Virtual Influencers Versus Real Connections: Exploring the Phenomenon of Virtual Influencers

While there is growing interest in the use of social media influencers in digital marketing campaigns, little is known about virtual influencers and their impact on consumers and brands. Virtual influencers are becoming efficient advertising tools. However, instead of being simple promoters, customers develop complex relationships with them. This study seeks to uncover how social comparisons and parasocial relationships manifest within the virtual influencer phenomenon, through the lived experiences of their followers. The findings indicate that perceiving virtual influencers’ human-like traits induces some form of social comparison among followers that triggers several responses such as jealousy, scorn, motivation/determination, and gratitude. It also shows that anthropomorphism plays a crucial role in the development of strong relationships between virtual influencers and their followers. Followers experience a paradoxical multidirectionality of parasocial relationships, whereby a co-occurrence of actual multidimensionality (community-based interactions between followers) and a strengthened perceived, but not actual, multidimensional interaction with virtual influencers has been observed. Drawing on followers’ experiences, this study extends Husserl’s life-world concept to digital life-worlds, in which virtual influencers are embedded. This study contributes to influencer marketing by conceptualizing comparisons between humans and virtual influencers, and how humans develop parasocial relationships with them.