The potential behind this development quickly becomes clear when you look at the market in which virtual influencers operate: Influencer marketing, which was still a $1.7 billion industry in 2016, has already grown to a market of $6.5 billion in 2019. A market that virtual influencers are taking on with all of their advantages: As optimized personifications of brands.
After all, they have one great advantage on their side: The essence of a virtual influence is based on a broad database. Data sources such as Google, Yelp, Facebook reviews, consumer and trend research have the potential to not only turn them into influencers that are more comprehensively informed than their human counterparts thanks to machine learning and abundant data, but also because of their potential to break the “incoherency” that plagues influencer marketing — unrealistic, pay-for-play placements are the sad new industry standard. Distrust for marketing messaging has opened the door for acceptance of an odd new norm: open inauthenticity. There is much to be said for a brand ambassador that offers unbroken coherence in their messaging and great accuracy of fit for their target group. Such coherence is rewarded: According to a survey by Mindshare, 54 percent of all British consumers find virtual entities appealing – among tech-savvy consumers it’s as high as 69 percent.