Are Chatbots Poised To Become The Influencers Of The Future?

You might recognize the names Miquela, Blawko, and Bermuda, which are all fictional characters created by Brud. These fictional influencers have complex background stories and personalities, they all look rather human, and they have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. In fact, Miquela has over 2 million followers on Instagram.

These characters have worked with various brands on marketing campaigns, and they have very real conversations with their followers. People genuinely feel they connect and relate to these entirely fictional characters, even though most of them clearly state in their social media bios that they’re robots.

Connecting with fictional characters isn’t unusual. Everyone who’s read fiction has felt some sort of genuine emotional response to a book character. But that seems a little different than this. This new style of influencer marketing is fascinating, but it can also be more than a little strange.

What Are The Benefits Of Using A Fully Digital Chatbot Influencer For Your Brand Marketing?

According to The Drum’s YouTube video titled: Fake it to make it | How to build a virtual influencer, there are four major benefits to enlisting the help of a virtual influencer:

1. It’s low-risk because you control every aspect of how the character interacts with the audience. You don’t have to worry about them having opinions that don’t align with your company, saying bad things about your products, or going rogue.
2. The volume of conversation isn’t limited by human capacity. Because they’re a chatbot, they can converse endlessly with an unlimited number of audience members, sharing your brand message constantly.
3. While initial development costs for a character like Miquela are likely high, the long-term investment is lower since you don’t have to pay for travel or to ship products to a human to review. The ROI of having your own dedicated digital influencer is often higher since every follower is only being exposed to your brand, which is unlike other influencers that work with multiple companies.
4. You can integrate your products into the virtual chatbot’s entire lifecycle in a way that isn’t possible when hiring a human influencer for a one-time campaign.

What Are The Cons And Considerations Of Using A Chatbot Influencer For Your Brand Marketing?

1. Developing a believable character that people can relate to is challenging and can cost a lot of money upfront. There’s also the ongoing maintenance of a creative team that must continue churning out content that follows the character’s brand and narrative.
2. Full transparency about AI is usually the best policy, but will prefacing every conversation with an “I am a robot” statement ruin the connection with the audience and render the effort pointless?
3. Is it ethical? A USA Today article mentions that many people have unwittingly followed a CGI influencer on social media without realizing it wasn’t a real person. Is it deception or misrepresentation to psychologically connect with your audience through a fake character to sell your product?

What Do You Think?

Are chatbot influencers the future of marketing? Or a flash-in-the-pan fad?