91看片

Dr. Karen Hopkins, visiting assistant professor of marketing at the 91看片, comments on the use of virtual influencers鈥攐r computer-generated personalities鈥攊n social media advertising.

How common are virtual influencers?

"We have this amazing technology that allows us to completely invent and imitate someone, or create this new creature, but the idea is not new. Betty Crocker was a composition who was drawn鈥攎akeup, expression, wardrobe鈥攖o appeal to the target audience to keep her up to date. They have manufactured many reiterations of her. The initial Betty Crocker character was created in 1921.

"We have been dealing with virtual assistance for years. Remember the Microsoft Office Paperclip guy? We now have Siri. If you call airlines, your bank, just about any service organization, you are already interacting with a virtual assistant. They鈥檙e getting better at solving our problems."

Are there any negative effects with customers?

"There will be a point with some products where a fake thing won鈥檛 cut it. Makeup is a form of trickery, so it鈥檚 okay because everybody knows it. We accept that. But for something like financial help or insurance, we need a little more evidence of someone鈥檚 expertise.

"For some product categories, they might not be as believable. You want to give your audience credit for being intelligent. The danger would be if you had an audience that felt cheated in some way, or felt deceived in some way when they found out it wasn鈥檛 real. If advertisers presented such a spokesperson as being a real person, and then the audience found out that鈥檚 not the case, that would ruin the credibility of the imitation person and the firm.

"A good marketing campaign will give its audience credit for being intelligent and not try to fool them. Marketers should give good information with a positive view of the product and brand in a way that is ethical and a way that is credible with respect to its audience.

"What is influential to you or to me is based on that influencer鈥檚 credibility, their relatability and how much we trust them. If I鈥檓 going to be influenced by somebody I have to trust them at some level."

What are the advantages of using computer-generated personalities?

"It can be big money-saver to create one because it is expensive to spend hours trying to figure out who the good existing social media influencers would be for their products鈥攊dentifying and recruiting them, and then they have to give them incentives. Companies might do that for themselves or they hire marketing firms to recruit real influencers for them. It鈥檚 an expensive and ongoing activity. Why not just create the ultimate influencer and be done with it?

"Virtual personalities don鈥檛 get old. They don鈥檛 have a bad hair day. They don鈥檛 go out and get drunk or say offensive things. They鈥檙e not going to get arrested. They鈥檙e not going to develop a bad reputation for things they say or do on social media or anywhere else. You鈥檙e not going to have their high school sweetheart come out and talk about something they did in their youth. There鈥檚 no risk. They have no history.

"It can also boil down to the type of product that you are talking about. For some things, how 鈥渞eal鈥� does a source have to be, as long as the consumer is getting what they need? When you create through artificial intelligence, you don鈥檛 have to worry if that human is fake. It鈥檚 really the opposite: Can you tell that the fake person is not human? It鈥檚 all about believability, credibility and human connection. If this artificial intelligence-created person is providing them with information that they need to know and can use 鈥� that creates trust and helps build the brand. And for a generation of digital natives, who have grown up with this kind of technology, it may be even less important whether someone is human or not.

"If you have a virtual person, you don鈥檛 have to pay them anything. They are not going to come back and renegotiate their contract with you. They are not going to mess up your reputation."

What do you expect will be the next trend in social media advertising?

"That鈥檚 the million dollar question. I do think artificial intelligence will continue to get better and it鈥檚 going to get more responsive. We have the incredible ability to process qualitative data on social media now鈥攖o identify trends. If someone is posting on social media certain keywords and phrases, we now have the analysis ability to identify trends in those. Through an algorithm, you can feed that user information that they might be interested in. You might already see it a little bit. If these influencers can be developed, we might even have our own personal influencer developed just for us鈥攍ike our buddy. It鈥檚 not Siri. Siri is for everybody. We might have customized, individualized artificially intelligent people to help us out in our daily everything. If the technology continues to multiply, it might not be too far out in the future."

Dr. Karen Hopkins, Assistant Visiting Professor in Marketing at the 91看片 College of Business, can be reached at khh0011@auburn.edu or (334) 844-2494.