THE PHENOMENON OF VIRTUAL INFLUENCERS’ PARASOCIAL INTERACTION ON INSTAGRAM

• Main Author: Nur, Millenia
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/64498
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

As time goes on, there is a new phenomenon on digital marketing called Virtual Influencer, a non-human made by Computer Generated Image (CGI) with a persona that resembles influencer behavior. In the phenomenon of digital marketing of Virtual Influencers, many brands trust virtual influencers to work together, and this shows that the market potential for virtual influencers is good. However, there are some problems due to the existence of virtual influencer and how humans still desire their authenticity since trust is a major pillar for influencer marketing. Parasocial interaction will be less foster, and humans will be doubtful if they aware that they are communicating with robots. Moreover, the social-emotional needs of people have to be accomplished to get the robot acceptance from consumer. Therefore, it is uncertain whether Indonesia’s virtual influencer can possess source credibility value in the parasocial interaction that occurred between them. Consequently, the research's objective is to identify the relationship between parasocial interaction, source of credibility, and virtual influencer acceptance on Indonesia's virtual influencer and define the marketing strategy recommendations that will be suitable for Indonesia's virtual influencer to increase the credibility value and parasocial interaction quality. This study using an online survey to gain insight into their parasocial interaction with the virtual influencer, virtual influencer acceptance, and source of credibility. This research using PLS-SEM to analyze the relationship between the variables. The result indicates that there are relationships between parasocial interaction with the source of credibility and virtual influencer acceptance on Indonesia's virtual influencer. Moreover, the finding of this research is expected to enhance Indonesia’s virtual influencer marketers’ knowledge about managing and creating an excellent relationship with the followers in order to increase the parasocial interaction quality.