Influencers Don’t Have to Be Human to Be Believable
Many brands have used virtual influencers to boost their presence on social media in recent years in an effort to appear innovative and tech-savvy. Photo Illustration: Siung Tjia/WSJ By Lisa Ward June 17, 2023 5:30 am ET Social-media influencers can be adept at promoting products or brands—even when the influencer is a computer-generated image. A recent study suggests that companies are still usually better off going with human influencers, who are often seen as more credible and trustworthy than a digital personification. But that isn’t always the case. Virtual and human social-media influencers can be equally effective for certain types of posts, the research suggests. Why would consumers look even somewhat favorably upon virtual influencers that make comments about real products? Over the past few years
Many brands have used virtual influencers to boost their presence on social media in recent years in an effort to appear innovative and tech-savvy.
Photo Illustration: Siung Tjia/WSJ
By
Lisa Ward
Social-media influencers can be adept at promoting products or brands—even when the influencer is a computer-generated image.
A recent study suggests that companies are still usually better off going with human influencers, who are often seen as more credible and trustworthy than a digital personification. But that isn’t always the case. Virtual and human social-media influencers can be equally effective for certain types of posts, the research suggests.
Why would consumers look even somewhat favorably upon virtual influencers that make comments about real products?
Over the past few years many well-known companies have used virtual influencers to boost their presence on social media. The thinking is that virtual influencers can be fun and entertaining and make a brand seem innovative and tech savvy, says Ozan Ozdemir, a doctoral candidate at the University of Alberta’s School of Business and one of the paper’s co-authors. Ozdemir adds that virtual influencers can also be cost-effective and provide more flexibility than a human alternative.
There’s a limit, though. “When it comes to an endorsement by a virtual influencer, the followers start questioning the expertness of the influencer on the field of the endorsed product/service,” he says. “Pretending that the influencer has actual experience with the product backfires.”
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In one part of the study, about 300 participants were shown a social-media post purported to be from an influencer about either ice cream or sunglasses. Then, roughly half were told the influencer was human and half were told she was virtual. Regardless of the product, participants perceived the virtual influencer to be less credible than its “human” counterpart. Participants who were told the influencer was virtual also had a less-positive attitude toward the brand behind the product.
When the influencers “can’t really use the brand they are promoting,” it’s hard to see them as trustworthy experts, say Ozdemir.
In another experiment, however, the authors found that virtual influencers may be on equal footing to their human counterparts when the language in the endorsement is more factual, describing and listing specific product features or attributes rather than giving emotional affirmations. In this experiment about 460 participants were told that a company hired a social influencer to help it promote its new compression software. Then they were divided into four groups.
Two groups saw a post with an emotional endorsement where the influencer uses words like love and adore. The other two groups saw a more staid post, focusing on specific software features. In each scenario one group was told the influencer was human and one group was told the influencer was virtual.
For the emotional endorsement, participants found the human influencer to be more credible. Participants who were told the influencer was human also had a more positive view of the brand than those who were told the influencer was virtual.
For the more factual endorsement, however, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups when it came to influencer credibility or brand perception.
“When it comes to delivering a more factual endorsement, highlighting features that could be found by doing an internet search, participants really didn’t seem to care if the influencer was human or not,” says Ozdemir.
Lisa Ward is a writer in Vermont. She can be reached at [email protected].
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