Maral Abdollahi

Year
2022 – 2024

Role
Lead Researcher

Goal
Explore (1) consumers’ perceptions and responses toward virtual vs. human influencers who promote brands and social issues, (2) how their perceptions and responses influence advertising outcomes, (3) and how consumers’ knowledge about the source influences their perceptions, responses, and advertising outcomes

Methods
(1) Online experiment
(2) Computational methods:
– Topic classification to categorize Instagram posts into brand or
social issue posts
– Sentiment analysis of Instagram comments
– Computational analysis of Instagram comments to detect
consumer skepticism

Outcome
– Awarded the 2022-2023 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship ($25,000) by the Graduate School
– Awarded the AAA Dissertation Award ($2,000) by the American Academy of Advertising
– Awarded the 2022 Casey Dissertation Award ($6,000) by the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication
– Conference paper at 2021 International Conference on Research in Advertising (ICORIA) and 2022 American Academy of Advertising (AAA)