Clare Dobson and the rise of Virtual Influencers

Virtual Influencers aren’t out there in the far future. They’re here. Today.

With this, “I’m hoping to maybe positively provoke your curiosity and inspire you or maybe even scare you slightly” said Clare in the Primetag event in London “The Future of Creative Marketing”.

“A bit of an ick factor” she calls it - probably an understatement. The headlines, the tweets, the linkedin posts we see are scary, verging on the apocalyptical. They’re coming to take our jobs! They're going to replace our human models!

She explains that, to older audiences, older marketing people and older influencers, it is natural that people feel they have a big barrier to overcome.

So what do we do?

7 facts and figures about the Virtual Influencer Market:

1. The global market for Virtual Influencers in 2024 had a valuation of about £6.33 billion.

2. By 2030, it’s expected to be around 111 billion.

3. 59% of youtube users in the US follow a virtual influencer (called a Vtuber).

4. 56% of Tik Tok users in the US follow a virtual influencer.

5. 51% of instagram users in the US follow a virtual influencer.

6. Vtubers averaging around 50 billion views annually in the US.

7. 35% of respondents to one survey purchased a product based off a Virtual Influencer’s recommendation.

We think of virtual influencers as something in the far future, something out of a Sci Fi movie but to those paying attention, it’s been happening already for the past few years.

Some examples of Virtual Influencers:

• In 2020, Ikea Japan hired imma, “to share a sneak peek of daily life with imma – Japan's first virtual model”.

• Miz Chief, an AI rapper, played Coachella last year.

• DJ Angelbaby signed to CAA.

• CAA, in turn, has a whole arm of their business that's for virtual artists.

• There is now a world MissAI beauty pageant.

At the end of the day, Clare says, there are humans at the heart of Virtual Influencing, too. It’s humans with their creativity that make these characters, and their stories. And it’s that human connection that’s so fundamental for Virtual Influencers to be so engaging for the younger generations.

Clare leaves us with a challenge “it’s time to rethink the role of the virtual influencer”.

For her, it would be really limiting our capabilities if we were to think of virtual influencers in the same way as we think of (human) influencers.

“It’s not about whether we engage, but how creative we can get”.

Meet Clare Dobson!

Clare Dobson is the Global Platform & Influencer Lead at Wavemaker WPPMedia. Someone who knows a lot about the actual state of influencer marketing - and even more about its future.