社交媒体上真人和虚拟影响者的脸部特征对消费者关注行为的影响

The Effect of Facial Features of Real and Virtual Influencers on Consumers'Following Behaviors on Social Media

随着社交媒体的发展和广泛应用,社交媒体影响者以及新生的虚拟影响者逐渐成为消费者获取品牌和产品信息的重要渠道,并对品牌形象、消费者的品牌态度、消费者的购买意愿等产生重要影响。如何打造有众多关注者的影响者,特别是如何选择或设计出有特定人脸形象的影响者,成为营销实践者的首要挑战。然而,营销领域关于影响者(特别是虚拟影响者)的人脸形象对消费者关注行为的作用的研究还比较有限,无法有效指导相关的营销实践。因此,本文从与影响者营销和虚拟影响者营销相关的研究和实践出发,量化研究了真人和虚拟影响者的客观脸部特征对消费者关注行为的影响,并比较了二者之间的差异。研究结果表明,第一,影响者和虚拟影响者的客观脸部特征能较为准确地解释和预测消费者的关注行为;第二,当虚拟影响者的人脸和真人的一样时,虚拟影响者的客观脸部特征对消费者关注行为的影响与真人的客观脸部特征对消费者关注行为的影响相比没有系统性差异。理论上,本文弥补了影响者营销领域里关于人脸特征和消费者关注行为之间的关系的研究空白,特别是虚拟影响者营销的相关研究空白;实践上,本文的研究可以指导营销实践者对真人和虚拟影响者进行有效的人脸形象管理。

With the development of social media,influencers and virtual influencers have become one of the most important channels for customers to learn about brands and products,and have a profound impact on consumers'brand attitudes,purchase intentions,etc.However,how to choose the right influencers,especially influencers with suitable facial features,has become the primary challenge for marketing practitioners.However,we have limited understanding of the impact of influencers"faces,especially virtual influencers'faces on customers'decisions to follow influencers.Therefore,we applied the hierarchical linear multinomial logit model to quantitatively analyze the relationship between influencers'facial features and customers'decisions to follow influencers,and study whether the effects of facial features of real and virtual influencers are different.The results show that:(1)models based on facial features can accurately explain and predict consumers'preferences for influencers'faces;(2)when faces of virtual influencers are indistinguishable from faces of real ones,there aren't any systematic differences between the effects of facial features on the consumers'preferences.Theoretically,the paper fills the research gap on the relationship between facial features and consumers following behaviors in influencer marketing,especially in virtual influencer marketing;practically,our findings can help guide influencer marketing practices,especially the selection and design of faces of influencers.