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Virtual influencers – are they better advertisers?

Media Technology and Society Media Technology and Society Media Technology and Society

Virtual Influencers – are they better advertisers?

The potential of influencer marketing is huge. Now, virtual influencers are entering the market. But are they better advertisers than real influencers?

A post by Maike Bongartz, Lisa Merz and Nele Hardt

Thursday, 3 February 2022

Scrolling through your Instagram feed, you’re bound to come across them sooner or later: influencers. Posing with a designer brand’s new collection or showing off their glamorous lifestyle to their vast following. Influencer marketing has established itself as one of the most successful branches of marketing.

According to an Influencer Marketing Benchmark report, the market is expected to be worth 13.8 billion US dollars by 2021. In the survey conducted for the report, 90 per cent of participants said they believe influencer marketing is an effective form of marketing. It also states that 67% of brands are using Instagram for influencer marketing, meaning that Instagram is probably the easiest place to find and collaborate with fashion, beauty and lifestyle influencers. Other figures highlight just how much the market has been growing. In the last five years alone, 1,360 influencer marketing-focused platforms and agencies have entered the market. Finally, there has been a 465% increase in Google searches for the phrase ‘influencer marketing’ since 2016. So more and more people are taking notice and want to learn more about it.

Background: Influencer Marketing

So what exactly is influencer marketing? The main aim for brands in influencer marketing is to enhance the value and credibility of their brand message. To achieve this, brands can leverage the trust of the influencer’s audience to convince them of the brand and its products. Usually, brands pay influencers to promote their products, but the best way to advertise a product through an influencer is, of course, to have the influencer do so voluntarily without any financial compensation. To achieve this, brands need to build a personal relationship with influencers and spark their curiosity about the products being promoted. Ideally, influencers will talk about the product because they want to – because they like the brand and find the products interesting or useful for their followers. This way, it can result in an honest and authentic product review. However, influencing others is not as easy as it might sound. A good influencer should possess a combination of three key factors: reach, contextual credibility and salesmanship. The higher these three factors are, the greater the potential to influence an individual.

With all these factors at play, influencers have the ability or power to shape others’ perceptions or prompt them to take action, such as buying a particular product. This means that the act of influencing requires a specific outcome: namely, a change in thinking or behaviour.

From CGI characters to virtual influencers

So how do virtual influencers fit into all of this? Virtual influencers have evolved from animated characters that have been in use for many years now. They serve various purposes, such as acting as substitutes for real people. You might recall characters from the early 2000s such as Crazy Frog or the band Gorillaz – both created music and were, and still are, hugely successful. These CGI characters are capable of attracting large audiences or even developing their own fan base. They can take many different forms and feature various animation styles, but over time, more and more of these characters have been designed to look like humans. And in 2016, the first virtual influencer, Miquela Sousa, was created, sparking a wave of human-looking CGI characters.

What are virtual influencers?

Virtual influencers are digital characters that mostly resemble people. Just like real influencers, they interact on social media, have their own opinions, give ‘likes’ or ‘dislikes’ and display emotions. On Instagram in particular, they have many followers, and their follower counts are as high as those of real stars and influencers.

Virtual influencers can be divided into four different categories. The first is the category of virtual models. One of the most successful models is Shudu Gram, who has even appeared in issues of the fashion magazine *Vogue*. The second category comprises virtual brand ambassadors. As such, they are affiliated with a company and reflect its values. One example is the digital Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC. The third category consists of corporate influencers such as Kenna, an avatar who ‘works’ for companies and provides insights into the organisation. The final category comprises brand-independent virtual influencers. They collaborate with companies and share glimpses of their lives on social media – just like their real-life counterparts. Lil Miquela is the most famous example of this.

About Lil Miquela

Lil Miquela (Miquela Sousa) is the first computer-generated social media influencer. She is portrayed as a 19-year-old Latin American musician and art student who also supports Black Lives Matter and transgender rights. Lil Miquela made her debut on Instagram in 2016, but her account began to attract wider attention around 2018, when Miquela posted about her origins. Until then, many of her fans had assumed she was a real 19-year-old. Since Miquela’s creation, she has gained over 3 million Instagram followers. On Instagram, she shares photos and stories about her life, comments on real social issues (e.g., Black Lives Matter) and poses with real people to give the impression that she is a real person. She has also featured in brand partnerships and video adverts for companies such as Calvin Klein, Prada, Diesel and Samsung, and was even included in *The Times*’ list of the top 25 most influential people in 2018.

In this context, there are several important issues that need to be addressed when considering virtual influencers. One is the issue of responsibility and transparency, as it is not entirely clear how they are accountable for their content (unlike real influencers). This issue will become even more important in the near future, because when algorithms control the content, there is even less transparency. Another aspect is the issue of identity, because from a physical point of view it is clear that they do not exist, but at the same time they have a fully-fledged online identity and influence people.

Why does the virtual influencer trend have such great potential?

The reason is probably that they offer a number of advantages over traditional influencers. Many communications managers face a number of problems when working with human influencers. For one thing, it is very difficult to find an influencer who fully embodies the brand’s ideals. Virtual influencers, on the other hand, can be tailored to the brand through their entire social media presence. A significant reason why many companies are wary of working with influencers is the risk that they might become embroiled in scandals, which would in turn damage the brand of the company they are working with. With virtual influencers, the risk of a scandal cannot be completely eliminated, but it can be significantly reduced, as you have a greater degree of planning certainty and know exactly what content the virtual influencer will post in the near future. With a virtual influencer, there is no need to fear impulsive outbursts of anger, and even if the community’s reactions cannot always be predicted, the impact can be assessed more easily by media experts.

The advantages of working with a virtual influencer go far beyond these obvious ones, as a virtual influencer can also save a great deal of money in campaign planning. For a commercial shoot with a virtual influencer, there is no need to produce expensive samples – something that is always required when working with a model or influencer if the final product is not yet available at the time of the shoot.

Nevertheless, according to Jörg Zuber, the designer of a character named Noonoouri, there is no need to fear that only virtual influencers will dominate the market in the future. He does envisage a future in which every company has its own virtual influencer. At present, leading brands are winning the race for social media engagement by partnering with extremely popular virtual influencers. But in his view, that does not mean human influencers have lost their influence. They still have their own advantages, and a comprehensive influencer marketing strategy, in his view, should include both real influencers and virtual influencers.

Drawbacks of virtual influencers

Despite all the enthusiasm and the positive effects that virtual influencers bring to companies when they collaborate with them, there are, as with any new technology, also some aspects that need to be viewed critically. For many people, virtual influencers are difficult to distinguish from real influencers. This poses significant risks, especially for young people. For young people, influencers are the epitome of seduction; they can inspire, but they can also cause anxiety and a loss of touch with reality. For influencer marketing, the potential for influence therefore entails a great responsibility. At the same time, virtual influencers can also be seen as a means of reaching the young target audience, as they are becoming increasingly difficult to reach via linear media. If a virtual influencer’s account is used sensibly – for educational purposes, for example – this could provide a whole new way of imparting knowledge. Of course, the value of the content conveyed stands or falls on the journalistic standards underpinning it. However, with proper reporting and research conducted to journalistic standards, significant added value could be achieved here.

References:

Preview image: https://influencity.com/blog/en/virtual-influencers-the-new-trend-in-social-networks/

Header image: https://www.creativereview.co.uk/virtual-influencers-lil-miquela-sylvia/


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