Evaluating the efficacy of AI-Generated advertising: A cross-national analysis of customer responses on brand perceptions and customer engagement with evidence from Vietnam and Australia

Despite the progressive acceptance of AI applications in various contexts, there is still a lack of research that elucidates the specific factors influencing viewers’ psychological and behavioral responses when experiencing AI-generated advertising content. Drawing upon the advertising value theory and stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, our research examines the influence of salient features of AI-powered advertising videos on experience evaluation, thereby affecting consumers’ responses to the brand. This investigation collected 839 online responses in Vietnam and Australia, and used the PLS-SEM technique to empirically analyze the research model. Our findings suggest that entertainment, message authenticity, information understandability, and aesthetic quality are crucial factors influencing consumer experience in both countries. The moderator role of customer innovativeness towards experience evaluations and brand outcomes is identified. The current research advances the understanding of existing theoretical literature by expanding advertising value theory through integrating new traits of AI-created video advertisements and reinforcing the power of the S-O-R model in the AI-applied context. Consequently, the study provides empirical evidence of cultural differences in responses to AI-driven ads, providing practical insights for businesses to implement AI-driven marketing strategies.