Comparative Effectiveness of Virtual Influencers and Human Influencers on Consumer Trust, Engagement, and Purchase Intention Across Product Categories

For companies‚ influencer marketing is now a major form of digital marketing‚ where social media influencers are used to influence consumer awareness‚ attitudes‚ behaviours‚ and purchase intentions․ In digital marketing contexts‚ human influencers are the dominant type of influencer‚ as they are at least in part effective because they are perceived as more authentic‚ experienced‚ relatable‚ emotive‚ and credible․ More recently‚ a new type of influencer known as a virtual influencer has emerged․ Virtual influencers use computer-generated imagery‚ animation‚ and artificial intelligence to construct a digital marketing narrative․ This rise of virtual influencers has led to a wide-ranging literature in marketing to investigate whether virtual influencers can achieve similar or superior levels of consumer trust‚ engagement‚ and purchase intention compared to their human counterparts․ We also investigate whether the effect of virtual influencers as compared to human influencers on these outcomes varies across different product categories (such as fashion‚ beauty‚ luxury‚ technology‚ gaming‚ health‚ fitness or utilitarian consumer products also referred to as functionally helpful products)․ The paper argues that the effectiveness of influencer type should not be interpreted as a contest between virtual and human influencers‚ as their effectiveness depends on the interaction between influencer characteristics‚ consumer motivations‚ characteristics of the platform‚ product category‚ perception of influencer authenticity‚ disclosure‚ and fit between product and influencer․ Fashion‚ luxury brands‚ gaming‚ digitally native culture‚ culture-bound items‚ visually expressive products‚ and digital-native brands perform better with virtual influencers‚ whereas human influencers are more suitable for products that require expertise‚ experience‚ physical evidence‚ trust‚ or emotional reassurance․ The review ultimately concludes that the future of influencer marketing is likely to be one of human‚ virtual and hybrid influencer cohabitation․

Virtual influencers, human influencers, influencer marketing, consumer trust

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