全球新经济产业第三方数据分析机构艾媒咨询（iiMedia Research）发布的《2022年中国虚拟人行业发展研究报告》指出，2021年虚拟偶像的核心市场规模约62.2亿元。随着元宇宙热度增加，虚拟数字人产业快速发展，虚拟人物形象不仅出现在游戏、直播、音乐平台等娱乐场景中，其应用也开始拓展到营销、广告等商业领域。为了迎合消费市场的年轻人群体，同时规避明星代言人出现负面新闻可能给企业带来的不利影响，企业开始尝试自创虚拟形象代言人或者选择和有一定知名度的虚拟偶像合作。虚拟代言人根据其视觉特征可以分为二次元卡通代言人和超写实虚拟代言人。
现有对虚拟代言人的研究多关注虚拟代言人特征对消费者品牌感知、广告态度或购买意愿的影响，对真人和虚拟代言人的对比实证研究以及对不同类型虚拟代言人的对比实证研究较少。
刻板印象理论模型认为个体在信息有限的情境下会将复杂信息分化成“能力”和“温暖”两个维度帮助其进行决策。研究发现对品牌的高能力和高温暖感知会唤起消费者的积极情感，促使其产生更积极的品牌态度和购买意愿。消费者对真人代言人和虚拟代言人的“温暖”和“能力”感知是否存在显著差异有待探究。有研究证明外形更可爱的代言人能引起消费者更多好感，虚拟代言人中的二次元卡通代言人兼具“萌”的外形和“趣”的特征，消费者对不同类型代言人的“趣萌感知”是否存在显著差异也有待探究。作为新生事物，虚拟代言人兼具话题性和创新性，消费者对不同类型代言人的感知是否会影响其对品牌创新性的感知，已有研究发现消费者对产品创新性的感知会对购买意愿产生积极影响，对品牌创新性的感知是否也会对购买意愿产生影响有待进一步探究。
本研究聚焦虚拟代言人对消费者购买意愿的影响，拟探讨三个问题：（1）消费者对二次元卡通代言人、超写实虚拟代言人和真人代言人的感知（趣萌、能力和温暖感知）是否存在显著差异。（2）消费者对不同类型代言人的品牌创新性感知是否存在显著差异，以及代言人感知（趣萌、能力和温暖感知）在影响过程中是否发挥中介作用。（3）虚拟代言人是否会影响消费者的购买意愿，影响过程中品牌创新性感知是否发挥中介作用。
本研究通过一个预研究和两个正式研究对以上问题进行探究。预研究的目的是探究消费者对三种不同类型代言人的趣萌、能力和温暖感知是否存在显著差异，结果显示，消费者对二次元卡通代言人的趣萌、能力和温暖感知评分显著高于真人代言人和超写实虚拟代言人。研究一通过情景模拟问卷调查法探究虚拟代言人对消费者品牌创新性感知的影响，结果表明消费者对二次元卡通代言人和超写实虚拟代言人的品牌创新性感知没有显著差异，但是对二次元卡通代言人的品牌创新性感知评分显著高于真人代言人，对代言人的趣萌、能力和温暖感知在代言人影响消费者品牌创新性感知过程中发挥中介作用。研究二进一步探究虚拟代言人对消费者购买意愿的影响，并验证品牌创新性感知在二者之间的中介作用。结果表明：代言人为真人和二次元卡通代言人时，消费者的品牌创新性感知和购买意愿在这两种代言人之间均存在显著差异，具体而言，消费者对二次元卡通代言人有更强的品牌创新性感知，对其代言产品产生更高的购买意愿，感知品牌创新性在代言人影响消费者购买意愿过程中发挥中介作用。
理论层面上，本研究丰富了虚拟代言人的研究内容，在对比真人和虚拟代言人的基础上，对虚拟代言人类型做了进一步细分，验证了消费者对二次元卡通形象和超写实虚拟形象的感知存在显著差异。同时，对不同类型代言人对消费者品牌创新性感知和购买意愿的影响及其作用机制进行了探究。实践层面上，为企业选择合作代言人类型或者自创虚拟代言人提供更多参考思路，考虑到当前的营销环境和消费者认知水平，不需要盲目跟风选择超写实虚拟代言人，根据产品类型及受众群体的年龄段，选择二次元卡通形象或许能获得更好的营销效果。

According to the "2022 Research Report on the Development of China's Virtual Human Industry" released by iiMedia Research, the core market size of virtual idols in 2021 is approximately 6.22 billion yuan. With the increasing popularity of the metaverse, the virtual digital human industry is rapidly developing. Virtual character images not only appear in entertainment scenarios such as music platforms, games, and live streaming, but their applications have also begun to expand into commercial fields such as marketing and advertising. In order to cater to the young people in the consumer market and avoid the possible negative impact of star spokesmen's negative news, enterprises have begun to try to create their own virtual image spokesmen or choose to cooperate with virtual idols with certain popularity. Virtual spokesmen can be divided into anime cartoon spokesmen and hyper realistic virtual spokesmen according to their visual characteristics.
Existing research on virtual spokespersons mainly focuses on the impact of their characteristics on consumer brand perception, advertising attitude, or purchase intention, but there is relatively little empirical research comparing real and virtual spokespersons.
The stereotype theory model suggests that individuals in situations with limited information will divide complex information into two dimensions: "ability" and "warmth" to help them make decisions. Research has found that a high level of brand competence and high temperature perception can evoke positive emotions among consumers, promoting them to develop more positive brand attitudes and purchasing intentions. Whether there is a significant difference in consumers' perception of "warmth" and "ability" between real and virtual spokespersons needs to be explored. Some studies have proved that more cute spokesmen can cause more favorable feelings among consumers. The anime cartoon spokesmen in the virtual spokesmen have both "cute" appearance and "fun" characteristics. Whether there are significant differences in consumers' "cute perception" of different types of spokesmen remains to be explored. As a new phenomenon, virtual spokespersons have both topic and innovation. Whether consumers' perception of different types of spokespersons will affect their perception of brand innovation has been found in previous studies to have a positive impact on their purchase intention. Whether consumers' perception of brand innovation will also have an impact on their purchase intention needs further exploration.
This study focuses on the impact of virtual spokesmen on consumers' purchase intention, and intends to explore three issues: (1) Whether there are significant differences in consumers' perceptions (fun, ability and warmth) of anime cartoon spokesmen, hyper realistic virtual spokesmen and real spokesmen. (2) Is there a significant difference in consumer perception of brand innovation among different types of spokespersons, and whether spokespersons' perceptions (such as fun, ability, and warmth) play a mediating role in the process of influence. (3) Will virtual spokespersons affect consumers' purchasing intentions and whether brand innovation awareness plays a mediating role in the process.
This study explores the above issues through a pre experiment and two formal experiments. The purpose of the pre experiment is to explore whether there are significant differences in consumers' interest, ability and warmth perception of three different types of spokesmen. The results show that consumers' interest, ability and warmth perception scores of anime cartoon spokesmen are significantly higher than those of real spokesmen and hyper realistic virtual spokesmen. Study 1 explored the impact of virtual spokesmen on consumer brand innovation perception through the method of scenario simulation questionnaire. The results showed that there was no significant difference between consumers' brand innovation perception of anime cartoon spokesmen and hyper realistic virtual spokesmen, but the brand innovation perception score of anime cartoon spokesmen was significantly higher than that of real spokesmen, The perception of fun and ability towards spokespersons plays a mediating role in the process of influencing consumer brand innovation awareness through the type of spokespersons. Study 2 further explores the impact of virtual spokespersons on consumer purchase intention and verifies the mediating role of brand innovation awareness between the two. The results show that when advertising spokesmen are real people and anime cartoon spokesmen, there are significant differences in consumer brand innovation perception and purchase intention between the two spokesmen. Specifically, consumers have stronger brand innovation perception of anime cartoon spokesmen, and have higher purchase intention. Perceived brand innovation plays a mediating role in the process of spokesmen influencing consumer purchase intention.
On the theoretical level, this study enriches the research content of virtual spokesmen. On the basis of comparing real people and virtual spokesmen, it further subdivides the types of virtual spokesmen, and verifies that there are significant differences between consumers' perceptions of anime cartoon images and hyper realistic virtual images. At the same time, the impact and mechanism of different types of spokespersons on consumer brand innovation awareness and purchase intention were explored. On the practical level, it provides more reference ideas for enterprises to choose the type of cooperative spokesmen or create their own virtual spokesmen. Considering the current marketing environment and the level of consumer cognition, it is not necessary to blindly follow the trend to choose the super realistic virtual spokesmen. According to the product type and the age of the audience group, the choice of anime cartoon images may achieve better marketing results.