Virtual Influencers; how they changed the rules of the game!
If you told someone about Virtual Influencers coming to life some 10 years back, do you think they would believe you? Of course not! But here we are now, and so are the Virtual Influencers. And considering the times, they have one specific advantage over us: No Corona! Being a virtual influencer sure has its perks, doesn’t it! You get to roam around during a pandemic and not worry about the virus getting to you even when you’re not wearing a mask!
So how digital and social media marketing has become more challenging for brands? If we talk about the days before Virtual Influencers, Brands had to spend the highest money to get influencers for their brand promotions. They were Human Influencers, and most important that their personalities must influence the viewers’ minds. That was the typical approach awakening some creative marketers to generate some social avatars. So how they look like? Of course! They have a feature like Human faces.
How do they work?
In the real world! Fake Influencers are evolving at a rapid pace. You like their activities on social media and do chat with them. On social media, millions of followers do online interactions with them. In this way, they make real money for their creators and brands and get 3 times more engagement than human influencers.
Recently, there was a Human lockdown, and Humans had been stiff at home. At the same time, Virtual Influencers (VI) were still active in brand promotion and updated their Instagram stories like at Jim, restaurant, shopping, and doing other activities.
As stated at Business Insider Intelligence, brands have supposed to spend their money about $15 billion per year on influencer marketing in 2020, growing $8 billion from last year. At the same time, Virtual Influencers had appeared to be an easier way to work through and more effective than Human Influencers. As it confirmed, they would make more money and engagement than their Human competitors, the well-known brands including KFC, Blamain, Brazil’s Bed Bath & Beyond- equivalent Magazine Luiza, Louis Vuitton, and others are using these Virtual Influencers.
Imma, Japans’ first Virtual Model and a well-known Instagrammer with 3,31000 followers has promoted many brands such as Porsche and IKEA.
Shudu, the first Digital Supermodel in the world, has 210,000 followers on Instagram. She had an editorial published on the WWD website of the fashion industry.
Blawko, the inspirer in a pandemic, has 150,000 followers on Instagram. He covers his half face with a mask because of Covid-19. He often appears with Lil Miquela on social media posts.
Seraphine is a Digital Influencer and artist, has over 447,000 followers on Instagram. She is an animated character. She helps brands to get 10 times more engagement of customers than Human Influencers. Seraphine, her pink hair and cat-themed posts on Instagram, attract thousands of fans during her introduction into a Virtual World. She also appears as promoting her music in Shanghai, while Humans are staying at home.
Lil Miquela, the queen of Virtual Influencers (VR), the highest earner and singer from the united states, is popular with 2.9 million Instagram followers and 600,000 Spotify followers. The highest-earning Virtual Influencers suggested by OnBuy. Because she generates £6,550 per sponsored post. Every month, above 80000 people stream her songs on Spotify.
What the future holds?
Currently, Virtual Influencers seem to be doing very well due to the pandemic, but will that remain the same after the pandemic is over? No one can say for sure, but one thing is certain, these Virtual Influencers are not going away anytime soon as the public loves and mesmerize them, regardless of the pandemic.
Yet, one thing that is affecting the people more than before is the fact that these influencers may impress with their thought process and realistic looks, but they are far from real. Most people who follow influencers and bloggers know that, no matter how much better their life is or may seem, there is always a real factor. But now, for virtual influencers, there is no real factor. And this makes it seem like a hoax or a fraud. Where they could trust the opinion of an influencer and take it at face value, there is room for doubt when it comes to Virtual Influencers. This, in itself, can be a major disadvantage to the virtual influencers. Moreover, virtual influencers are like a reflection of what our society has come to. At some point, it is fascinating how far technology has come but at the same time, it is also showing us how much we humans, as social creatures, crave realness or reality and authenticity and how much we lack it. Before the rise of Virtual Influencers, technology always had away to keep us busy and as a result, we stopped paying attention. More than before, it was all about virtual game characters and following other’s lives than paying attention to ours.
Of course, some people don’t mind the appearance of these Virtual Influencers while some do. It may visible as a competition to some, as a game-changer to others, and as another form of entertainment and an engager of the audience to others. Whatever role it plays in anyone’s life, this technology is booming and the industry is benefiting from it during this lockdown period. All one can do now is to wait and see what other changes are coming and how other industries will use this technology and how far can technology go to be hyper-realistic. As it is, these virtual influencers are hyper-realistic with their artificial lives and the way they can relate and connect with people and fans. But, that leaves room for more thought about how they could be improve to the point, one wouldn’t even realize that they’re talking to a virtual being than a human.