Virtual Influencers – the better advertisers?
The potential of influencer marketing is huge. Now, Virtual Influencers are entering the market. But are they better advertisers than real influencers?
An entry by An entry by Maike Bongartz, Lisa Merz and Nele Hardt
Thursday, February 03, 2022
Media, Technology and Society
Scrolling through your Instagram feed, you are bound to see them sooner or later: influencers. Posing with the new collection of a designer brand or showing off their glamorous lifestyle in front of their endless amount of followers. 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 grow to be worth 13.8 billion US dollars in 2021. In the survey conducted for the report, 90% of the participants said that they believe that 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 numbers underline how much the market has been growing. In the last 5 years alone, 1360 Influencer marketing focused platforms and agencies entered the market. Lastly, there has been a 465% increase in searches for the phrase “influencer marketing” on Google since 2016. So more and more people are paying attention to it and want to learn more about it.
Background: Influencer Marketing
So what exactly is Influencer Marketing? The main goal for brands in influencer marketing is to increase the value and the credibility of their brand message. In order to achieve this, brands can use the trust of the influencer’s audience to convince them of the brand and their product. Usually brands pay influencers to promote their product, but the best way to advertise a product with an influencer is of course to have the influencer do it freely without any financial compensation. For this, brands need to establish a personal relationship with influencers and make them curious about the products that are being advertised. In an ideal case, influencers talk about the product because they want to, because they like the brand and find the products interesting or useful to their followers. This way, it can be an honest and authentic review of a product. But it is not as easy as it may sound to influence others. A good influencer should have a combination of three key factors: reach, contextual credibility and salesmanship. The higher these three factors are, the higher is the potential to influence an individual.
With all these factors in play, influencers have the ability or power to influence the perception of others or get them to act, like buying a certain product. Which means that the act of influencing requires a specific result, namely a change in thinking or behavior.
From CGI characters to Virtual Influencers
So how do Virtual Influencers fit into all of this? Virtual Influencers emerged from animated characters that have been used for many years now. They fulfil different purposes, like serving as a substitute for real people. You might remember characters from the early 2000s like the Crazy Frog or the Band Gorillaz – both created music and were and still are hugely successful. These CGI characters are able to attract large audiences or even have their own fan base. They can have many different forms and animation styles, but over time, more and more of these characters were designed to look like humans. And in 2016, the first virtual influencer called Miquela Sousa was created, which started a wave of human-looking CGI characters.
What are Virtual Influencers?
Virtual Influencers are digital characters that mostly assimilate people. Just like real influencers, they interact on social media, have their own opinion, give likes or dislikes and show emotions. Especially on Instagram, they have many followers and their follower numbers are as high as the accounts of real stars and influencers.
Virtual Influencers can be sorted into four different categories. The first one is the category of Virtual Models. One of the most successful models is Shudu Gram, she has even been in editions of the fashion magazine Vogue. The second category are Virtual Brand ambassadors. Hence, they belong to a company and reflect their values. One example is the digital Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC. The third category are Corporate Influencers like Kenna, an avatar who “works” for companies and shows some insights into the company. The last category includes Brand-independent Virtual Influencers. They collaborate with companies and show their life on social media – just like their real counterparts. Lil Miquela is the most famous example for this.
About Lil Miquela
Lil Miquela (Miquela Sousa) is the first computer generated social media influencer. She is presented as a 19-year-old Latin-American musician and arts student who also supports Black Lives Matter or transgender rights. Lil Miquela debuted on Instagram in 2016, but her account started to raise awareness around 2018, when Miquela posted about her origin. Until then, many of her fans assumed she was a real 19-year-old. Since Miquela’s conception, she has gained over 3 million Instagram followers. On Instagram, she shows photos and stories about her life and comments on real social issues (e.g., Black Lives Matter) and poses with real people to gain the effect of a real person. She has also been in brand deals and video ads for companies such as Calvin Klein, Prada, Diesel, Samsung and she was even in the top 25 most influential list by Times in 2018.
In this context, there are several important issues that need to be addressed when considering Virtual Influencers. One is the factor of responsibility and transparency, since it is not quite clear how they are responsible for their content (in contrast to 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 factor of identity, because from a physical point of view it is clear that they do not exist, but at the same time they have an entire online identity and influence people.
Why does the Virtual Influencer trend have such great potential?
The reason is probably due to the fact 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 reflects the brand’s ideals completely. Virtual Influencers, on the other hand, can be aligned with the brand with their entire appearance on social media. A significant factor why many companies fear working with Influencers is that they could be involved in scandals, which would then also damage the brand of the cooperating company. With Virtual Influencers, the risk of a scandal cannot be completely eliminated, but it can be reduced by a lot, since you have a higher degree of planning security 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 rage and even if the reactions of the community cannot always be estimated, the effects can be more easily assessed by media experts.
The advantages of working with a Virtual Influencer go far beyond these obvious ones, because a Virtual Influencer can also save a lot of money in campaign planning. For a commercial shoot with a Virtual Influencer, there is no need to produce expensive samples, which is always the case in cooperation with a model or an influencer when 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 see a future in which every company has its own Virtual Influencer. Right now, top brands are winning the race for social media engagement by teaming up with extremely popular Virtual Influencers. But in his view, that does not mean human Influencers have lost their power. They still have their own advantages, and a comprehensive influencer marketing strategy, in his view, should include both real influencers and Virtual Influencers.
Downsides of Virtual Influencers
Despite all the euphoria and the positive effects that Virtual Influencers bring to companies when they cooperate with them, there are, as with any new technology, also some effects that need to be viewed critically. For many people, Virtual Influencers are difficult to distinguish from real Influencers. This poses great dangers, 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 reality. For influencer marketing, the potential for influence therefore means a great responsibility. At the same time, Virtual Influencers can also be seen as a potential to reach the young target group, as they can be reached less and less on linear media. If the account of a Virtual Influencer is used sensibly, for example for educational purposes, this could provide a whole new way of imparting knowledge. Of course, the value of what is conveyed stands and falls with the journalistic standards behind it. But with proper reporting and research with journalistic standards, great added value could be gained here.
Literature:
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Preview picture: https://influencity.com/blog/en/virtual-influencers-the-new-trend-in-social-networks/
Header picture: https://www.creativereview.co.uk/virtual-influencers-lil-miquela-sylvia/