Rozy is an influencer with more than 60,000 followers on Instagram. He is becoming a famous character in South Korea. Everything indicates that he has a long career ahead of him, especially since he will always be 22 years old. The digital influencer and model was created by Sidus Studio X in August 2020 and, in just over a year, Rozy is their most profitable product.
The digital influencer started to become famous in Korea in July when she appeared in a television commercial. So far, has achieved more than 100 sponsorships with different companies. He has also signed eight exclusive contracts and starred in two local television commercials. Baek Seung Yeop, director of Sidus Studio X, stated that he expects to earn close to $ 854,000 by the end of the year from Rozy's work.
Although it does not reach the success of established flesh and blood influencers, it is a quite remarkable start, if we start from the base that it would reach almost a million dollars in income a year after being born. And at 100 patricians two months after their first announcement.
This figure is slightly above average. Luis Díaz, CEO of the influencer marketing agency Human to Human (H2H) commented that a fashion influencer with between 50 and 100,000 followers can have 50 to 75 collaborations a year. In this regard, the influencer Azul Místico indicated that it depends on collaborations, because “making a Story is not the same as making a video on YouTube or a campaign with several posts.” Rozy's income figure, close to $ 854,000, does seem a bit far-fetched, although prices for collaborations vary a lot between different countries.
The advantages of not being of flesh and blood
Rozy has plans for the future. Its creators do not want to limit it to advertisements and seek to expand their activities to cinema and entertainment programs. Ultimately, they want to take advantage of the reef. The CEO of the company that created Rozy explained that the popularity of virtual influencers is increasing because it is much easier to collaborate with them for advertising campaigns.
There is no danger that they will get sick, they will not have personal scandals that could jeopardize their image and the locations can be created by computer. In this way, there are no limitations of space and time. In addition, virtual influencers do not age.
The rise of digital influencers
The advantages offered by creating a character with artificial intelligence cause rejection for some people, although it is a fact that it is a sector on the rise. Lil Miquela has become one of the most famous virtual influencers. He has more than 3 million followers on Instagram and has managed to attract an investment of up to 125 million dollars from the Spark Capital startup fund. Vogue magazine named her the “fictional girl of the moment” in 2019 and she has also positioned herself as an advocate for LGBTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Millennials and Gen Z are the target audience for digital influencers like Lil Miquela. Mainly, because content is still the key to success, whether it is from real or virtual influencers. Each character created with artificial intelligence has some ideas behind and a worked content.
In this sense, it happens as with traditional influencers, who may have more affinity with one brand than with another. In the case of digital ones, there are the advantages that we mentioned earlier, such as saving money on travel – because the campaigns are virtual – and the absence of controversy.
Digital or flesh and blood
However, digital influencers are not competitors of the real ones. At least for now. Some advertising agencies have shown their interest in this upward trend, but it does not yet exceed the popularity of influencers such as María Pombo or Laura Escanes, in the Spanish case.
Everything indicates that they will be able to live in the same ecosystem because their way of working and exposing themselves will be very different. While digital influencers appeal to a prototype of unreal beauty by nature, those of flesh and blood are increasingly appealing to show a more realistic image. Despite the use of filters in many cases, social networks such as Instagram have become a space to show increasingly natural photographs.
