Avatar-Based Influencer Marketing: Demystifying the Benefits and Risks of Marketing Through Virtual Influencers

Avatar-Based Influencer Marketing: Demystifying the Benefits and Risks of Marketing Through Virtual Influencers

Rohit Bansal, Nishita Pruthi
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 9
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-8898-0.ch005
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Abstract

In the digital era, the presence of consumers on social media platforms is increasing at a higher pace than ever before. It pushes marketers to employ new ways to endorse their products on these social networking platforms. One such digital marketing trend is the use of avatar-based influencer marketing. Virtual influencers are computer-generated influencers who have a large social media following particularly on picture-based platforms such as Instagram. Avatar marketing has gained popularity as a brand endorsement strategy. Despite the increase in popularity, there are very few studies that study the effectiveness of avatar-based influencer marketing. This chapter aims at demystifying the benefits and risks of employing virtual influencers as a marketing gimmick. Data were collected from various secondary sources, such as journals, books, theses, reports and websites using different databases like Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar etc. Findings revealed that avatar marketing, if utilized strategically, has great potential to optimize digital marketing strategy.
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Introduction

Virtual influencer marketing is one of the novel marketing strategies that have emerged with the growth of digitalization. Although influencer marketing has been around for a long time, it has really taken off in recent years. Influencers have the ability to create trends and have an impact on people's capacity for decision-making, depending on their social rank and power (Bansal & Saini, 2022). Virtual influencers are fictional people who have been constructed using computer graphics software and given profiles to operate as influencers on social media (da Silva Oliveira, 2021). Virtual influencers typically have a sizable social media following, after which companies and individuals “pay” them to advertise their goods and services (Bansal & Pruthi, 2021). These digital influencers can connect with their followers in a way that is comparable to how people communicate with one another because of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI), each with their own unique personalities and sense of flair. Following are the some unique characteristics of virtual influencers:

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    Cartoon characters and actual people serve as inspiration for virtual influencers.

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    Virtual Influencers may combine several original animation character concepts.

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    They are created and assembled by either a single person or a team of people.

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    They lack the ability to think or be creative on their own.

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    These influencers are brand entities that are occasionally produced specifically for a given company and product.

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    They are independent of the people who designed or created them.

Luxury fashion firms were the first to adopt virtual influencers as a trend. Margot, Shudu, and Zhi were virtual models for Balmain's fashion army in 2018. Shudu Gram, a spokesperson for Fenty Beauty, has 231k followers. For Milan Fashion Week, Lil Miquela, a perennial teen with 3 million followers, took control of Prada's Instagram. Afterwards, this industry is growing at increasing rate. This motivated researchers to provide an overview of benefits and risks associated with employing virtual influencers for marketing purpose.

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