The effect of different types of virtual influencers on consumers’ emotional attachment

Ji Yan, Senmao Xia, Amanda Jiang and Zhibin Lin

Journal of Business Research, 2024, vol. 177, issue C

Abstract: A virtual influencer (VI) is a computer-generated, imagery-based digital character. It has become one of the hottest marketing trends, motivating researchers to investigate how consumers perceive VIs. However, consumers’ emotional attachment and benefit seeking behaviour to different types of VIs has remained under-investigated. Therefore, considering the level of perceived humanness and appearance realism, this research examines how consumers’ emotional attachment and benefit seeking differs across the three types of VI (i.e., mimic-human VI, animated-human VI, and non-human VI). We further propose that VIs may influence consumer emotional attachment and different benefit seeking behaviour through social presence because, specifically, when a VI shows a higher level of social presence, a higher level of emotional attachment and stronger benefit seeking behaviour will result. The experimental studies lend support to our theorization. This research provides insights into the different types of VIs in marketing literature and extends the context of social presence theory.

Keywords: Virtual influencer; Influencer marketing; Emotional attachment; Social presence; Benefit seeking behaviour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:177:y:2024:i:c:s0148296324001504

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114646

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