Journal of Advertising
Themed Issue Call
Promises and Perils of Artificial Intelligence in Advertising

Submission Deadline: March 15, 2020

Manuscripts are currently being solicited for an upcoming Themed Issue of the Journal of Advertising (JA) dedicated to Promises and Perils of Artificial Intelligence in Advertising.

BACKGROUND

Artificial intelligence (AI) research is gaining momentum in many fields such as marketing, communication, psychology, technology, and health, but research on AI and advertising research is limited, suggesting significant opportunities. Consider that:

• Global digital advertising spend is expected to reach $517.51 billion by 2023 (Enberg 2019) and AI is predicted to take up to 80 percent of this (AdExchanger 2019).
• Over 50 percent of advertisers are already leveraging AI (Business Insider Intelligence 2018).
• Over 75 percent of consumers use an AI-powered service or device (Adobe 2018).

AI is changing the very nature of advertising. For example:

• AI is transforming the advertising industry at every level, from ad creation and testing to audience targeting to ad buying.
• AI touches on nearly every context in advertising including business, cultural, economic, ethical, historical, and legal to name a few.
• AI already shows promise of transforming leading industries such as retail, automotive, entertainment, healthcare and pharmaceutical, telecommunications, and financial services.

Despite presumed advantages, the concept of AI and advertising is introducing new concerns and challenges. For example, AI-inspired targeting on social media platforms has already led to a number of embarrassing and detrimental cases (e.g., Faggella 2019; Korolov 2018). If significant progress is to be made, advertising research must develop understanding of the efficiency, effectiveness, and safety of how and why AI operates and does not operate in advertising.

As the name implies, this Themed Issue aims to bring together high-quality research that explores benefits and potential drawbacks of AI in advertising. According to Li (2019), intelligent advertising is defined as “consumer-centered, data-driven, and algorithmmediated brand communication” (forthcoming). Our intention with this Themed Issue is to stimulate interdisciplinary research leading to papers that have a substantial impact on current thinking on AI and advertising.

TOPICS

We welcome a diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches that examine “promises and perils” of AI in advertising. Scholars from advertising, marketing, communication, and all related disciplines are invited to submit, as are interdisciplinary teams of scholars. Empirical and conceptual papers are welcome. Topics include (but are not limited to):

• AI and advertising creativity and the creative process
• AI and advertising planning and buying
• AI and advertising in social media and omnichannels
• AI and consumer attention, cognition, and emotion
• AI and personalization of advertising
• AI and social robots, chatbots and anthropomorphism for advertising
• AI-assisted search and voice search advertising
• AI-assisted segmentation for consumers including diverse and at-risk populations
• AI-based systems and advertising tailored in real-time
• AI-inspired solutions to create and test advertising
• AI-powered ad targeting and algorithm solutions
• Advertising as it relates to consumer mood and machine learning
• How brands can protect themselves from legal ramifications over AI privacy
• How brands can use AI to actively engage with consumers
• How brands use AI to talk to consumers (e.g., facial and speech recognition software)
• Motivations of applying AI and advertising in healthcare and other industries
• Social listening and sentiment analysis for advertising
• Use of image recognition and voice assistance (e.g., Siri, Alexa) for advertising
• Use of AI to advance ethics in advertising research

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS

Submissions should follow the manuscript format guidelines for the Journal of Advertising found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ujoa20/current.

The submission deadline is March 15, 2020.

All manuscripts should be submitted through the JA online submission system, ScholarOne, at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ujoa, during March 1-15, 2020. Authors should select "THEMED ISSUE: Promises and Perils of AI in Advertising" as "Manuscript Type." Please note in the cover letter that the submission is for the Themed Issue. Also note that:

• All articles will undergo blind peer review by at least two reviewers.
• Authors will be notified no later than May 2020 on the preliminary decision over their manuscript for the next round of review.
• The anticipated date for publication of the Themed Issue is Winter 2020.

For additional information regarding the Themed Issue, please contact the incoming Editor-in-Chief (starting January 1, 2020), Dr. Shelly Rodgers at: jaeditor@missouri.edu

REFERENCES

Ad Exchanger (2019), “AI Is Eating Advertising – And 2019 Will Be Critical for Getting It Right,” January 3, https://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/ai-is-eating-advertising-and-2019-will-be-critical-for-getting-it-right/.

Adobe (2018), “Fifteen Mind-Blowing Stats about Artificial Intelligence,” March 9, https://www.adobe.com/insights/15-stats-about-artificialintelligence. html.

Business Insider Intelligence (2018), “AI in Marketing: How Brands Can Improve Personalization, Enhance Ad Targeting, and Make Their Marketing Teams More Agile,” March 6, https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-marketing-report-2018-3.

Enberg, Jasmine (2019), “Digital Ad Spending.” eMarketer, March 28, https://www.emarketer.com/content/global-digital-ad-spending-2019.

Faggella, Daniel (2019), “Artificial Intelligence in Marketing and Advertising – 5 Examples of Real Traction,” February 18, https://emerj.com/ai-sectoroverviews/ artificial-intelligence-in-marketing-and-advertising-5-examples-of-real-traction/.

Korolov, Maria (2018), “AI’s Biggest Risk Factor: Data Gone Wrong,” February 13, https://www.cio.com/article/3254693/ais-biggest-risk-factor-datagone- wrong.html.

Li, Hairong (2019), “Special Section Introduction: Artificial Intelligence and Advertising.” Journal of Advertising, 48 (4), forthcoming.

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