Relationship between Attractiveness of virtual influencer and Consumer attitude: Verifying the mediating effect of Immersion

In recent years, advertisements and brand promotions using virtual influencer have been actively conducted, and this study focused on the characteristics of virtual influencer, including Attractiveness, to examine the Attractiveness of virtual influencer through previous studies and to test the hypothesis that Attractiveness has an effect on Brand attitude and Advertising attitude when mediated by Immersion. For this purpose, data were collected from university students who experienced marketing contents using virtual influencer, and Process macro was conducted to analyse the mediating effect. The results showed that virtual influencer Attractiveness partially mediated the relationship between Brand attitude and Advertising attitude. These results suggest that virtual influencer Attractiveness not only affects Brand attitude and Advertising attitude, but also positively increases consumer attitude when mediated by Immersion. This study has both academic and practical implications by examining the mediating effect of Immersion on the effect of virtual influencer Attractiveness on consumer attitudes.