Moody College’s Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations has been at the forefront of research into the virtual influencers space. Since 2020, Eastin and his students have conducted multiple studies about how various behaviors, settings and emotions affect how virtual influencers are being perceived by social media users. The studies focused on Lil Miquela, because of her prominence in the industry and human-like nature.

The team’s key question: How real is too real?

Eastin and fellow researchers have discovered some limitations for virtual influencers, and their findings could give digital marketers pause when using the technology.

In a recent study, Eastin, along with student researchers Jeongmin Ham and Sitan Li, looked at how Lil Miquela’s different human behaviors and social cues affect her perceived anthropomorphism, or realism.

A group of college study participants looked at posts of Lil Miquela holding ice cream, consuming ice cream and without ice cream versus whether she was alone or with another human. While perceived realism had a positive impression on study participants to a certain degree, being too human-like made Lil Miquela less favorable, Eastin said.

“We saw that there was a breaking point for the audience when she was with another human and consuming a real product,” Eastin said. “People go wait a minute, ‘That's too much.’”

This distinction is known as the “uncanny valley effect.” As virtual influencers reach an increasingly high level of similarity to humans, social media users reactions turn from delight to disgust. Cognitive dissonance plays a role as well, as people tend to have conflicting thoughts and actions about virtual beings.

“Too many assumptions that we have about robots and being human conflict, and you just sort of lose your audience,” Eastin.

In another study, Eastin, Ham and student researcher Pratik Shah looked at mixed reality settings where virtual influencers are placed alongside real places, products or people. The study used posts of Lil Miquela promoting either virtual products or real products alongside real humans or alone to see if a mixed reality setting impacted social media users’ attitudes toward Lil Miquela and their attachment to the brand she was promoting.  

Mixed reality, which is a blend of the physical and digital world, allowed social media users to perceive Lil Miquela as more real, competent and warm, therefore resulting in positive attitudes toward her. However, when Lil Miquela was promoting a real product alongside a real person, attitudes declined.

Brand attachment was highest when Lil Miquela was promoting a virtual product, but that too decreased when she was with a human. Participants’ attachment to the brand was lowest when Lil Miquela was promoting both a real product and with a human.

“A lot of people might think because she's virtual, she might be best suited for the whole virtual space and virtual products,” said Ph.D. student and researcher Jeongmin Ham. The team’s study found otherwise, something brands should consider when employing virtual influencers.

In their most recent study, Eastin and his team looked at how social media users responded to different emotions expressed by Lil Miquela, including happiness, sadness, sexual desire and love. The study found that when virtual influencers express emotion, they are more likely to be perceived as emotionally intelligent. Lil Miquela was perceived as most emotionally intelligent when she was expressing happiness but the least when she was sad, the study found.