International Journal of Advertising

Submission Window:

January 10th, 2024 ― May 1th, 2024

This special issue of the International Journal of Advertising is devoted to providing a state of the art, comprehensive understanding of advertising practice in light of the many advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). While scholars have written much about AI in advertising over the last decade, the realities of AI have moved from the theoretical to the actual as more and more advertisers incorporate AI into their marketing communications. Some examples of these advertising AI applications are the introduction of generative AI chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT) to smart voice assistants (e.g., Alexa) to dynamic immersive experiences (e.g., Metaverse) to behind the scenes AI platforms for big data analyses and predictive systems (e.g., IBM Watson). With AI being embedded into many facets of advertising practice, it is no surprise that the global expenditure on AI-generated advertising was $370 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to reach a total of $1.3 trillion over the next decade (Statista, 2023).

Accordingly, AI can enable personalized messages and promotion (Shi and Wang, 2023), support human creativity (Ameen et al., 2022; Eapen et al., 2023), create social media influencers (Sands et al., 2022), improve provide consumers services (Bonetti et al., 2023; Pantano and Scarpi, 2022), segment consumers (Bal et al., 2020), predict future behaviors (Pantano et al., 2021), enhance prosocial behaviors (Baek et al., 2022) and analyze consumers differences in advertising attitudes, perceptions, and advertising effectiveness (Shumanov et al., 2022). For example, ChatGPT, an advanced AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, has garnered substantial interest due to its capacity to generate text responses resembling human language, providing access to product/service recommendations (Kim et al., 2023).

However, the usage of AI in advertising research generates important concerns for consumers and policymakers, including synthetic manipulation techniques (Campbell et al., 2022a), deepfakes (Campbell et al., 2022b; Kietzmann et a., 2021), consumer privacy (Okazaki et al., 2020), customer surveillance (Plangger and Montecchi, 2020), biased consumer decision-making (Ford et al., 2023), algorithmic bias (Plangger et al., 2022), consumer trust (Baek and Kim, 2023; Malthouse and Copulsky, 2023), or negative consumers’ responses (Kim et al., 2023; Xu and Mehta, 2022).

The objective of this Special Issue is to deepen our present understanding of sundry aspects of generative AI advertising research through means as varied as theoretical and conceptual explorations, methodological studies, case studies, literature reviews, and participant-observation research. We encourage submissions that explore a range of aspects related to AI-generated advertising, facilitating a thorough grasp of its effects on various consumer behaviors. Potential topics for exploration encompass, though are not limited to:

 

• Mapping the strategic opportunities and potential threats of generative AI in advertising and branding practice
• Strategizing branding responses to malicious AI-generated communications
• Unpacking consumers’ emotional or cognitive responses to AI-generated advertising or advertising that contains algorithmic bias
• Identifying the impact of AI-generated advertising on creative work
• Revising or creating theoretical models for AI-enabled advertising channels (e.g., voice, metaverse) to guide omnichannel communication strategies
• Defining responsible practice for AI in advertising
• Understanding the ethical implications of generative AI in advertising and the scope for industry standards or regulations
• Exploring how AI algorithms could yield hyper-personalized or individualized targeting strategies for more effective marketing communications
• Empirically investigate the impact of synthetic manipulation (e.g., deepfakes) on consumers perceptions of persuasion and deception
• Evaluate how disclosures of AI-generated advertising impact consumer engagement, trust in advertising, brand attitudes, and purchase behavior
• Probe customer surveillance practices enabled by AI on digital communication channels (e.g., social media, voice, augmented/virtual reality)
• Analyzing the appeal of AI-generated advertising across various generational cohorts, with a focus on Generation Alpha, children, and vulnerable groups
• Expanding knowledge of cross-cultural consumer and managerial perspectives of AI-generated advertising

Submission deadline: May 1, 2024 (submissions will be open on January 10, 2024)

Special Issue Editors

Tae Hyun Baek, Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea ([email protected])

Eleonora Pantano, University of Bristol, UK ([email protected])

Kirk Plangger, King’s College London, UK ([email protected])

Jungkeun Kim, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand ([email protected])

Submission Instructions

To submit a manuscript, please adhere to the manuscript submission guidelines detailed in the “Author Guidelines” of the International Journal of Advertising. Please ensure that the authors select the correct Special Issue and also mention it in the letter to the editor. The guest editorial team would gladly give feedback on your abstract or ideas, and invite you to contact the entire team using their email details below.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article