Beyond Visual Realism -Understanding the Role of Verbal Cues in Generating Consumer Affinity vs. Fear toward Virtual Influencers in Social Network Advertising-

Verbal cues of virtual influencers (VIs) can enhance VI anthropomorphism and persuasion effectiveness, which can increase user interactions via positive emotional arousal. This study explored the effects of verbal cues in VI social network advertising (SNA) on consumer emotions and engagement. This study employed a mixed-method approach, utilizing text mining (word frequency analysis and latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling) and quantitative regression analysis, to analyze user comments from YouTube videos featuring the VI, Lil Miquela. The findings revealed that consumers exhibit various emotions toward VIs, with fear being the most prominent, followed by amazement and affinity. Regression analyses further indicated the role of VI's verbal cues (e.g., voiceover) in enhancing consumers' emotional engagement with the VI, thereby improving VI SNA performance (e.g., view counts). When VIs use voiceover, positive emotions, including amazement and affinity, increase, leading to higher view counts. Conversely, the absence of verbal cues amplifies negative emotions such as fear, reducing view counts and the overall SNA effectiveness. This study underscores the importance of incorporating human-like verbal cues in VIs to foster consumer affinity and mitigate fear about the VIs. Additionally, practical implications for marketers include the strategies to leverage verbal elements to design more relatable and engaging VI SNA content.