目前，虛擬網紅或由電腦合成的虛構社群媒角色已被廣泛採用，並在數位行銷領域中日益受到歡迎。然而，現有文獻尚未深入探討虛擬網紅相較真人網紅，在影響消費者態度與購買決策上的效果差異。應用「來源可信度理論」與「適配假說」，進行了一項 2×2 受試者間實驗設計，透過 Prolific（一個以提供多樣化和高品質數據而聞名的群眾外包平台）招募了 508 名美國參與者。
研究結果顯示了一種微妙的互動關係：當真人網紅代言體驗型產品時，人們會認為其可信度更高；而當虛擬網紅推廣實體商品時，人們會認為其可信度更高。此外，更高的可信度會顯著提升購買意願。這些發現強調網紅與產品一致性的重要性，並強化可信度作為數位說服中關鍵心理機制的地位。這項研究為日益增長的網紅行銷文獻做出了貢獻，並為尋求將網紅行銷策略與產品定位相結合以優化消費者參與度和決策的行銷人員提供了實用的見解。

At present, there is a widespread adoption of virtual influencers or fictional CGI-generated social media personas, which are gaining popularity in the digital marketing landscape. However, existing literature does not thoroughly explore their effectiveness compared to human influencers in shaping consumer attitudes and purchase decisions. Drawing on source credibility theory and the match-up hypothesis theory, a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design was conducted with 508 U.S.-based participants recruited via Prolific, a crowdsourcing platform recognized for providing diverse and high-quality data.
The results reveal a nuanced interaction: human influencers are perceived as more credible when endorsing experiential products, whereas virtual influencers are regarded as more credible when promoting material products. Furthermore, higher perceived credibility significantly increases purchase intention. These findings underscore the importance of influencer-product congruence and reinforce credibility as a critical psychological mechanism in digital persuasion. This study contributes to the growing literature on influencer marketing and offers practical insights for marketers seeking to align influencer strategies with product positioning to optimize consumer engagement and decision-making.

Allal-Chérif, O., Puertas, R., & Carracedo, P. (2024). Intelligent influencer marketing: how AI-powered virtual influencers outperform human influencers. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 200 (2023).
Ameen, N., Tarhini, A., Reppel, A., & Anand, A. (2021). Customer experiences in the age of artificial intelligence. Computers in Human Behavior, 114 (2020).
Apperly, I., Fiske, S., Gilbert, D., Malle, B., Mitchell, J., Norenzayan, A., Pronin, E., & Vorauer, J. (2002). Mind Perception. 498–541.
Arsenyan, J., & Mirowska, A. (2021). Almost human? A comparative case study on the social media presence of virtual influencers. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 155 (2020).
Audrezet, A., de Kerviler, G., & Guidry Moulard, J. (2020). Authenticity under threat: When social media influencers need to go beyond self-presentation. Journal of Business Research, 117 (2017), 557–569.
Bastos, W. (2020). “Speaking of Purchases”: How Conversational Potential Determines Consumers’ Willingness to Exert Effort for Experiential Versus Material Purchases. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 50 (0), 1–16.
Bowers, J. W., & Phillips, W. A. (1967). A note on the generality of source‐credibility scales.
Casado-Aranda, L. A., Sánchez-Fernández, J., & Ibáñez-Zapata, J. Á. (2022). It is all about our impulsiveness – How consumer impulsiveness modulates neural evaluation of hedonic and utilitarian banners. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 67 (March).
Casaló, L. V., Flavián, C., & Guinalíu, M. (2011). Understanding the intention to follow the advice obtained in an online travel community. Computers in Human Behavior, 27 (2), 622–633.
Chetioui, Y., Benlafqih, H., & Lebdaoui, H. (2020). How fashion influencers contribute to consumers’ purchase intention. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 24 (3), 361–380.
Chiu, C. L., & Ho, H. C. (2023). Impact of Celebrity, Micro-Celebrity, and Virtual Influencers on Chinese Gen Z’s Purchase Intention Through Social Media. SAGE Open, 13 (1), 1–18.
Choudhry, A., Han, J., Xu, X., & Huang, Y. (2022). “I Felt a Little Crazy Following a ‘Doll.’” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6 (0), 1–28.
De Cicco, R., Iacobucci, S., Cannito, L., Onesti, G., Ceccato, I., & Palumbo, R. (2024). Virtual vs. human influencer: Effects on users’ perceptions and brand outcomes. Technology in Society, 77(February).
De Veirman, M., Cauberghe, V., & Hudders, L. (2017). Marketing through instagram influencers: The impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude. International Journal of Advertising, 36 (5), 798–828.
Dietvorst, B. J., & Bharti, S. (2020). People Reject Algorithms in Uncertain Decision Domains Because They Have Diminishing Sensitivity to Forecasting Error. Psychological Science, 31(10), 1302–1314.
Dinh, T. C. T., & Lee, Y. (2022). “I want to be as trendy as influencers” – how “fear of missing out” leads to buying intention for products endorsed by social media influencers. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 16 (3), 346–364.
Dondapati, A., & Dehury, R. K. (2024). Virtual vs. Human influencers: The battle for consumer hearts and minds. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 2(1), 100059.
El Hedhli, K., Zourrig, H., & Becheur, I. (2021). Celebrity endorsements: Investigating the interactive effects of internalization, identification and product type on consumers’ attitudes and intentions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 58 (2020).
Giaccardi, E., & Karana, E. (2015). Foundations of materials experience: An approach for HCI. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, 2015-April, 2447–2456.
Gilovich, T., & Gallo, I. (2020). Consumers’ pursuit of material and experiential purchases: A review. Consumer Psychology Review, 3 (1), 20–33.
Gilovich, T., & Kumar, A. (2015). We’ll Always Have Paris: The Hedonic Payoff from Experiential and Material Investments. In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (1st ed., Vol. 51, Issue 1). Elsevier Inc.
Go, E., & Sundar, S. S. (2019). Humanizing chatbots: The effects of visual, identity and conversational cues on humanness perceptions. Computers in Human Behavior, 97 ( 2018), 304–316.
Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M. (2012). Feeling robots and human zombies: Mind perception and the uncanny valley. Cognition, 125 (1), 125–130.
Hanus, M. D., & Fox, J. (2015). Persuasive avatars: The effects of customizing a virtual salespersons appearance on brand liking and purchase intentions. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 84 (0), 33–40.
Hayes. (2013). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-Based Approach.
Hovland, C. I., & Weiss, W. (1951). The influence of source credibility on communication effectiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15(4), 635–650.
Hwang, K., & Zhang, Q. (2018). Influence of parasocial relationship between digital celebrities and their followers on followers’ purchase and electronic word-of-mouth intentions, and persuasion knowledge. Computers in Human Behavior, 87(January), 155–173.
Inman, J. J., Winer, R. S., & Ferraro, R. (2009). The interplay among category characteristics, customer characteristics, and customer activities on in-store decision making. Journal of Marketing, 73 (5), 19–29.
Jhawar, A., Kumar, P., & Varshney, S. (2023). The emergence of virtual influencers: a shift in the influencer marketing paradigm. Young Consumers, 24 (4), 468–484.
Joško Brakus, J., Schmitt, B. H., & Zhang, S. (2014). Experiential product attributes and preferences for new products: The role of processing fluency. Journal of Business Research, 67 (11), 2291–2298.
Kamins, M. A. (1990). An investigation into the “match-up” hypothesis in celebrity advertising: When beauty may be only skin deep. Journal of Advertising, 19 (1), 4–13.
Kamins, M. A., & Gupta, K. (1994). Congruence between spokesperson and product type: A matchup hypothesis perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 11 (6), 569–586.
Kapitan, S., & Silvera, D. H. (2016). From digital media influencers to celebrity endorsers: attributions drive endorser effectiveness. Marketing Letters, 27 (3), 553–567.
Kapoor, P. S., Balaji, M. S., Jiang, Y., & Jebarajakirthy, C. (2022). Effectiveness of Travel Social Media Influencers: A Case of Eco-Friendly Hotels. Journal of Travel Research, 61 (5), 1138–1155.
Kiatkawsin, K., & Lee, S. K. (2022). Social Media Influencers. Encyclopedia of Tourism Management and Marketing, 156–159.
Kim, H., & Park, M. (2023). Computers in Human Behavior Virtual influencers ’ attractiveness effect on purchase intention : A moderated mediation model of the Product – Endorser fit with the brand. Computers in Human Behavior, 143 (2022).
Komiak, S. Y. X., & Benbasat, I. (2006). Research Article The Effects of Personalization and Familiarity on Trust and Adoption of Recommendation Agents1. 30 (4), 941–960.
Kumar, A., & Gilovich, T. (2015). Some “Thing” to Talk About? Differential Story Utility From Experiential and Material Purchases. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41 (10), 1320–1331.
Kumar, A., & Gilovich, T. (2016). To do or to have, now or later? The preferred consumption profiles of material and experiential purchases. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26 (2), 169–178.
Lee, A. Y., & Labroo, A. A. (2004). The effect of conceptual and perceptual fluency on brand evaluation. Journal of Marketing Research, 41 (2), 151–165.
Lee, S. A., & Oh, H. (2017). Sharing travel stories and behavioral outcomes: A case of travel. Tourism Management, 62, 147–158.
Levontin, L., Ein-Gar, D., & Lee, A. Y. (2013). Acts of emptying promote self-focus: A perceived resource deficiency perspective. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25 (2), 257–267.
Li, H., Lei, Y., Zhou, Q., & Yuan, H. (2023). Can you sense without being human? Comparing virtual and human influencers endorsement effectiveness. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 75(May).
Liu, F., & Lee, Y. H. (2024a). Virtually authentic: examining the match-up hypothesis between human vs virtual influencers and product types. Journal of Product and Brand Management, 33(2), 287–299.
Liu, F., & Lee, Y. H. (2024b). Virtually responsible? Attribution of responsibility toward human vs. virtual influencers and the mediating role of mind perception. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 77 (2023).
Liu, Y., & Fu, Z. (2024). Hybrid Intelligence: Design for Sustainable Multiverse via Integrative Cognitive Creation Model through Human–Computer Collaboration. Applied Sciences (Switzerland), 14(11).
Longoni, C., & Cian, L. (2022). Artificial Intelligence in Utilitarian vs. Hedonic Contexts: The “Word-of-Machine” Effect. Journal of Marketing, 86 (1), 91–108.
Lou, C., Kiew, S. T. J., Chen, T., Lee, T. Y. M., Ong, J. E. C., & Phua, Z. X. (2023). Authentically Fake? How Consumers Respond to the Influence of Virtual Influencers. Journal of Advertising, 52 (4), 540–557.
Lou, C., & Yuan, S. (2019). Influencer Marketing: How Message Value and Credibility Affect Consumer Trust of Branded Content on Social Media. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 19 (1), 58–73.
Ma, Y., & Li, J. (2024). How humanlike is enough?: Uncover the underlying mechanism of virtual influencer endorsement. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 2 (1).
Market Research Future. (2023). Virtual Influencers Market Research Report.
Marketing MediaKix. (2024). Social Media Influencers Highest paid celebrity.
Martín-Consuegra, D., Faraoni, M., Díaz, E., & Ranfagni, S. (2018). Exploring relationships among brand credibility, purchase intention and social media for fashion brands: A conditional mediation model. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, 9 (3), 237–251.
Martínez-Navarro, J., Bigné, E., Guixeres, J., Alcañiz, M., & Torrecilla, C. (2019). The influence of virtual reality in e-commerce. Journal of Business Research, 100 (2018), 475–482.
McCroskey, J. C. (1966). Scales for the measurement of ethos. Speech Monographs, 33(1), 65–72.
Miao, F., Kozlenkova, I. V., Wang, H., Xie, T., & Palmatier, R. W. (2022). An Emerging Theory of Avatar Marketing. Journal of Marketing, 86 (1), 67–90.
Mogilner, C. (2016). Time, money, and happiness. Current Opinion in Psychology, 10, 12–16.
Mrad, M., Ramadan, Z., & Nasr, L. I. (2022). Computer-generated influencers: the rise of digital personalities. Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 40 (5), 589–603.
Nelson, P. (1970). Information and Consumer Behavior. Journal of Political Economy, 78 (2), 311–329.
Ohanian, R. (1990). Construction and validation of a scale to measure celebrity endorsers’ perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Journal of Advertising, 19 (3), 39–52.
Oritsegbemi, O. (2023). Human Intelligence versus AI: Implications for Emotional Aspects of Human Communication. Journal of Advanced Research in Social Sciences, 6 (2), 76–85.
Ozdemir, O., Kolfal, B., Messinger, P. R., & Rizvi, S. (2023). Human or virtual: How influencer type shapes brand attitudes. Computers in Human Behavior, 145 (2022).
Packard, G., & Wooten, D. B. (2013). ScienceDirect Compensatory knowledge signaling in consumer word-of-mouth ☆. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23 (4), 434–450.
Peng, L., Cui, G., Chung, Y., & Zheng, W. (2020). The Faces of Success: Beauty and Ugliness Premiums in e-Commerce Platforms. Journal of Marketing, 84 (4), 67–85.
Saima, & Khan, M. A. (2020). Effect of Social Media Influencer Marketing on Consumers’ Purchase Intention and the Mediating Role of Credibility. Journal of Promotion Management, 27 (4), 503–523.
Sands, S., Ferraro, C., Demsar, V., & Chandler, G. (2022). False idols: Unpacking the opportunities and challenges of falsity in the context of virtual influencers. Business Horizons, 65 (6), 777–788.
Schmitt, B., Joško Brakus, J., & Zarantonello, L. (2015). From experiential psychology to consumer experience. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25 (1), 166–171.
Schouten, A. P., Janssen, L., & Verspaget, M. (2020). Celebrity vs. Influencer endorsements in advertising: the role of identification, credibility, and Product-Endorser fit. International Journal of Advertising, 39 (2), 258–281.
Shamim, K., & Islam, T. (2022). Digital influencer marketing: How message credibility and media credibility affect trust and impulsive buying. Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science: Bridging Asia and the World, 32 (4), 601–626.
Sookkaew, J., & Saephoo, P. (2021). “Digital Influencer”: Development and Coexistence with Digital Social Groups. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 12 (12), 326–332.
Statista. (2025). Influencer Marketing Market Size.
Thomas, V. L., & Fowler, K. (2021). Close Encounters of the AI Kind: Use of AI Influencers As Brand Endorsers. Journal of Advertising, 50 (1), 11–25.
Tripp, C., Jensen, T. D., Carlson, L., Jensen, T. D., & Carlson, L. E. S. (1994). and Intentions The Effects of Multiple Product Endorsements by Celebrities on Consumers ’ Attitudes and Intentions. 20 (4), 535–547.
Van Boven, L. (2005). Experientialism, materialism, and the pursuit of happiness. Review of General Psychology, 9 (2), 132–142.
Voorveld, H. A. M. (2019). Brand Communication in Social Media: A Research Agenda. Journal of Advertising, 48 (1), 14–26.
Wang, Y., Liu, S., Kong, S., & Liu, L. (2025). How financial constraints influence the preference for material versus experiential purchases: A compensatory control mechanism. Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 19.
Weisman, K., Dweck, C. S., & Markman, E. M. (2017). Rethinking people ’ s conceptions of mental life. 2017.
Wien, A. H., & Peluso, A. M. (2021). Influence of human versus AI recommenders: The roles of product type and cognitive processes. Journal of Business Research, 137 (2020), 13–27.
Yoo, J. W., Park, J., & Park, H. (2024). How can I trust you if you ’ re fake ? Understanding human-like virtual influencer credibility and the role of textual social cues.