| Abstract [eng] |
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies, the principles of advertising design are changing fundamentally. Advertisements that used to rely on human creativity are increasingly being created using AI tools and applications. AI makes it possible to create visual, audio and textual advertising content quickly, cost-effectively and tailored to different audiences. However, while AI-generated ads are already widely used in practice, research assessing the impact of this content on consumers, in particular on their emotional response and engagement, is fragmented and often only conceptual. Consumers' emotional response is considered to be one of the most important factors directly influencing the effectiveness of advertising. Emotions determine whether an advertisement will be noticed, how it will be remembered, what feelings will be associated with the brand and whether the advertisement will encourage the desired behaviour. In the academic literature, there is a growing emphasis that emotions should not only be measured in terms of their valence (positive or negative), but also in terms of their intensity, i.e., the strength of the arousal they evoke (Poels and Dewitte, 2019; Xu and Huang, 2023). Research shows that stronger emotions, especially positive emotions, are more likely to motivate consumers to engage with advertisements by reacting, commenting, sharing or even creating other pieces of content related to the advertisements (Tellis et al., 2022; Thorson, 2023; Choi, 2022). Nowadays, consumer engagement has become one of the key indicators of advertising effectiveness, especially in the digital environment where consumers not only receive information but also actively react to it. Understanding what drives consumer engagement with advertising, especially when it is created by artificial intelligence, becomes essential to create targeted, impactful and interactive advertisements. With the potential for AI-powered advertising, it becomes crucial to assess whether these types of ads can influence engagement behaviours that are as strong as, or even stronger than, those of human-made ads, and to assess how and what kind of emotional responses lead to these connections (Somosi, 2022; Du et al., 2023; Ratta et al., 2024; Arango et al., 2023; Argan et al., 2022). For these reasons, the research topic is both academically and practically relevant, contributing to the still emerging scientific discourse on the impact of AI-generated advertising on consumers‘ emotional response and engagement behaviour. It also provides insights useful for advertisers and marketers in the practical application of artificial intelligence in the creation of advertisements. |
