The Taste of Effort: Consumer Response to the Disclosure of Generative Artificial Intelligence Content in Food Advertising
(A2025-126370)

AUTHORS

Hannah Maurer, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf; Tim Buchbauer, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf

ABSTRACT

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has opened up new opportunities for advertising, such as text-to-image generation. Research on how disclosure of GenAI usage impacts consumer perceptions of the advertised brands and products is limited, although this topic is increasingly relevant due to (potential) introductions of regulatory measures (e.g. EU’s AI Act). Thus, drawing from literature on algorithm aversion and the labour illusion effect, this research investigates the perceptions of GenAI disclosure in food advertising. To do this, we conducted a one-factor between-subjects online experiment among 220 participants. The present study finds a significant effect of GenAI disclosure (vs. non-disclosure) on purchase intention of novel food alternatives, fully mediated by perceptions of reduced brand effort and reduced taste expectations. This finding carries significant implications for both researchers and practitioners, which are further discussed and analysed in this paper.