Watching it motivates me to become stronger: Virtual influencers' impact on consumer self-improvement product preferences

We explore the effectiveness of virtual influencers in promoting self-improvement products. Four studies demonstrate that compared with human influencers, virtual influencers can increase consumers’ self-improvement product preferences because of the realistic threats depicted by virtual influences. Moreover, this effect weakens or disappears when consumers and influencers are in a cooperative relationship, or when consumers are self-affirmed. By innovatively exploring virtual influencers’ impact on consumers’ perceptions of realistic threats, we enrich the antecedents of self-improvement product preferences, and provide implications for research and marketing practices.