Lil Michela is a 19-year-old Brazilian American living in Los Angeles, Los Angeles. She has 3.30 million Instagram followers and her music releases reached number 8 on Spotify.
She works as a model and musician for luxury brands such as Chanel and Prada, and recently she signed a contract with CAA (Creative Artists Agency), the three major Hollywood agencies to which pop stars Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande belong.
While working as a virtual influencer on social networking services (SNS), she earned 13 billion won in revenue in 2020 alone. The unit price for Lil Michela's Instagram post is $8500 (about 9.62 million won).
This is a fictional character, not a real person. Lil Michela is a digital human created by American startup Brud. A digital human is a 3D virtual human with a shape similar to that of a human being. It is characterized by using high-level computer graphics (CG) technology to realize a hyper-realistic form that is difficult to distinguish from a real human face.
The digital human is developing to a level similar to that of a human by convergence of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data analysis technology, cloud, and high-performance computers. A digital human is not just a digital image. Acting as a virtual influencer, he uses social media platforms such as Instagram to upload daily photos like a real person and communicate with his followers through chatting.
Digital Human is the core content of Metaverse and is emerging as a business model with both growth and profitability as it can be easily expanded to entertainment. The field of application of digital human is expanding to all industries such as entertainment, distribution, education, finance, and broadcasting. Statista, a market research firm, predicted that the market size of the virtual reality (VR) industry will grow to $5.1 billion (about 5.8 trillion won) in 2023.
The spread of the metaverse also contributed to the popularity of digital humans.
The field where the biggest change is expected with the advent of digital human is the influencer industry, which is marketing through SNS platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Digital human is being used as a model (virtual influencer) to promote the products and services of real companies as their awareness rises, and they are also generating profits by working as singers and actors. As the influence of digital human grows, attention is focused on whether it can replace the position of human influencer.
The biggest advantage of a digital human is that there are no temporal and spatial restrictions on activities and it can be optimized as an image necessary for corporate promotion. In line with the brand image, you can freely expand the scope of your activities to models, actors, and singers, and you can also create the talents (acting, singing, dancing, and commenting skills) required by the brand. This means that customization is possible.
Compared to human influencers, virtual influencers may be a better choice in terms of cost or risk management. They can work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, do not need a manager, and the possibility of getting caught up in various incidents and accidents is close to zero.
Digital humans are also appearing one after another in Korea. After the artificial human 'NEON', which was first introduced by Samsung Electronics at the world's largest Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2020, LG Electronics introduced the digital human 'Rae-Ah Kim' at 'CES 2021' in January of this year.
Giant Step developed the digital human 'Vincent' and created 'ISPA', the avatar of SM Entertainment's girl group Espa. Samsung Electronics selected Lil Michela as one of the Samsung Galaxy ambassadors, and LG Electronics is also using Kim Rae-ah to promote and market new products.
With the rise of the metaverse, the use of digital humans is expected to expand. Overseas, the advertising and digital marketing market using digital humans that can appeal to the MZ generation (millennials + generation Z) is growing rapidly.
Business Insider predicted that digital human-related marketing expenses for brands will increase from 8.84 trillion won in 2019 to 16.6 trillion won in 2022. Since the main consumer of virtual influencer marketing is Generation Z consumers who are familiar with digital content, companies that use digital humans as advertising models instead of human influencers or advertising models will increase.
[Interview] Kim Hyung-il, CEO of Onmind
“Stronger than humans in attention and expressiveness… The goal is to establish itself as a new genre.”
Korea's first real-time digital human celebrity 'Sooah' developed by Onmind / Digital human provided by Onmind will not be long before appearing in shampoo commercials. Onmind, the developer of digital human 'Sua', recently started collaborating with AMD in the US to develop 'AMD TresFX' technology that naturally expresses 3D character's hair. If you apply AMD hair simulation technology to Sua, you can express more realistic hair.
Onmind is uploading Sua's short form video content to TikTok. Through Instagram, the visual aspects such as Sua's lifestyle and fashion are emphasized, and the world view and storytelling are added to breathe life into the character.
Kim Hyung il, CEO of Onmind, said, “Digital humans are capable of delivering messages in an impressive way that is different from human models. said.
-What is the reason for the increasing number of companies using digital human as their advertising model?
“As the purchasing power of young people who are digital natives increases, marketing that is different from the existing ones for them seems to be increasing. Digital Human is focusing on branding through various social platforms and online channels rather than traditional media channels. From a technical point of view, it is a very advanced and new technology, so I think it is creating a good synergy with companies that value trends or technology.”
- What are the fields of application of digital human?
“It is expected to be used in many fields in the future, such as broadcasting, entertainment, commerce, models, and smart assistants. However, before performing these roles, the public must know the existence of digital humans and raise awareness, so that they will be accepted naturally when they actually perform various roles. ‘Suah’ plans to communicate with the public through her activities as an entertainer who can communicate most actively with the public, and through this, she plans to naturally convey the potential of being a digital human to the public.”
- What is the biggest advantage compared to human influencers?
“There are many things such as the degree of freedom of visual implementation and the ease of management, but the two most realistic advantages in terms of the role of the model are ‘attention’ and ‘expressive power’. Due to the nature of advertisements, if they do not attract viewers' attention, they often fail to reach the stage of delivering the main message. If you take advantage of the novelty and novelty of the digital human, it will be effective in terms of raising the level of attention, which is the primary goal. Next, we can think about the power of expression in the visual part. As a digital human being, it is possible to deliver a message in an impressive way that is different from the existing ones through various cinematic and comic expressions that are difficult to produce using human models. However, since the human model clearly has a method that only they can do, it is not an approach to replace it, but is approaching it with the idea of expanding the range of existing advertising methods and expressions.”
Do you think digital humans can replace human models?
“In fact, I think digital humans can and will do many of the roles that humans play on screens as well as models. Nevertheless, I do not believe that digital humans will be able to completely replace the various roles that humans have played. This is because human beings have a comparative advantage over digital humans, such as delivery power, appealing power, and immersion. I think it would be more realistic to make it an additional genre while showing that there are clear effects and advantages that only digital humans have.”
- What do you plan to do in the future?
“‘Sua’ plans to raise awareness of digital humans by actively communicating with the public as an entertainer and sharing worldviews by utilizing its strengths in real-time communication. We will continue to release the next digital human, and we plan to build a virtual world that can be enjoyed with the public. The ultimate goal is to create a fully digital human based on artificial intelligence (AI) that can think and express themselves. To this end, we are collaborating with various domestic and foreign partners and developing our own technology.”
