Artificial intelligence-enabled virtual person appeared and participated in advertising endorsements like real human. This study aims to compare the effects of virtual influencers and human influencers on consumers' purchase intention in advertising, and to examine the interaction effects of different influencer types, advertising appeals, and product types using heuristic and systematic models (HSM). Specifically, influencer types and emotional appeals refer to heuristic cues, while product type and rational appeals are regarded as systematic cues. A 2 (influencer type: human influencers vs. virtual influencers) × 2 (advertising appeals: rational appeals vs. emotional appeals) × 2 (product type: utilitarian products vs. heuristic products) experiment was designed and 414 valid statistics were collected in this study. The results revealed that human influencers exert more positive influence on consumers' purchase intention than virtual influencers; Rational appeals perform more positive than emotional appeals on influencing consumers' purchase intentions; And there is an interaction between influencer types and product types, as virtual influencers are better suited to endorse hedonic products while real influencers more suitable for endorsing utilitarian products.

Yufei Zhu. The Interaction of Influencer Types, Advertising Appeals and Product Types on Consumer Purchase Intention from the Perspective of HSM Theory. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2024) Vol. 7, Issue 5: 113-122. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2024.070519.

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