Over the past year, Associate Professor Dr. Grigsby of the Missouri State University Marketing Department has made significant strides in academic research, publishing three impactful articles—one of which has already received two awards.
Each article highlights cutting-edge research, topics such as narrative persuasion and generative AI are covered. The articles, provided below, can be accessed through the embedded links. Additionally, simplified abstracts from Dr. Grigsby, making the insights more accessible, are included below each of the article links.
- Narrative Transportation – A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda
- “Storytelling is a win-win for both brands and consumers – consumers enjoy hearing stories about brands, and research has found that stories are uniquely effective at communication and persuasion. Most research has focused on those persuasive outcomes, like how stories can improve consumers’ attitudes toward brands or increase purchase intention. Given the popularity of storytelling and its importance for marketers, my coauthor and I conducted a review of the existing literature. The objective was to identify opportunities for future research – inconsistent findings across studies that could be explained, or topic areas where unanswered questions still remain. We introduced a framework of opportunities for researchers interested in working in this area in the future, including storytelling via new technology like augmented and virtual reality.”
- RAISE: A New Method to Develop Experimental Stimuli for Advertising Research with Image Generative Artificial Intelligence
- “This research explores the potential of generative AI (like Dall-E, Midjourney, and Adobe’s Firefly) for the development of ads. Academic and professional marketing researchers often try out different ad designs through approaches like experiments and A/B testing. In these approaches, a single element of an ad is modified (such as showing a female or male employee). Both ads are pilot tested with a small group of consumers so that the marketers understands what ad design will be most effective with their target market. Using generative AI, we developed a method that allows not just for the generation of a single ad, but for additional ads that manipulate a single factor. Small business or researchers with limited budgets can use our method to quickly and easily design high quality ad designs for pilot testing. We also considered ethical and transparency related issues and introduce safeguards for ensuring this method can be applied while upholding ethical standards.”
- Service ads in the era of generative AI: Disclosures, trust, and intangibility
- “This research explores when service ads designed using generative AI will be the most effective. Trust is particularly important when consumers choose service providers, and in some cases, using AI in service ads can result in reduced trust toward the service provider. However, we show that when an ad uses AI to design the non-human parts of the ad (like the background, but not the service provider) and disclose to consumers that specific use of AI, then trust is not reduced. AI is becoming increasingly popular for advertising design, and our research provides specific guidance on how AI can be used to make effective ads. It also highlights the importance of using clear, transparent disclosures on ads that were designed using AI.”
Article 2, RAISE, was awarded two awards at the 2025 Winter American Marketing Association (AMA) Conference.
- The 2025 Innovations in Marketing Communications Research Award, From the AMA Communications Special Interest Group
- Best in Track Paper, Marketing Research and Innovation Track
Dr. Grigsby co-authored the RAISE and Service Ads papers with Dr. Zamudio from Virginia Commonwealth University and Dr. Michelsen from Longwood University. “César and Meg are great to work with,” said Dr. Grigsby. “We’ve published four papers together since 2020 and currently have two more in progress. I’m fortunate to collaborate with such a dedicated and fun team.”
The Marketing Department congratulates Dr. Grigsby and her colleagues for their outstanding achievements and continued contributions to the field of marketing. Their work exemplifies excellence, innovation, and collaboration.
Congratulations!