Digital humans the new normal?

BEIJING, Sunday: Brands are starting to launch their own branded virtual idols, giving them a level of creative control impossible with flesh-and-blood key opinion leaders, according to post by Mumbrella AU acting deputy editor Emma Shepherd.

“You might have a bunch of virtual idols, a sporty one, a serious one, a fashionable one and an artsy one to try and appeal to different target audiences,” Mark Tanner, founder of Shanghai-based research agency China Skinny, told Shepherd.

Alimama’s latest creation, a tall and handsome male idol named Noah, was developed based on consumer surveys on the domestic social media site Weibo.

“More than 21,000 users voted on his personality, skills and physical appearance, resulting in a cool male model with dark hair who can dance like a K-pop star.,” said Rocker Hu, manager of digital marketing at Alimama, Alibaba’s digital marketing arm.

“Digitally-generated influencers gained traction in the last decade by posting their fictional lives on global social media sites like Meta’s photo-sharing platform Instagram. But in China, virtual idols are being put to work in the real world.

“This is the first time a metahuman influencer has appeared in a live stream with real people. We rehearsed it at least four times because it’s technically very challenging,” said Hu. 

“As Elon Musk cuts real people from the payroll and target bots on his platform, how long till we are all in a Terminator movie?”

In a brand live stream by American fashion house Tommy Hilfiger in September, ‘Noah’ spent an hour chatting with customers and dancing along to music with human guests.

“This is the first time a metahuman influencer has appeared in a live stream with real people. We rehearsed it at least four times because it’s technically very challenging,” said Hu.

More than 670,000 viewers tuned in, and the brand’s daily gross merchandise value generated by live streams quadrupled.

Banks: “Digital humans are becoming the new normal for a generation of young internet users in China, spurred by rapid development and a near-infinite range of applications.

“Moving beyond consumer engagement, brands will employ virtual humans as customer service agents, live streamers and support staff on e-commerce platforms and beyond.”

Facebook News has just this month discontinued editorial curation by humans.

What, with Facebook News planning to discontinue its editorial curation by humans and the rise of brands using virtual Influencers, at what point do we hand over all our decisions to robots and have done with it?

Mumbrella editor Anrew Banks has the last word: “As the new Twitter overlord Elon Musk prepares to cut real people from the payroll and target bots on his platform, how long will it be before we are actually all in a Terminator movie?”

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