IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v65y2022i6p777-788.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

False idols: Unpacking the opportunities and challenges of falsity in the context of virtual influencers

Author

Listed:
  • Sands, Sean
  • Ferraro, Carla
  • Demsar, Vlad
  • Chandler, Garreth

Abstract

Influencer marketing has become a dominant and targeted means for brands to connect with consumers, but it also brings risks associated with influencer transgression and reputation damage. In recent years, virtual influencers have gained popularity and given rise to falsity, or artificially created and manipulated influencers that are revolutionizing the field of influencer marketing. A virtual influencer is an entity—humanlike or not—that is autonomously controlled by artificial intelligence and visually presented as an interactive, real-time rendered being in a digital environment. As brands increasingly seek to engage virtual influencers to connect with and sell to audiences, we take a step back and discuss the opportunities and challenges they present for firms and managers. To help marketers understand this emerging field, we first document the rise of virtual influencers. Then, we discuss consumer reactions to virtual influencers before unpacking their associated opportunities and challenges for brands and marketers. Finally, we conclude with an overview of implications and future considerations.

Suggested Citation

  • Sands, Sean & Ferraro, Carla & Demsar, Vlad & Chandler, Garreth, 2022. "False idols: Unpacking the opportunities and challenges of falsity in the context of virtual influencers," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(6), pages 777-788.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:65:y:2022:i:6:p:777-788
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2022.08.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681322001008
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2022.08.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grewal, Dhruv & Roggeveen, Anne L. & Nordfält, Jens, 2017. "The Future of Retailing," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 1-6.
    2. Chung, Minjee & Ko, Eunju & Joung, Heerim & Kim, Sang Jin, 2020. "Chatbot e-service and customer satisfaction regarding luxury brands," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 587-595.
    3. Sands, Sean & Campbell, Colin & Ferraro, Carla & Mavrommatis, Alexis, 2020. "Seeing light in the dark: Investigating the dark side of social media and user response strategies," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 45-53.
    4. Campbell, Colin & Sands, Sean & Ferraro, Carla & Tsao, Hsiu-Yuan (Jody) & Mavrommatis, Alexis, 2020. "From data to action: How marketers can leverage AI," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 227-243.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiang, Kan & Zheng, Junyuan & Luo, Shaohua, 2024. "Green power of virtual influencer: The role of virtual influencer image, emotional appeal, and product involvement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Yan, Ji & Xia, Senmao & Jiang, Amanda & Lin, Zhibin, 2024. "The effect of different types of virtual influencers on consumers’ emotional attachment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    3. Ferraro, Carla & Hemsley, Alicia & Sands, Sean, 2023. "Embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI): Considerations and opportunities for brand managers," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 463-479.
    4. Alboqami, Hassan, 2023. "Trust me, I'm an influencer! - Causal recipes for customer trust in artificial intelligence influencers in the retail industry," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Zhou, Qi & Li, Bin & Li, Huajun & Lei, Yueqiu, 2024. "Mere copycat? The effects of human versus human-like virtual influencers on brand endorsement effectiveness: A moderated serial-mediation model," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Akhtar, Naeem & Hameed, Zahid & Islam, Tahir & Pant, Manoj Kumar & Sharma, Anshuman & Rather, Raouf Ahmad & Kuzior, Aleksandra, 2024. "Avatars of influence: Understanding how virtual influencers trigger consumer engagement on online booking platforms," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    7. Kim, Inhwa & Ki, Chung-Wha & Lee, Hyunhwan & Kim, Youn-Kyung, 2024. "Virtual influencer marketing: Evaluating the influence of virtual influencers’ form realism and behavioral realism on consumer ambivalence and marketing performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    8. Liyanaarachchi, Gajendra & Mifsud, Matthieu & Viglia, Giampaolo, 2024. "Virtual influencers and data privacy: Introducing the multi-privacy paradox," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    9. De Cicco, Roberta & Iacobucci, Serena & Cannito, Loreta & Onesti, Gianni & Ceccato, Irene & Palumbo, Riccardo, 2024. "Virtual vs. human influencer: Effects on users’ perceptions and brand outcomes," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    10. Yu, Joanne & Dickinger, Astrid & So, Kevin Kam Fung & Egger, Roman, 2024. "Artificial intelligence-generated virtual influencer: Examining the effects of emotional display on user engagement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    11. Zhao, Taiyang & Ran, Yaxuan & Wu, Banggang & Lynette Wang, Valerie & Zhou, Liying & Lu Wang, Cheng, 2024. "Virtual versus human: Unraveling consumer reactions to service failures through influencer types," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    12. Koles, Bernadett & Audrezet, Alice & Moulard, Julie Guidry & Ameen, Nisreen & McKenna, Brad, 2024. "The authentic virtual influencer: Authenticity manifestations in the metaverse," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    13. Allal-Chérif, Oihab & Puertas, Rosa & Carracedo, Patricia, 2024. "Intelligent influencer marketing: how AI-powered virtual influencers outperform human influencers," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Chia-Ying & Zhang, Jin-Ting, 2023. "Chatbots or me? Consumers’ switching between human agents and conversational agents," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Justina Sidlauskiene & Yannick Joye & Vilte Auruskeviciene, 2023. "AI-based chatbots in conversational commerce and their effects on product and price perceptions," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Pallant, Jason I. & Pallant, Jessica L. & Sands, Sean J. & Ferraro, Carla R. & Afifi, Eslam, 2022. "When and how consumers are willing to exchange data with retailers: An exploratory segmentation," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Rahman, Muhammad Sabbir & Bag, Surajit & Hossain, Md Afnan & Abdel Fattah, Fadi Abdel Muniem & Gani, Mohammad Osman & Rana, Nripendra P., 2023. "The new wave of AI-powered luxury brands online shopping experience: The role of digital multisensory cues and customers’ engagement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Ferraro, Carla & Demsar, Vlad & Sands, Sean & Restrepo, Mariluz & Campbell, Colin, 2024. "The paradoxes of generative AI-enabled customer service: A guide for managers," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 67(5), pages 549-559.
    6. Lena Bjørlo & Øystein Moen & Mark Pasquine, 2021. "The Role of Consumer Autonomy in Developing Sustainable AI: A Conceptual Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-18, February.
    7. Kull, Alexander J. & Romero, Marisabel & Monahan, Lisa, 2021. "How may I help you? Driving brand engagement through the warmth of an initial chatbot message," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 840-850.
    8. Tran, Anh D. & Pallant, Jason I. & Johnson, Lester W., 2021. "Exploring the impact of chatbots on consumer sentiment and expectations in retail," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Kautish, Pradeep & Purohit, Sonal & Filieri, Raffaele & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2023. "Examining the role of consumer motivations to use voice assistants for fashion shopping: The mediating role of awe experience and eWOM," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    10. Darima Fotheringham & Michael A. Wiles, 2023. "The effect of implementing chatbot customer service on stock returns: an event study analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 802-822, July.
    11. Robertson, Jeandri & Ferreira, Caitlin & Botha, Elsamari & Oosthuizen, Kim, 2024. "Game changers: A generative AI prompt protocol to enhance human-AI knowledge co-construction," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 67(5), pages 499-510.
    12. Ngui Min Fui Tom, 2020. "Crashed! Why Drone Delivery Is Another Tech Idea not Ready to Take Off," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(7), pages 251-251, July.
    13. Jingjing Wu & Yiwei Chen & Lin Hu & Anxin Xu, 2022. "Influence Factors on Consumers’ Instant Cross-buying under Supermarkets’ Cross-border Integration: From the Perspective of the Elaboration Likelihood Model," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    14. Pozharliev, Rumen & De Angelis, Matteo & Rossi, Dario & Bagozzi, Richard & Amatulli, Cesare, 2023. "I might try it: Marketing actions to reduce consumer disgust toward insect-based food," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 149-167.
    15. repec:zna:indecs:v:19:y:2021:i:4:p:420-436 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Gilboa, Shaked & Mitchell, Vince, 2020. "The role of culture and purchasing power parity in shaping mall-shoppers’ profiles," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    17. Agnès Helme-Guizon & Jade Broyer & Soffien Bataoui & Mohamed Hakimi, 2024. "He Or She? Impact Of Gender'S Well-Being Chatbots On User Perceptions And Intentions: A Study Of Agency, Communality And Trust [Lui Ou Elle ? Impact Du Genre Des Chatbots De Bien-Etre Sur Les Perce," Post-Print hal-04683739, HAL.
    18. H. R., Ganesha & Aithal, Sreeramana & P., Kirubadevi, 2020. "Changes in Consumer Perspective towards Discount at Brick-and-Mortar Stores owing to Emergence of Online Store Format in India," MPRA Paper 104023, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Joerß, Tom & Hoffmann, Stefan & Mai, Robert & Akbar, Payam, 2021. "Digitalization as solution to environmental problems? When users rely on augmented reality-recommendation agents," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 510-523.
    20. Qayyum, Abdul & Jamil, Raja Ahmed & Shah, Adnan Muhammad & Lee, KangYoon, 2023. "Inclusive advertising featuring disability on instagram: Effect on consumer well-being, brand engagement, and purchase intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    21. Baabdullah, Abdullah M. & Alalwan, Ali Abdallah & Algharabat, Raed S. & Metri, Bhimaraya & Rana, Nripendra P., 2022. "Virtual agents and flow experience: An empirical examination of AI-powered chatbots," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:65:y:2022:i:6:p:777-788. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.