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The rising occurrence of digitally driven public consumer complaints has made it necessary for enterprises to obtain consumer forgiveness. However, existing research has provided little understanding regarding how to obtain consumer forgiveness effectively. Thus, the present study examined how brand avatars can improve consumer forgiveness in the context of public apology.

This study tested the mechanism of a brand avatar on consumer forgiveness using three studies. Specifically, we explored the direct and mediating effect of empathy toward a brand (Study 1); we identified the moderating mediating effect of humorous responses (Study 2) and product type (Study 3). Data for these studies were collected on Credamo. We analyzed the data using SPSS (26.0) for the primary analysis and PROCESS (3.5) for the mediating and moderating mediating analysis.

The results indicate that brand avatars enhance consumer forgiveness. Moreover, empathy toward a brand plays a mediating role in the effect of brand avatars on consumer forgiveness. Additionally, when a humorous response is present, a brand avatar can enhance customer forgiveness through empathy toward that brand. Compared to utilitarian products, hedonic products can also increase the impact of a brand avatar on empathy toward the brand, thus enhancing consumers' forgiveness.

From the perspective of emotion, this study explored the impact of brand avatars on consumer forgiveness via empathy toward a brand. It augments the research on brand avatars and consumer forgiveness. The study also verified the moderating mediating effect of humor response and product type while expanding the brand avatar research boundary.

As technology increasingly integrates into the restaurant industry, avatar servers present a promising avenue for promoting healthier dining habits. Grounded in the halo effect theory and social comparison theory, this study aims to delve into the influence of avatars' appearance, humor and persuasion on healthier choices and customer satisfaction.

This paper comprises three experimental studies. Study 1 manipulates avatar appearance (supermodel-looking vs normal-looking) to examine its effects on perceived attractiveness, warmth and relatability. These factors influence customer satisfaction and healthy food choices through the psychological mechanisms of social comparison and aspirational appeal. Studies 2 and 3 further refine this theoretical model by assessing the interplay of appearance with humor (presence vs absence) and persuasion (health-oriented vs beauty-oriented), respectively.

Results suggest that avatars resembling supermodels evoke stronger aspirational appeal and positive social comparison due to their attractiveness, thus bolstering healthier choices and customer satisfaction. Moreover, humor moderates the relationship between appearance and attractiveness, while persuasion moderates the effects of appearance on social comparison and aspirational appeal.

This research bridges the halo effect theory and social comparison theory, offering insights enriching the academic discourse on technology’s role in hospitality.

The findings provide actionable insights for managers, tech developers and health advocates.

Despite its significance, avatar design research in the hospitality sector has been overlooked. This study addresses this gap, offering a guideline for crafting attractive and persuasive avatars.

In this chapter, the authors explore the concept of actorial identity through analysing the construction of legal persons as actors, centred on the argument that there is an ontological separation between living men and women and their legal representations. The authors propose an analytical frame based in part on the games studies literature, wherein actorial identities known as ‘Avatars’ are created by performative declarations that articulate Avatars with Players (living persons). The Avatars act within a bounded ‘Matrix’ while being controlled by Players who are outside the Matrix. In applying the frame to the legal Matrix, the authors distinguish between living persons, natural persons and artificial persons, and introduce the concepts of first-order and second-order Avatars. The authors then employ the analytical frame to model the use of legal Avatars by Apple Inc. and illustrate how cryptocurrency technology enables the creation of Avatars that can transact outside legal systems. The frame also helps explain how autonomous systems could acquire actorial identity and then functionally participate in the legal Matrix.

This chapter evaluates the potential of virtual worlds for intercultural collaborative learning. A case study of a global lecture series is presented that used a virtual world as a platform for intercultural student collaboration. Students' subjective reports served as a basis for exploring cross-cultural differences in the perceived usefulness of virtual worlds for intercultural collaboration, and to examine what they have learned from working in an intercultural virtual team, what problems occurred, and how they resolved them. Based on the evaluation results, suggestions are provided for a culture-aware design of virtual worlds to facilitate intercultural collaborative learning and the development of intercultural literacy.

One can read the history of MMOGs as a history of the development of the body (avatar) in the internet. To make the classical terms of sociology of the body fit the field of MMOGs, this chapter builds on the social world perspective to leave the dichotomy between real (offline) and virtual (online) behind. MMOGs are seen as one of numerous social worlds (rooted in the here and now) and not as distant planets. In the Here and Now the body is an everyday matter of course. According to Goffman’s interaction order Face-to-Face interaction is the prototype of interaction and the influence of technical artifacts (pen and paper, telephone, etc.) negates its constituting elements – immediacy and reciprocity. Immediacy and reciprocity are interrelated with the body. Although MMOGs are technical artifacts, MMOGs re-establish elements constituting the body. The avatar becomes a key artifact and an inescapable necessity in experiencing the world of MMOGs. Therefore compared to other online-places, MMOGs expand the accessibility that is typical for the internet with the possibility of “physical” presence. But this physical presence is rather a semiotic body (or body-social), than a body in physical terms. The avatar therefore seems to be an intersubjective accomplishment pointing to group affiliations. Applying to the body, it is therefore not just skin and bones it is also socially constructed. The avatar is expressed or embodied society.

As avatars are increasingly becoming popular, both scholars and businesses are acknowledging the vast potential that avatars hold for the future. Despite this growing interest in avatars, no review articles have attempted to provide a comprehensive overview of avatar literature and its implications for consumers. The present review addresses this gap using the combination of descriptive analysis (for corpus performance), bibliometric analysis (for corpus performance and emerging themes), and thematic analysis (for emerging themes and implications as well as future research opportunities). We conducted a review of 47 Scopus-indexed articles from 34 journals between year 2006 and 2023. By examining the corpus performance of avatar literature, the emerging themes, and future research opportunities, this review offers scholars a comprehensive overview of the subject matter.

Fact-checking is a process of seeking and displaying facts to confirm or counter uncertain information, which reduces the spread of fake news. However, little is known about how to promote fact-checking posts to online users on social media. Through uncertainty reduction theory and message framing, this first study examines the effect of fact-checking posts on social media with an avatar on online users' trust, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. The authors further investigate the congruency effects between promotional message framing (gain/loss/neutral) and facial expressions of the avatar (happy/angry/neutral) on online users' trust, attitudes, and behavioral intentions in the second study.

The authors conducted two studies and statistically analyzed 120 samples (study 1) and 519 samples (study 2) from Facebook users.

Results showed that including the neutral facial expression avatar in fact-checking posts leads to online users' greater trust and more positive attitudes. Furthermore, the congruency effects between loss message framing and the angry facial expression of the avatar can effectively promote online users' trust and attitudes as well as stronger intentions to follow and share.

This study offers theoretical implications for fact-checking studies, and practical implications for online fact-checkers to apply these findings to design effective fact-checking posts and spread the veracity of information on social media.

Avatars, which are used as a technology and marketing tactic, can embody consumer-facing employees and mimic their real-life roles on companies' websites, thereby playing a key role in enhancing the relationships between consumers and brands in the online environment. Academics and practitioners have increasingly acknowledged the significance of the consumer-brand relationship in both traditional and online contexts. However, the impersonal nature of the online environment is considered to be a hindrance to the development of these relationships. Despite the importance of this technology, little attention has been paid to the investigation of the avatar concept from a marketing perspective. This paper explores the nature of the avatar concept, including its main characteristics, dimensions, and conditions as well as the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of avatar users.

Adopting the qualitative design, a taxonomy was developed from interviews. In total, 42 interviews were conducted with current university students. 30 participants participated in the exploratory interviews. A total of 12 interviews were conducted during the in-depth stage based on findings in the preceding research.

Based on the qualitative data analysis, a taxonomy was developed. The idea of the taxonomy is summarized in that different dimensions of the avatar are considered the main base (first phase) of the taxonomy. There are consequential three parts: the attitudinal consequences related to the website; the attitudinal consequences related to the brand; the behaviours towards the brand. These behaviours represent the final phase of the taxonomy.

By developing a taxonomy of using avatars on brands' websites, the authors advance the understanding consumer-brands relationships. Using avatars' verbal interactions helps in shaping consumers' cognitive, affective, attitudinal and behavioural responses and add vital empirical evidence to the increasing body of research and practices involving avatar usage in the interactive marketing area.

Through the lens of self-perception theory, this paper investigates how avatar design (i.e. avatar user similarity) affects users' self-awareness and shapes their task engagement and performance in the Metaverse.

The authors conducted a 2 (avatar user similarity: high vs low) × 2 (task type: procedural vs creative) lab experiment and collected data from questionnaires, the recording of users' behavior during tasks and their actual task performance.

The results show that higher avatar user similarity leads to higher task engagement in general. Furthermore, while a similar avatar promotes users to regulate their behaviors and achieve better performance in a procedural task, high similarity also inhibits users' creativity by invoking habitual thinking, resulting in worse performance in generating original ideas in a creative task.

This study is expected to contribute to the information systems literature by revealing the value of avatar design and providing new perspectives on improving users' experiences in the Metaverse.

Avatars have become increasingly prevalent on brand websites, yet their impact on consumers' use of these sites remains underexplored. The current study focuses on avatars, which are three-dimensional animated graphical web interfaces that verbally aid the brand stakeholders (e.g. customers, employees and suppliers). Avatars provide administrative and technical information through the brand website. Drawing upon the stimuli–organism–response (S-O-R) paradigm, this research examines the impact of avatars as an information provision and interacting tool (vs a traditional format) on consumers' perceptions, attitudes and behaviors toward a brand. It also investigates the roles of familiarity with avatar use and the language used by an avatar in shaping consumers' responses.

Across two laboratory experiments, the authors examined and confirmed causal relationships between the use of avatars (vs a traditional format) on a website and attitudinal and behavioral constructs.

We show that avatars (vs written information) had a significant effect on controlling information. The users in our experiments had greater control over the information provided when it was presented as text on a website compared to the case of avatars “telling” the information. Different languages and familiarity with avatar use also affected the consumers' hedonism in terms of website use.

We advance the understanding of avatar use in website design, particularly avatars' verbal interaction, in shaping consumers' cognitive, affective, attitudinal and behavioral responses and add important empirical evidence to the growing body of research and practices involving avatar use in interactive marketing.