The next hype in social media advertising: Examining virtual influencers' brand endorsement effectiveness.

Virtual influencers are gaining prominence as a way of attracting people's attention on social media, but limited research has been conducted on this subject. In this research, we explore the effects of human-like virtual influencers (HVIs) vs. anime-like virtual influencers (AVIs) and sponsorship disclosure on message credibility perception and message attitudes.