Smile or Not Smile: The Effect of Virtual Influencers' Emotional Expression on Brand Authenticity, Purchase Intention and Follow Intention

IF 4.4 3区 管理学 Q2 BUSINESS
Kan Jiang, Meilian Qin, Dejun Deng, Dailan Zhou
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Virtual influencer (VI) has become a new tool for brand promotion. The existing researches mainly focus on VI's external feature cues, such as identity, appearance, and sensory factors. In addition to carefully curated images, VI can also display emotions like a human influencer. Emotional expression as a non-verbal social cue, is a key factor influencing consumers. This research focuses on VI's emotional cues and their impact on consumers' behavioral intentions. Based on emotional contagion theory (ECT) and elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this paper discusses the emotional contagion effect of VI emotional display (smiling vs. non-smiling) and its matching effect with brand stereotypes. The results of three online experiments (N = 691) show that: firstly, VI's smiling emotion has a stronger primitive emotional contagion. Secondly, VI emotional expression has a positive impact on brand authenticity, purchase intention, and follow intention through affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Finally, this study found that VI's smile does not always produce a more positive effect than not smiling. In advertising situations that highlight brand competence, VI without a smile is more persuasive. Our results provide a new explanation mechanism for the influence of VI emotional expression on consumers' behavioral intention and provide a new perspective and advertising strategy for VI marketing practice.

微笑或不微笑:虚拟网红情绪表达对品牌真实性、购买意愿和追随意愿的影响
虚拟网红(VI)已成为品牌推广的新工具。现有的研究主要集中在VI的外部特征线索,如身份、外观和感官因素。除了精心策划的图像,VI还可以像人类影响者一样展示情感。情绪表达作为一种非语言的社会线索,是影响消费者的关键因素。本研究主要关注VI的情感暗示及其对消费者行为意向的影响。本文基于情绪传染理论(ECT)和阐述似然模型(ELM),探讨了VI情绪表现(微笑与不微笑)的情绪传染效应及其与品牌刻板印象的匹配效应。三个在线实验(N = 691)的结果表明:第一,VI的微笑情绪具有较强的原始情绪传染。其次,VI情感表达通过情感共情和认知共情对品牌真实性、购买意愿和跟随意愿产生正向影响。最后,这项研究发现,VI的微笑并不总是比不微笑产生更积极的影响。在强调品牌竞争力的广告场合,没有笑容的VI更有说服力。我们的研究结果为VI情感表达对消费者行为意愿的影响提供了新的解释机制,并为VI营销实践提供了新的视角和广告策略。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
7.30
自引率
11.60%
发文量
99
期刊介绍: The Journal of Consumer Behaviour aims to promote the understanding of consumer behaviour, consumer research and consumption through the publication of double-blind peer-reviewed, top quality theoretical and empirical research. An international academic journal with a foundation in the social sciences, the JCB has a diverse and multidisciplinary outlook which seeks to showcase innovative, alternative and contested representations of consumer behaviour alongside the latest developments in established traditions of consumer research.
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