Sponsorship Disclosure in Virtual Influencer Marketing: Assessing Users’ Sentiment and Engagement Toward Virtual Influencer Endorsements

This study evaluates how sponsorship disclosure affects users’ parasocial interaction with virtual influencers (VIs). Sentiment analysis of 48,147 comments (sponsored = 20,411, non-sponsored = 27,736) indicated that users expressed more positive sentiment toward the VI’s sponsorship disclosure. Topic modeling revealed that, regardless of sponsorship disclosure, users were confused about the VI’s identity and expressed mixed emotions. Users also behaved differently toward the VI’s sponsorship disclosure. An online experiment (N = 159) found that users who encountered non-sponsored content displayed greater likelihood for parasocial interaction and post engagement. The mediating role of persuasion knowledge was non-significant, challenging the persuasion knowledge model.