Toward Better Digital Advertising: The Role of the Anthropomorphic Virtual Agent

Abstract

The advent of the Internet has led to the emergence of online advertising, which has benefited marketing organizations of all sizes. However, the emergence of digital natives as a new generation of consumers necessitates further research to ensure the continued effectiveness of online advertising. In this regard, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of advertising through an anthropomorphic virtual agent (AVA) on consumers’ psychological states and attitude toward online advertising. An experimental website was designed for the study. After interacting with AVA, respondents had to take part in a survey. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses using AMOS 24 and a bootstrapping method using SPSS Macro Conditional Process Analysis were conducted to test the research hypotheses. The results confirm the positive influence of the advertising through AVA on flow states and telepresence experience, which is positively associated with the attitude toward the online advertising. Working on AVAs is original as they represent the effective technology that can used for advertising. This study contributes to the existing research on how companies should integrate digital technologies to advertise, which to date has focused on other advertising channels such as social media advertisement, mobile advertisement, video advertisement, and e-mail advertisement.