand’s positioning. When arrogance reinforces a brand’s sense of leadership or distinctiveness, it can drive stronger buying intent. When it doesn’t, it can backfire.
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