Abstract: We study the effectiveness of personalized video advertisements created using Generative AI (GenAI). We run a mobile ad targeting field experiment on WhatsApp in partnership with a leading B2C e-commerce brand that sells eco-friendly sustainable products. We randomize users into receiving ads from one of three targeting conditions – 1) Generative AI-enabled personalized video ads, 2) personalized image ads, and 3) generic non-personalized video ads. The first group is our main treatment and the latter two serve as baselines. Our results show that Generative AI-enabled personalized video ads increase engagement by 6-9 percentage points over the baselines. We explore response heterogeneity across important user segments and find that GenAI-enabled ads increase engagement among potential “high-value” users and historically “non-engaged” users.

About the Speaker:  Prof. Anuj Kapoor is an Assistant Professor of Quantitative Marketing at IIM Ahmedabad. His research interests are in the economics of digitization, artificial intelligence, privacy, and digital platforms. His research focuses on understanding how big data and artificial intelligence shape consumer welfare and digital markets. He uses a quasi- and actual experimental variation to explore how different types of human behavior in varying contexts affect algorithms. He works closely with firms to suggest to them more ways to become data-driven. He has ongoing collaborations with various tech start-ups in India in the digital media and health tech space. Anuj received his Ph.D. in Business Administration (Quantitative Marketing and Economics) from the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. After his doctoral studies, he worked in the data science space in San Diego, USA. At IIMA, he teaches electives on Artificial Intelligence and Marketing and Privacy Paradox: Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Platforms.