Making Sense? The Sensory-Specific Nature of Virtual Influencer Effectiveness

The current research examines consumers' responses to sensory endorsements from virtual influencers. The authors reveal that consumers perceive virtual and human influencers to have similar distal sensory (i.e., visual and auditory) capacities. Consumers, however, perceive virtual influencers as having lower proximal sensory (i.e., haptic, olfactory, and gustatory) capacities. Consequently, when endorsements focus on proximal sensory experiences, consumers have lower purchase intention toward products and services endorsed by a virtual (vs. human) influencer. The findings further reveal that imagery difficulty and perceived sensory capacity serially mediate this effect. Importantly, this effect is mitigated when endorsements focus on distal sensory experiences, when sensory information is not explicitly mentioned, and when consumers are informed of new technology that enables virtual influencers to have proximal sensory experiences. These findings offer actionable insights for marketers to effectively utilize virtual influencers in sensory-driven campaigns, providing practical strategies to improve consumer responses to sensory endorsements and enhance marketing effectiveness.

Automated summary

This study investigates consumers' responses to sensory endorsements from virtual influencers and finds that consumers perceive virtual and human influencers to have similar capacities in distal sensory experiences but lower capacities in proximal sensory experiences. As a result, consumers show lower purchase intention towards products and services endorsed by virtual influencers when the endorsements focus on proximal sensory experiences. The findings reveal that imagery difficulty and perceived sensory capacity mediate this effect. However, when endorsements focus on distal sensory experiences, sensory information is not explicitly mentioned, or consumers are informed of new technology enabling virtual influencers to have proximal sensory experiences, this effect is mitigated.