Avatar-Based Influencer Marketing

Abstract

In the digital era, the presence of consumers on social media platforms is increasing at a higher pace than ever before. It pushes marketers to employ new ways to endorse their products on these social networking platforms. One such digital marketing trend is the use of avatar-based influencer marketing. Virtual influencers are computer-generated influencers who have a large social media following particularly on picture-based platforms such as Instagram. Avatar marketing has gained popularity as a brand endorsement strategy. Despite the increase in popularity, there are very few studies that study the effectiveness of avatar-based influencer marketing. This chapter aims at demystifying the benefits and risks of employing virtual influencers as a marketing gimmick. Data were collected from various secondary sources, such as journals, books, theses, reports and websites using different databases like Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar etc. Findings revealed that avatar marketing, if utilized strategically, has great potential to optimize digital marketing strategy.