effectiveness

The Science of Ad Impact: How Minds Process Advertising

The Science of Ad Impact: How Minds Process Advertising

  • ARF; Cognition Council

This ARF Cognition Council guide brings together the latest research in neuroscience and psychology to explain how consumers process and respond to advertising. It outlines a unified framework connecting attention, emotion, memory and persuasion—showing how these cognitive processes interact to drive real-world outcomes, like brand choice and sales. Moving beyond traditional metrics, the guide highlights emerging approaches to measuring attention and emotional engagement and explores how these signals can be linked to business results. It provides a practical foundation for understanding not just whether ads are seen, but how they are experienced, remembered and ultimately acted upon.

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How Deepfake Ads Shape Consumer Response

How Deepfake Ads Shape Consumer Response

  • ARF
  • JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

New research reveals that virtual influencers, despite their growing popularity and flexibility, are less effective than human influencers in driving engagement and brand outcomes. The reason lies in consumer psychology: people perceive virtual influencers as less deserving of success, which reduces feelings of envy—an emotion that typically drives social media engagement. However, this disadvantage can be mitigated when virtual influencers are paired with futuristic, technology-focused brands, where their artificial nature feels more congruent.

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Designing for Fit: How Model and Product Size Influence Consumer Evaluations

Designing for Fit: How Model and Product Size Influence Consumer Evaluations

  • ARF
  • JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

Advertisers frequently feature both products and human models in print and digital campaigns—but how large each element appears relative to the other can significantly influence consumer responses. This Journal of Advertising Research study shows that the effectiveness of this visual design choice depends on product type. Across a field experiment and multiple online studies, the researchers find that hedonic products perform better when the model is larger than the product, while utilitarian products benefit when the product itself is larger than the model. The reason: these pairings create greater conceptual fluency for consumers, making the advertisement feel more cognitively “right” and leading to stronger product evaluations and purchase intentions.

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