Can Virtual Idols’ Endorsement Enhance Advertising Persuasion?The Moderating Effect Of Advertising Appeals

With the rapid development of science and technology,virtual idols’ endorsement has become an important trend of advertising.The high attention of the virtual idol has attracted many well-known brands,such as Italian fashion luxury brand Prada,South Korean famous enterprise Samsung,Japanese skin care brand SK-II and others,which invite virtual idols in related professional fields to be their endorsers.For the advertisements endorsed by virtual idols,only by adopting the correct strategy can we effectively convey the product value and achieve the expected advertising persuasion.However,at present,there is still a lack of in-depth discussion on what kind of advertising appeal should be adopted for the advertisements endorsed by virtual idols to enhance the advertising persuasion.Thus,by using the theoretical framework of heuristic-systematic model,this paper explores the moderating role of advertising appeals in the influence of spokesperson types on consumers’ advertising attitude and the potential mechanism,which provides new insights for advertising practice of virtual endorsers.This paper proves the moderating role and mechanism of advertising appeals in the influence of spokesperson type on consumer advertising attitude through four studies.In a test of hypothesis 1 and2,Study 1 examines the moderating role of advertising appeal in the influence of spokesperson type on consumer advertising attitude by manipulating spokesperson type and advertising appeals.It finds that under the condition of rational appeal,consumers show higher advertising attitude towards the advertisements endorsed by virtual idols than those endorsed by real celebrities.Whereas,under the condition of emotional appeal,consumers show higher advertising attitude towards the advertisements endorsed by real celebrities than those endorsed by virtual idols.In order to improve the robustness of the results,Study 2 not only repeats the results of Study 1 by using another product,but also reveals two discrete processes(content credibility and source credibility)underlying this interaction.Specifically,content credibility mediates the relationships between virtual idols and consumers’ advertising attitude,and source credibility mediates the relationships between real celebrities and consumers’ advertising attitude.To provide stronger evidences for mediating effects,Study 3A affirms the mediating effect of content credibility again by manipulating cognitive load under the condition of rational appeal.That is to say,the positive effect of virtual idols’ endorsement disappears under the condition of high cognitive load,while the positive effect of virtual idols’ endorsement still exists under the condition of low cognitive load.Similarly,Study 3B proves the mediating effect of source credibility again by manipulating the tie strength between consumers and endorsers under the condition of emotional appeal.Specifically,there is no significant difference between the positive effects of real celebrities and virtual idols’ endorsement under the condition of strong tie strength,while the positive effect of real celebrities’ endorsement still exists under the condition of weak tie strength.In general,this paper makes the following theoretical contributions: 1)to apply heuristicsystematic model to simultaneously explain the effect of anthropomorphism and source with consistent logic;2)to reveal the moderating role of advertising appeal in the influence of spokesperson type on advertising persuasion,enriching advertising-related moderating factors of virtual idols’ persuasion;3)to expand the research on the relationship between artificial intelligence and human beings in the context of advertising endorsements.This paper also provides Marketing Implications on how to improve the advertising persuasion of virtual endorsers.