“You are a virtual influencer!”: Understanding the impact of origin disclosure and emotional narratives on parasocial relationships and virtual influencer credibility

Virtual influencers have become increasingly prevalent because of technological advancements and the fact that they offer benefits similar to human influencers. Studies have found that virtual influencers engage consumers just as effectively as humans, but their artificial identity poses credibility concerns that can hinder the effectiveness of influencer marketing. Given this, two experiments were conducted to explore key marketing and communication factors (i.e., the disclosure of the virtual influencer's origin and the use of positive vs. negative emotional narratives) that influence virtual influencers' credibility. A pre-study investigated the effect of disclosing a virtual influencer's origin on perceived humanness. Additionally, the main study examined whether the virtual influencer's origin disclosure and emotional narratives jointly influenced the virtual influencer's credibility through changes of perceived parasocial interaction. The results are further presented in detail, offering both theoretical and practical implications. •Disclosure of the virtual influencer's origin decreased the perceived humanness.•A positive emotional post increased PSI with a virtual influencer when its origin was disclosed.•A negative emotional post increased PSI with a virtual influencer when its origin was not disclosed.•PSI mediated the impact of origin disclosure and emotional contents on virtual influencer credibility.