Endorsement effectiveness of celebrities’ avatars: Evidence from multiple experiments

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have permeated the adoption of avatars in marketing, prompting human celebrities to create virtual representations of themselves in the cyber environment or the Metaverse as an advertising strategy. Nevertheless, there is limited evidence that explicitly substantiates the efficacy of celebrities’ avatars in comparison to human beings and other virtual celebrities. Through five studies (comprising one eye-tracking analysis and four online experiments), we find that human celebrities and their avatars can be equally persuasive. Notably, the indirect effect between the endorser type and consumer attitude via perceived novelty is more pronounced when the psychological distance between the consumer and the human celebrity is distal, resulting in greater enjoyment of the advertisements. This research improves the understanding of avatar endorsement and underscores the competitive nature of avatars, which maintain marketing efficacy comparable to that of human celebrities while appealing to consumers through novelty attributes.