Virtual influencer as celebrity endorsers

Human-like virtual influencers frequently appeared on various online platforms in recent years because of the rapid development of information technology and artificial intelligence. It is of interest to find out customers attitude and effectiveness of using virtual celebrity in advertising, and the preferred form of virtual celebrity. Celebrity model which comprises of attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise has been adopted in this study to assess whether virtual celebrity has similar characteristics of real-person celebrity. An online survey has been conducted to examine whether customers have positive views on virtual celebrities and their opinions on virtual celebrity’s attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise. Survey findings do not show favourable views on virtual celebrity and cartoon character celebrity is found to be more preferred to human-like celebrity.