<p>The progression of media technology has not only turned live marketing into a new trend for product sales, but has also brought virtual celebrities into the spotlight. Inviting celebrities to serve as co-streamers can attract greater consumer attention and enhance the shopping experience. Drawing upon the Cognitive Appraisal Theory and Match-up Hypothesis, this study investigated consumers’ cognitive and emotional experiences, as well as their decisions, in the context of watching real and virtual celebrity co-streamers, utilizing the Event-related potentials (ERPs) method. Behavioral results showed that real celebrity co-streamers (vs. virtual celebrity co-streamers) elicited more positive continued watching intention and purchase intention; product type (search vs. experience) moderated the relationship between the celebrity co-streamer type (real vs. virtual) and consumer behavior (continued watching intention and purchase intention). Under experience products, the differences between real and virtual celebrity co-streamers in continued watching intention and purchase intention were more pronounced. The ERP results indicated that virtual celebrity co-streamers (vs. real celebrity co-streamers) caused more cognitive conflict (a larger N2); real celebrity co-streamers (vs. virtual celebrity co-streamers) received more motivational resource allocation (a larger P3); however, product type did not modulate the emotional experience that consumers had when watching the different types of celebrity co-streamers (LPP were not significant). These findings will further elucidate consumers’ inherently differentiated perceptions of real and virtual celebrity co-streamers, and provide valuable insights into live-streaming e-commerce to carefully consider the implications of celebrity invitations to enhance the consumer experience.</p>