Using Storytelling Strategy to Support Digital Human influencers Videos Beyond the Uncanny Valley- An Analytical Study

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Mansoura University - Faculty of Arts- Mass Communication Department- Public Relations Division

Abstract

Storytelling is an effective marketing strategy for influencing customers by focusing on emotional aspects more than their mental counterparts and using distinctive marketing evidence based on distinctive story elements. This distinction has prompted those in charge of digital humans to work on using marketing storytelling to overcome the (uncanny valley) phenomenon. The uncanny valley phenomenon is an expression of the feeling of extreme aversion and resentment of recipients towards digital humans when their similarity to real humans increases, as their feelings of fear and strangeness grow, and they cut off their relationship with digital humans. Therefore, the current study worked to study the use of storytelling marketing strategy in eliminating the negative effects of the uncanny valley phenomenon among digital human influencers in their storytelling marketing videos on Instagram. The study relied on the survey method, and its analytical sample consisted of 104 narrative marketing videos of digital humans from Lu Do Magalu and Lil Miquela on their Instagram pages. The study concluded that the digital humans in the study relied on emotional appeals more than mental appeals in the videos in the study, and relied on the authentic guide for marketing and the element of the promise of a better future for narrative marketing more than their other counterparts, all within a framework that relies on limited design elements of symbolic direction and mostly literal language. However, digital humans care about themselves as an element of influence before the followers, which is a trend that contradicts the current prevailing trend in marketing, in an attempt to avoid alienating humans from them when they confuse what is human with what is non-human. At other times, the digital humans worked to simulate humans intensely to convey human facts, but the use of literal language spoiled this simulation in some cases.

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References

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