On April 8, 2026, the ARF featured three new articles from the Journal of Advertising Research focusing on advertising budget allocation, viewer attention, and digital magazine audience analysis. Sönke Albers presented research on optimal rules for allocating advertising budgets across movie distribution stages, extending previous work by incorporating carryover effects between stages. Zack Bhan discussed findings on ad repetition's impact on viewer attention, revealing that attention declines more rapidly in connected TV (CTV) compared to linear TV (LTV) due to higher engagement with content in CTV environments. Kaye Chan and Mark Uncles analyzed actual viewing behavior of digital magazine subscribers, finding that circulation numbers overstate actual ad delivery, with only 37% of subscribers repeating viewing content from issue to issue, with most subscribers being infrequent viewers. The presentations were followed by a Q&A session where speakers discussed practical implications and limitations of their research findings.
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Should brands partner with influencers who have massive followings—or smaller, more niche audiences? New research shows that the answer depends on how the message is delivered. Using construal level theory, the study finds that follower size signals psychological “social distance,” which shapes how consumers process influencer content. Smaller influencers are most persuasive when brand information is explicit and shared on their own channels, while mega-influencers perform better when branding is subtle or when content appears on brand-owned channels. The results suggest that aligning influencer follower size with message diagnosticity can significantly improve campaign effectiveness.
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