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…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 72332006, 71925005