This experiment, part of the ARF’s “Psychology of Gen AI” series, reveals how models like ChatGPT not only replicate human cognitive biases, such as loss aversion, but also compress variability into uniform patterns. This raises concerns for advertising researchers who rely on authentic insights into consumer behavior.
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Research in this Marketing Science Institute (MSI) working paper shows that privacy regulations can increase consumer willingness to share data. Using behavioral data from a popular U.S. shopping app and complementary evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, the research finds that regulations in California and Virginia boosted both the volume and diversity of data sharing—especially among consumers who were initially more reluctant.
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The ARF Metrics Survey explores critical trends in advertising strategies, including budget allocation, metric usage and targeting solutions. Drawing on insights from agencies and brand-side advertisers, the findings reflect shared priorities, notable differences and challenges in evaluating and optimizing campaign performance. The study highlights the dominance of digital channels, with high-priority channels such as digital video, social media, SEM and television receiving significant budget allocations.
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Industry leaders gathered at ATTENTION 2025 on June 5 to explore the evolving science of attention measurement in advertising. This event featured new research from advertisers, agencies, and academics, including preliminary findings from Phase 3 of the Attention Measurement Validation Initiative. Attendees gained actionable insights into scalable attention metrics, their role in optimizing creative and media strategies, and how brands can better identify and engage audiences to drive results.
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How is the loss of digital identifiers reshaping advertising research? This guide, by the ARF Analytics Council, offers advertising researchers a deep dive into the privacy-first landscape, covering regulatory impacts, measurement challenges and practical identity solutions—from synthetic IDs to advanced modeling—to enable successful targeting and attribution in a fragmented ecosystem.
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This is a report on the third in a series of surveys conducted by the ARF Organizational Insights Council on the evolving terrain of the analytics and insights profession. Drawing from interviews with over 400 professionals across ARF member companies, the study provides a deep dive into skill trends, structural shifts, AI adoption and sector-based investment in research and analytics.
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Can sanitized AI tools truly capture the nuance required for advertising and brand research? Is a less restrained one more likely to produce skewed results? This comparative deep dive, from ARF and MSI explores how two popular large language models—ChatGPT-4o and Grok 3—respond when prompted with complex topics. The findings highlight how content moderation affects not only tone and specificity, but the very boundaries of inquiry. For advertising researchers navigating sensitive brand perception topics, understanding these model tradeoffs is essential.
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Retail Media Networks (RMNs) have emerged as one of the fastest-growing advertising channels in the U.S., transforming how brands reach and engage consumers. Leveraging first-party data, RMNs enable targeted, measurable campaigns across retailers’ ecosystems, opening a unique blend of performance-driven and brand-building opportunities. Learn about this emerging channel, including the commonalities and differences in how they are being used between advertisers and agencies, in this deep dive into RMNs.
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