The Uncanny Valley in Video Advertising : Understanding the psychological phenomenon behind advertising campaigns with AI-generated content. Understanding feelings and reactions from consumers towards company brands

Sammanfattning

Background The fast incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the field of marketing has seen companies increasingly try to use AI in their advertising, replacing human creators or actors. Generative AI is mostly used to cut down production costs and time. Visual content generated by AI is becoming hyperrealistic. This causes an effect known as the ‘Uncanny Valley’ phenomenon, where consumers experience feelings of discomfort or weirdness when viewing artificial human-like objects. Purpose This study seeks to apply the concept of the uncanny valley to the field of video advertisements for commercial purposes. Specifically, this research seeks to explore the influence of AI-generated video advertisements as opposed to human-generated video advertisements on key marketing parameters such as brand trust and purchase intention. Method An experimental design with between-subjects manipulations was used, involving 179 valid participants. Respondents were randomly exposed to either a luxury watch advertisement with real humans (control group) or a recreation of the luxury watch advertisement, fully made by generative AI (manipulation group). The data was collected through a survey that mostly utilised 7-point Likert scale ratings and analysed using independent sample T-test, bivariate correlation, linear regression analysis, and Hayes’ PROCESS Macro (Model 6) for serial mediation. Conclusion The results indicate that AI-generated video advertisements adversely affect consumers' responses when compared to advertisements created by humans. The perception of uncanniness was considerably higher among viewers of the AI-generated advertisement and worked as a negative peripheral cue that adversely affected brand trust. A serial mediation analysis found that although the AI-generated video advertisement does not affect purchase intention directly, it does so through the serial mediation of perceived uncanniness and brand trust.