The volume and velocity at which digital advertisements are delivered provides a unique opportunity for researchers to continually experiment and evaluate marketing effectiveness across thousands of viewer impressions. This research leverages these advances and examines the effectiveness of creative elements used in food, beverage, and restaurant (FBR) online video advertisements. We employ a unique coding methodology—a combination of human coding and machine learning—to identify the efficacy of creative attributes across 2,308 different online video advertisements from around the world. Moreover, the nature of the digital environment allows for testing of these elements at various stages of the marketing funnel. In this research we examine how different creative attributes uniquely affect brand awareness, ad recall, consideration, favorability, and purchase intent while identifying which underutilized creative attributes positively impact these outcomes. In our research, we find that the use of food cues and human elements in advertising affect viewer responses throughout the marketing funnel. These findings have important practical implications and offer fruitful avenues for future scholarly research.
Elder et al. (Mon,) studied this question.