Research

What AI knows about people and where it gets them wrong

My work is empirical: experiments, surveys, physiological measurement and systematic comparisons between human and synthetic data. It appears in academic journals and at international conferences such as EMAC, ICORIA and the American Academy of Advertising.

Research areas

Three fields, one interest: how people decide

All three fields share the same question. What drives purchase decisions, and how well can we measure, predict or simulate them?

Synthetic respondents and digital customer twins

When can you trust answers from a language model?

More and more companies let language models answer as if they were customers. I test how reliable these synthetic respondents are: Do they get the direction of an effect right, its size, the differences between customer segments? And which methods close the gap, from prompting and fine-tuning to hybrid designs that combine humans and machines?

Work on digital participants in advertising research received the Best Student Paper Award at ICORIA 2025.

AI in marketing and brand management

Brands in a world where machines read, write and shop along

Generative AI changes how brands are created, how they are described and how they are chosen. When an AI agent shops on someone's behalf, different signals count than on the supermarket shelf. I study what this means for brand equity, positioning and communication.

Happiness, meaning and consumption

How happiness and the search for meaning shape consumer behavior

My dissertation, “The Consequences of Happiness for Consumption” (2023, summa cum laude, supervised by Tobias Langner and Dirk Temme), examined how happiness affects openness to new products and brands. Together with Bernd Schmitt (Columbia Business School) and Tobias Langner, I continue this work, for example on how the search for meaning leads to exploratory consumption and how happiness appeals work in advertising.

Advertising effects and perception

What gets decided about an ad in a split second

Earlier projects examined the readability of all-caps advertising headlines, banner blindness in online advertising, and how emotions from the surrounding program carry over to brands. Measured in lab and online experiments, with facial expression analysis and skin conductance.

Collaborations

Who I work with

I work with researchers at universities in Germany, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and the Netherlands. Long-standing co-authors include Bernd Schmitt (Columbia Business School) and Tobias Langner (University of Wuppertal).

Columbia University, New York
NYU Abu Dhabi
Humboldt University of Berlin
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
University of Wuppertal

Publications

Publications and conference papers

Further manuscripts are under review at international journals.

Journal articles

2026

The effects of letter capitalization in advertising headlinesKlinke, T., Christ, M., Fadl, N., Lamerz, C. & Langner, T. · Journal of Marketing Communications, 32(4), 391–413

Peer reviewed

Conference proceedings

2025

Broadening our horizons: How pursuing meaning in life encourages exploratory consumptionKlinke, T., Langner, T., Prior, S. & Schmitt, B. · 54th EMAC Annual Conference, Madrid

EMAC

2025

Digital participants in advertising researchWith Prior, S., Fadl, N. & Langner, T. · 23rd International Conference on Research in Advertising, Rotterdam

Best Student Paper Award

2025

Contagious advertising contexts: The direct and downstream effects of positive and negative incidental emotions on brand prominenceKopka, J. F., Klinke, T. & Langner, T. · 23rd ICORIA, Rotterdam

ICORIA

2024

Advertising happiness: How happiness appeals affect consumer choicesLangner, T., Schmitt, B. & Klinke, T. · Annual Conference of the American Academy of Advertising, Portland

AAA

2021

Caution with caps lock: Message conveyance and attitude formation effects of letter capitalization in advertising headlinesKlinke, T., Christ, M., Fadl, N. & Langner, T. · 19th ICORIA, Bordeaux

ICORIA

2019

When less is more for banner ads: The effects of online banner animation on the emergence of banner blindnessChrist, M., Klinke, T. & Langner, T. · ICORIA, Krems

ICORIA

2018

Making a (letter) case: The impact of letter capitalization on advertising headline perceptionsKlinke, T., Christ, M., Fadl, N. & Langner, T. · ICORIA, Valencia

ICORIA

Book chapters

2018

Medienkonvergenz managen: Wahrnehmungs- und Wirkungspfade der Kommunikation antizipieren [Managing media convergence: Anticipating perception and impact paths of communication]Langner, T., Brune, P., Fischer, A. & Klinke, T. · In T. Langner, F.-R. Esch & M. Bruhn (Eds.), Handbuch Techniken der Kommunikation (pp. 21–51). Springer Gabler

Springer

For practitioners

2019

Schnelle Schüsse ins Gehirn [Quick shots to the brain]Langner, T., Langer, T. & Klinke, T. · absatzwirtschaft

Trade magazine

2018

Was tun, wenn immer mehr Kunden wegschauen [What to do when more and more customers look away]Langner, T., Fadl, N. & Klinke, T. · Markenartikel

Trade magazine

Collaboration

Research with industry partners

Do you have a question that data can answer, or would you like to test a method with your own customers? I welcome inquiries from companies and academia.

Get in touch