• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.323-333
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• 2021

Lil Miquela, who appeared on social media in 2016, is one of the most popular virtual influencers. In particular, Miquela is having a great impact on society by continuing to collaborate with many fashion brands through Instagram. As the activity of virtual influencers is emerging today, this study aims to derive the meanings of contemporary fashion through analyzing Miquela's social media case. This study analyzed Miquela's Instagram posts as research subjects. As a result of the above analysis, it was possible to classify the methods and devices for expressing fashion in Miquela's social media into three categories: storytelling, reality, and tags & hyperlinks. In addition, the meanings of fashion could be derived from three aspects: the object of experience, the direction of technology, and the realization of the spirit of the times. After appearing on social media, Miquela, who has gradually expanded her domain, is a virtual fashion influencer who has built her identity through fashion, and is expected to give new meaning to fashion in the future.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.471-483
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to find out audience' response of virtual influencer at the starting line of virtual influencer marketing. Therefore, posts, comments, number of likes, and video reviews were collected from Instagram of virtual influencers active in Korea. Python 3.7 and Textom were used for data collection and analysis. Sentimental analysis showed that the rate of positivity was higher than the rate of negativity and neutrality. The appearance of virtual influencer was found to be a major factor in both positive and negative. Consumers' interest in virtual influencer could be inferred from the neutral sensibility. This study is meaningful in that it presented data to help establish strategies for virtual influencer marketing by examining consumer reactions to virtual influencer and identifying factors of positive and negative emotions toward virtual influencer.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2024

Virtual influencers, who are emerging as new players in digital marketing, impact consumers' purchase intentions. They promote positive perceptions and mimetic consumption of specific brands or products through interactions with followers. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of the characteristics of virtual influencers on the purchase intention for fashion products through the consumers' mimetic desire. As characteristics of virtual influencers, five factors were set: reality, attractiveness, professionalism, trustworthiness, and curiosity. Data for analysis were collected through an online questionnaire from the 8th to the 15th of August 2023, and 268 data points in total were analyzed using SPSS and Process Macro 4.3. The results of the study showed that the characteristics of virtual influencers all positively affected mimetic desire and purchase intention for fashion products. Moreover, it was found that mimetic desire has a mediating effect between the five characteristics of virtual influencers and the purchase intention for fashion products. Mimetic desire fully mediates the relationship between reality and the intention to purchase fashion products, and partially mediates the relationship between attractiveness, professionalism, trustworthiness, and curiosity and the purchase intention for fashion products. These findings further enhance the understanding of the relationship between virtual influencers and consumer behavior and identify the relationship between virtual influencers, mimetic desire, and fashion product purchase intentions. Consequently, leveraging virtual influencers strategically in digital marketing, the fashion industry can amplify positive brand perceptions, drive consumer engagement, and ultimately foster increased purchase intent.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.295-310
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• 2023

The current virtual fashion influencers are a hyper-real prototype in that it has a higher presence than the virtual humans in the past. Also, they are leading fashion trend with more than tens of thousands of followers on social media. This study investigated the physical and social presence of virtual fashion influencer perceived by consumer and verified effects on evaluation attributes of influencers and the relationship maintenance behavior. A total of 321 Korean women in their 20s and 30s who have Instagram account participated in the online survey. The data was analyzed using AMOS 23.0. The results revealed that the physical presence had a significant impact on attractiveness of virtual fashion influencers. In case of social presence had a positive effect on friendliness and reliability of virtual fashion influencers. In addition, evaluation attributes of virtual fashion influencers' friendliness, attractiveness and reliability in the order of influence on relationship maintenance behavior. This study suggested that the development of social presence of virtual fashion influencers with friendliness and attractiveness is more important than the physical presence that has already reached a high level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.282-299
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• 2024

This study aimed to examine the impact of virtual influencers' characteristics on purchase intentions through attitudes toward the influencer and the brand, and to identify which factors are important depending on involvement. We used a scenario-based online survey of 320 female consumers in their twenties and thirties, and analyzed their responses through structural equation modeling using AMOS 21.0. Virtual influencers' attractiveness, reliability, familiarity, and virtuality had significant effects on consumers' attitudes toward those influencers, while their attractiveness, familiarity, and virtuality had significant effects on consumers' brand attitudes. Notably, in contrast to the other variables, virtuality had a negative effect. In addition, consumers' attitudes toward the virtual influencer significantly affected their brand attitudes and purchase intentions. We also analyzed which characteristics had significant impacts on high- and low-involvement groups. We found that reliability had the greatest influence on purchase intentions in the high-involvement group and that familiarity had the greatest influence on purchase intentions in the low-involvement group, which confirmed that the variables affecting purchase intentions differ depending on the level of involvement.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.446-462
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• 2020

The objectives of this study are to explore the information source, assessment, and preferred styles of 3D virtual influencers(VI), to investigate the expected impact of advertisements with 3D VIs on brands, and to explore ways of expanding the use of 3D VIs. In-depth interviews with 40 males and females in their 20s and 30s were conducted and qualitative data were analyzed. The study results are summarized as follows. First, the information source of the 3D VI was SNS, acquaintances, and broadcasting. Second, 3D VIs were considered positively due to their attractive appearance, wide utilization, innovative use, freshness, separation from private identity, and time and cost savings, while considered negatively due to their unrealistic appearance and antipathy against replacing a person's role. Third, the preferred appearance styles of the 3D VI differed according to the level of virtuality although the majority of interviewees preferred similar looks to real people with low virtuality. Fourth, diverse image qualities such as innovative, differentiated, trendy, high-value, professional, and future-oriented were considered as transferred to the brand advertised by 3D VIs. Fifth, advertisements with 3D VIs may help build positive perceptions of advertised brands that may lead to purchase behaviors for some consumers. Lastly, to expand the use of 3D VIs, the specific advantages of virtual models should be maximized with consideration of how to implement a variety of body types and images of models. Findings present an important foundation to generate strategies to better apply 3D VIs to the fashion market.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.213-222
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• 2021

This study tried to identify the factors influencing the visual factors of fashion virtual influencers(FVI), on follower behavioral intention and addiction. As the number of fans of FVI is increasing these years, and the addiction phenomenon of social platforms is also increasing, researchers thought that a study to confirm the behavioral intention of fans and the path to addiction through the visual factors of FVI would be necessary. According to the research results, it was confirmed that among the visual factors of FVI, attractiveness affects authenticity through expertise. In addition, researchers confirmed that authenticity influences flow through relationship maintenance of behavioral intention, and authenticity influences addiction through flow. Thus, researchers verified the path leading to FVI's visual factors to behavioral intention and addiction, such as visual factors and authenticity, authenticity and behavioral intention, and behavioral intention and addiction. Researchers hope to conduct research with various content types of FVI, other social platforms.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.873-890
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• 2023

This study analyzed users' emotional responses to VI character design through YouTube comments. The researchers applied text-mining to analyze 116,375 comments, focusing on terms related to character design and characteristics of VI. Using the BERT model in sentiment analysis, we classified comments into extremely negative, negative, neutral, positive, or extremely positive sentiments. Next, we conducted a co-occurrence frequency analysis on comments with extremely negative and extremely positive responses to examine the semantic relationships between character design and emotional characteristic terms. We also performed a content analysis of comments about Miquela and Shudu to analyze the perception differences regarding the two character designs. The results indicate that form elements (e.g., voice, face, and skin) and behavioral elements (e.g., speaking, interviewing, and reacting) are vital in eliciting users' emotional responses. Notably, in the negative responses, users focused on the humanization aspect of voice and the authenticity aspect of behavior in speaking, interviewing, and reacting. Furthermore, we found differences in the character design elements and characteristics that users expect based on the VI's field of activity. As a result, this study suggests applications to character design to accommodate these variations.