The holiday season often produces some of the most emotionally powerful advertising campaigns of the year.
A luxury brand releases a cinematic video — a skier gliding silently through a snow-covered alpine slope, exchanging a carefully wrapped gift in golden winter light. Another campaign from a mass-market clothing brand shows a bustling family reunion filled with laughter, food, and the joyful chaos of children opening presents.
Two campaigns. Two emotional worlds.
But today there is an increasingly important question behind these stories:
Who actually created them?
For decades, such campaigns were crafted by creative teams working across advertising agencies, brand strategists, and filmmakers. Today, however, a growing number of brands are experimenting with AI-generated advertising to produce campaign narratives, visual concepts, and even emotional storytelling.
Generative AI tools can now produce advertising copy, generate campaign visuals, and simulate storytelling styles associated with both luxury and mass-market brands. The speed and scale at which AI-generated advertising can be produced are unprecedented.
Yet a critical question remains unanswered:
Can audiences emotionally connect with AI-generated advertising in the same way they connect with human-created campaigns?
This question lies at the center of emerging research in AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, including new work led by Rubal Rathi at Fortune Institute of International Business.
The Rise of AI-Generated Advertising
Over the past few years, generative AI technologies have rapidly entered the marketing ecosystem.
Brands now use AI tools to:
- generate advertising copy
- create visual campaign concepts
- produce short promotional videos
- personalize messaging across customer segments
From a production perspective, AI-generated advertising appears remarkably capable. Algorithms can mimic the tone of luxury branding, replicate emotional storytelling structures, and even generate narratives designed to evoke nostalgia, aspiration, or warmth.
For marketers, the advantages are obvious.
AI systems dramatically reduce production time while enabling the rapid testing of multiple creative variations. A single campaign idea can now be transformed into dozens of visual and narrative versions almost instantly.
However, marketing effectiveness is not determined solely by how content is produced.
It is determined by how audiences emotionally respond to it.
The Emotional Authenticity Problem
Within the expanding research field of AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, one important distinction is beginning to emerge.
There is a difference between content that looks emotionally compelling and content that actually feels emotionally authentic to audiences.
An AI system may successfully generate a visually beautiful campaign or produce storytelling that resembles traditional brand narratives. Yet consumers may still perceive subtle differences in emotional authenticity when encountering AI-generated advertising.
Luxury branding, for example, often depends on narratives built around craftsmanship, heritage, and intentional creative effort. If audiences sense that a campaign was generated algorithmically rather than crafted deliberately, that perception could undermine the emotional value associated with the brand.
Mass-market brands face a different challenge. Their advertising often relies on relatability, shared experiences, and emotional warmth. If AI-generated advertising reproduces these themes mechanically without genuine emotional depth, audiences may quickly recognize the difference.
This raises an important research question:
Do consumers emotionally respond to AI-generated advertising in the same way they respond to human-created campaigns?
Listening Where Consumers Actually Speak
To investigate this question, Dr. Rathi’s research examines consumer responses across digital platforms where audiences openly discuss advertising and brand communication.
The study analyses conversations and audience reactions on platforms such as:
- YouTube
- Quora
These platforms provide a unique research environment.
Unlike controlled experiments or structured surveys, digital conversations capture spontaneous consumer sentiment. Users frequently comment on advertisements they encounter, discussing whether a campaign feels authentic, forced, emotional, or artificial.
By analysing these discussions, the research explores how audiences interpret and emotionally react to AI-generated advertising in real digital environments.
This methodological shift reflects a broader transformation within the field of AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour. Scholars are increasingly studying marketing phenomena not only in laboratory settings but also within the organic spaces where consumers interact with brands every day.
Why Holiday Campaigns Provide the Perfect Test
The study focuses specifically on holiday advertising campaigns.
Festive advertising represents one of the most emotionally sensitive categories of brand communication. During these periods, audiences expect storytelling that evokes nostalgia, warmth, generosity, and human connection.
Because of this emotional intensity, holiday campaigns provide a powerful context for evaluating AI-generated advertising.
If AI systems can successfully produce emotionally resonant holiday narratives, it would suggest that generative AI has reached a level of sophistication capable of replicating complex emotional storytelling.
However, if consumers perceive such campaigns as emotionally hollow or artificially constructed, it would reveal limitations in the current capabilities of AI-generated advertising.
Luxury and mass-market brands provide particularly interesting contrasts in this context. Luxury advertising emphasizes aspiration, exclusivity, and aesthetic minimalism, while mass-market campaigns rely on relatability and shared experiences.
Understanding how audiences react to AI-generated advertising across these different brand categories may reveal deeper insights into the future of AI-driven marketing.
The Strategic Implications for Marketers
For organizations adopting generative AI tools, these findings carry important strategic implications.
Many companies currently evaluate AI-generated advertising based on production efficiency — how quickly campaigns can be created, how easily creative variations can be generated, and how effectively AI systems replicate brand tone.
However, such production-focused metrics may overlook a critical dimension of marketing effectiveness:
emotional resonance.
If audiences perceive AI-generated campaigns as emotionally artificial, the long-term consequences for brand trust and engagement could be significant. Marketers may therefore need to rethink how they evaluate creative performance in the age of generative AI.
Rather than focusing solely on production efficiency, organizations may need to incorporate consumer emotional response as a key evaluation metric for AI-generated advertising.
The Broader Conversation Around AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour
This research forms part of a larger academic conversation about how artificial intelligence is reshaping consumer experiences.
Recent research has explored topics ranging from algorithmic personalization to immersive digital retail environments and AI-driven customer engagement strategies.
At Fortune Institute of International Business, ongoing research on AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour continues to explore how emerging technologies influence consumer decision-making and brand perception.
👉 Related Research: AI in Consumer Information Search
By connecting these research streams, scholars aim to understand not only how AI changes marketing operations but also how it transforms the emotional dynamics between brands and consumers.
A Question That Marketers Can No Longer Ignore
The capabilities of generative AI are evolving rapidly.
Today, algorithms can generate advertising copy, design visual narratives, and simulate emotional storytelling structures that closely resemble traditional creative work.
Yet one fundamental question remains unresolved:
Can AI truly replicate the emotional authenticity that defines powerful brand communication?
If AI-generated advertising succeeds in creating emotional resonance, it may redefine the future of creative production in marketing.
But if audiences perceive AI-generated campaigns as emotionally hollow, marketers may discover that the most important element of advertising — genuine human connection — cannot be automated so easily.
Understanding where that boundary lies is now one of the most important research questions in AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour.
Author Note
This is a working paper currently in progress.
Rubal Rathi is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Fortune Institute of International Business, New Delhi.
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