Avatars as Information: Perception of Consumers Based on Their Avatars in Virtual Worlds

摘要

The presence of consumers and companies in the virtual worlds hasincreased in recent years. It is predicted that 80% of active Internetconsumers and Fortune 500 companies will have an avatar or pres-ence in a virtual community, including social networks, by the end of2011 (eMarketer, 2007). The increase in the number of consumerswith avatars emphasizes the need for a better understanding of whothese consumers behind the avatars really are in order to convertthese individuals to online and real-world customers. The objectiveof this paper is to investigate how avatars reflect the personality oftheir creators (targets) in virtual worlds. Using the Brunswik LensModel as the theoretical framework, an investigation of real con-sumers in the virtual world Second Life reveals that perceivers whoview targets' avatar use particular thin-slices of observations such asavatar cues (e.g., attractiveness, gender, hairstyle) to form accuratepersonality impressions about targets. The findings support thepremise that real-life companies that intend to expand to virtualworlds can use member avatars as a proxy for member personalityand lifestyles. As a future research direction, avatars and otherconsumer-generated media could be used as the basis for targetingand segmentation of online consumers.