Eeriness Unveiled: A Natural Language Processing Investigation of Co-Presented Human and Virtual Influencers on Instagram

While influencer marketing using a virtual influencer (VI) is on the rise, negative reactions from consumers are often reported due to the VI’s human-like yet imperfect appearance, as explained by the Uncanny Valley theory. While previous studies compared the effectiveness of VI versus human influencers, this study investigates the combined effect of VI and human on consumers. Using a natural language processing approach on 11,777 comments from Lil Miquela’s Instagram account, our study examined the sentiments across three different types of posts: VI, VI + Human, and VI + VI. The results revealed that posts featuring both VI and human elicited slightly more positive sentiments compared to those with VI alone. Additionally, variations were observed in the usage of specific nouns, verbs, adjectives, and emojis across the different post types. Our findings provide insights for VI marketing strategy, suggesting that including a human influencer alongside a VI may offer a competitive advantage by reducing discomfort.