The Differential Impact of AI Salience on Advertising Engagement and Attitude: Scary Good AI Advertising

Across four studies, the authors find that AI-salient advertising generates greater online engagement (e.g., comment word count) but evokes more negative than positive emotions that impact ad attitude. AI salience, the degree to which the consumer perceives that artificial intelligence played a role in creating the advertisement, is introduced as an important factor that marketing practitioners must consider as they implement AI-generated advertising content (e.g., imagery). Using a theoretical foundation in the psychology of fear, we show that negative emotions evoke reactance, thus compromising ad attitude.