Consumers’ Interpretations of Anti-AI Marketing

Sammanfattning

This study explores how consumers interpret and evaluate explicit and implicit forms of anti-AImarketing in increasingly AI-driven digital environments. As artificial intelligence becomesincreasingly embedded in everyday life and digital media, brands have simultaneously begun toemphasize human presence, authenticity and visibly non-AI communication, creating a paradoxbetween technological normalization and the growing symbolic value of human presence andimperfection.The study adopts an exploratory, qualitative and abductive research design with a consumer-centricperspective. Empirical data was collected through four focus groups, allowing for in-depth discussionsof consumers’ interpretations and evaluations of anti-AI marketing.Drawing upon theories of symbolic value, disenchantment and re-enchantment, authenticity, TheHandmade Effect, and The Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM), the study examines how consumersinterpret and evaluate the use of AI in marketing, and how they valorize explicit and implicit forms ofanti-AI marketing.The findings demonstrate that consumers interpret AI differently depending on context, intention, andperceived effects on human effort and authenticity. While AI is widely accepted as a functional andefficient tool in everyday life, its use in marketing and visual communication often triggersskepticism, particularly when it appears to replace human creativity or reduce visible humaninvolvement. AI in marketing is frequently interpreted as a signal of efficiency, automation, andshortcut-taking, which diminished perceptions of creativity, authenticity, and symbolic value,contributing to feelings of Disenchantment.In contrast, anti-AI associations, particularly those emphasizing imperfection, messiness, and visiblehuman traces, are often perceived as more emotionally meaningful, relatable, and authentic. However,the findings also demonstrate that anti-AI marketing does not automatically function as a source ofauthenticity or re-enchantment. Explicit anti-AI claims could also be interpreted as strategic orperformative, whereas more implicit anti-AI associations are more readily accepted as authentic. Thestudy therefore contributes to existing research on symbolic value, authenticity, and re-enchantmentby demonstrating how consumers actively negotiate the meanings of AI and anti-AI marketing ratherthan passively accepting such communication as inherently authentic.