Standing out or fitting in? How perceived autonomy affects virtual influencer marketing outcomes

Virtual influencers have exerted a profound influence on future marketing strategies. However, a comprehensive understanding of how and why virtual influencers, with varying characteristics, affect the effectiveness of their brand endorsements remains elusive. This research explores the relationships between consumers’ perceived autonomy of virtual influencers, their purchase intentions, and brand attitudes. Through one pretest and five studies, we reveal that virtual influencers characterized by low autonomy, in contrast to their highly autonomous counterparts, tend to elicit more favorable consumer responses. This effect is driven by the identity threat from autonomous VI and does not apply to human influencers. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this effect is particularly pronounced when virtual influencers endorse experience products as opposed to search products. Moreover, within the category of lowly autonomous influencers, consumers exhibit a preference for search products when endorsed by virtual influencers than human influencers.