Differentiate Virtual Social Media Influencers

A social media influencer is often a real human with a known personality, but also could be created using computer graphics software and then presented to the marketplace with a storyline complex enough to portray a memorable personality. That’s a virtual influencer. Researchers at University of Zaragoza compared the effectiveness of the two types when persuading consumers.
     Based on their study results, the researchers report that, overall, the two types can be equally influential. This is valuable for marketers to know because virtual influencers, compared to their human counterparts, are more reliably available, don’t change unless that’s intended, are more easily directed, and present less risk of becoming associated with distracting public scandals.
     Still, there are differences in the mechanism of persuasion for the two types. The human influencer’s power arises from development of a persona the consumer can identify with. The virtual influencer persuades based on the consumer’s perception of more objective, and therefore more useful, advice than would come from a human. The consumer impression that virtual-influencer creation requires artificial intelligence technologies strengthens the sense that the virtual influencer possesses strong analytical and logical capabilities.
     An implication, which is supported by the study results, is that marketers should employ human social media influencers for endorsements of hedonic, pleasure-oriented, items and employ virtual influencers for utilitarian item endorsements. The products used in the studies were a computer laptop as the utilitarian example and a hotel room as the hedonic example.
     Some virtual influencers, such as Any Malu and Anna Cattish are cartoonish versions of humans. However, most of the leading ones, such as Thalasya and Lu do Magalu, closely resemble a human’s appearance. This points to another issue for marketers to consider: Will such a close resemblance spook rather than enchant viewers?
     When people can’t tell whether a robot, a mannequin, or some other representation of a human is real or not, the people experience revulsion. If the android looks exactly like an attractive human being, people are attracted to it. If it looks similar to a human, but people can easily tell it’s not real, they’re amused. However, when the resemblance is very close, but they are not sure if it’s real, they’re creeped out. That dip in the positive emotion is why the effect is called the uncanny valley.
     It might be best to use a virtual influencer which resembles a human, but is easily distinguishable.

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