Impact of Virtual Idol Luo Tianyi's Endorsement on Brand Loyalty: Evidence from University Students in Guangzhou

With the advancement of digital marketing, an increasing number of enterprises are adopting virtual idols (e.g., “Luo Tianyi”) as brand ambassadors, making the mechanism by which virtual idol endorsements influence brand loyalty a focal point for scholarly research. This study, targeting university students in Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center, employs a mixed-method approach combining questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to investigate the mechanism and pathways through which Luo Tianyi’s endorsement affects brand loyalty. Utilizing quantitative methods such as reliability and validity tests, descriptive statistics, and multiple regression analysis, the findings reveal: (1) Virtual idol endorsements significantly enhance brand attitude through social influence and emotional connection, with peer influence and emotional identification being the key drivers. (2) A notable cognition-behavior gap exists, with only 51.5% of respondents making actual purchases, alongside weak emotional transfer effects (mean emotional identification score: 2.595/5). (3) Low brand awareness depth (mean: 2.655/5) and product-need misalignment (mean: 1.65/5) are critical constraints on loyalty enhancement. The study highlights the weak “image-brand” linkage in virtual idol endorsements and proposes improvement strategies, including strengthening image appeal, enhancing multidimensional cognition, fostering deep emotional bonds, establishing tiered loyalty cultivation, and im-proving product value. These insights contribute to the theoretical frame-work of virtual idol endorsements and offer practical guidance for enterprises, providing empirical evidence for the application of virtual ambassadors in the digital marketing era.