Beyond technical imperfections: Emotional responses and audience engagement with AI-generated social media marketing videos

Artificial intelligence (AI) is progressively revolutionizing digital marketing communication, allowing organizations to generate social media marketing videos speedily and cost-effectively. Despite this growing adoption, AI-generated marketing videos are often criticized for their technical imperfections, including visual inconsistencies, unnatural transitions, and a perceived lack of human creativity. These limitations raise concerns regarding their ability to generate meaningful emotional responses and audience engagement. Therefore, this study investigates the role of audiovisual design elements, particularly cinematography, editing techniques, and sound design, in shaping emotional responses and audience engagement with AI-generated social media marketing videos. Grounded in the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) theory, a quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted among 320 Malaysian social media users aged 18 years and above who had viewed AI-generated marketing videos. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS. The results revealed that cinematography, editing techniques, and sound design significantly influenced emotional responses, which subsequently exerted a strong positive effect on audience engagement. Furthermore, emotional response served as a significant mediating mechanism linking audiovisual design elements to audience engagement. The findings further demonstrate that established audiovisual production principles remain effective even within AI-assisted video production environments, extending current understanding of audience engagement with AI-generated marketing content. This study extends current knowledge on AI-driven marketing communication by highlighting the importance of emotionally engaging audiovisual experiences in enhancing audience responses to AI-generated content. The findings provide valuable insights for marketers, content creators, and organizations seeking to leverage AI technologies for social media marketing strategies.