The effect of virtual spokescharacter type on online advertisements

Abstract

Previous studies has rarely examined the advertising effects of computer-generated imagery. To address the research gap regarding spokescharacters, this study examined the rarely discussed influence of speech synchronization on online advertisements. This study tested the effects of different types of virtual character on advertising effectiveness, which was measured according to ad credibility, attitude toward the ad, and attention toward the ad. The primary experiment included 8 conditions in which each character had a different gender (male vs. female), face type (human-like vs. cartoon-like), and speech synchronization (adult voice vs. child voice), thereby representing a hedonic animated online advertisement. By using an analysis of variance, this study revealed that cartoon-like female spokescharacters with child speech synchronization exhibited the highest effectiveness in online advertisements.