Virtual or human, male or female? exploring the gender effect of virtual influencers on consumers’ purchase intentions for emerging brands

As artificial intelligence continues to develop rapidly, partnering with virtual influencers is becoming an important marketing strategy recognized and accepted by brands. Analogous to human influencers, whether virtual influencer gender triggers different marketing effectiveness for emerging brands attracts growing scholarly attention. Grounded in celebrity endorsement, parasocial interaction theory, and social role theory, this study conducted four scenario-based experiments (Study 1, N = 317; Study 2a, N = 285; Study 2b, N = 301; Study 3, N = 295) to examine how influencer type and gender affect consumers' purchase intentions across different product type contexts. Results reveal that, regardless of product types, female virtual influencers outperform male virtual influencers in boosting consumers' purchase intentions. In contrast, gender differences among human influencers show no significant differences in marketing outcomes. Further analysis shows that male human influencers generate stronger purchase intentions compared to male virtual influencers, while no such disparity exists between female human and virtual influencers. Additionally, for utilitarian goods, human influencers outperform virtual influencers in enhancing brand awareness and brand attitude, thereby boosting purchase intentions. For hedonic goods, although human influencers do not significantly improve brand awareness, they positively influence brand attitude, which also contributes to increased purchase intentions. Overall, female influencers consistently demonstrate stronger brand promotion effectiveness across different product contexts. Beyond this, influencer type moderates the indirect effects of influencer gender on consumers’ purchase intentions through brand awareness and brand attitude.