Semester 1, academic year 2025/2026
By Quyang Zhao
Despite growing attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion, advertisers still overrepresent majority groups while giving minority groups limited or stereotypical visibility. Recent research has begun examining human influencers with diverse identities who strategically present themselves to balance diversity advocacy with commercial endorsement. Virtual influencers have also entered this space, offering new ways to represent and shape diversity through technology.
Although research on diversity representation in influencer marketing is emerging, it remains in its infancy and offers limited insight into the mechanisms underlying audience responses. This study investigates how virtual versus human diverse influencers shape explicit evaluations and implicit associations through parasocial interaction. It also examines whether the positive “halo effect” found for diverse human influencers similarly extends to virtual influencers.