The Impact of Virtual Influencers’ Anthropomorphism on Consumers’ Willingness to Buy

Abstract: Virtual influencers are increasingly used by many companies as they have lots of advantages. While scholars have studied the effectiveness of influencer type, relatively limited research has explored the effect of virtual influencers’ anthropomorphism on consumers’ willingness to buy. By employing the event-related potentials (ERP) method, we examined the psychological mechanism of virtual influencers’ anthropomorphism on consumers’ willingness to buy. The results showed that the high-anthropomorphism condition elicited an attenuated N400 and an enlarged late positive potential (LPP) compared to the low-anthropomorphism condition, indicating that the high-anthropomorphism condition was more in line with consumers’ categorization evaluation. The results of our findings provide important theoretical and practical significance for the deeper understanding of consumers’ psychological mechanisms in virtual influencers.