The emperor’s new clothes: self-explorative engagement in virtual try-on service experiences positively impacts brand outcomes

Purpose Virtual try-on (VTO) technology offers an opportunity for fashion and beauty brands to provide enriched self-explorative experiences. The increased popularity of VTOs makes it urgent understand the drivers consequences exploration styles in VTO contexts (herein called engagement). Notably, little is known about antecedent outcomes personalized experience central VTOs. This paper aims fill this knowledge gap. Design/methodology/approach An online quasi-experiment ( N = 500) was conducted context Participants were asked virtually try on sunglasses or lipsticks subsequently answer a questionnaire measuring key constructs: self-presence (i.e. physical similarity identification), engagement context), brand cognitive processing attitude. authors analyze data with structural equation modeling via maximum likelihood estimation LISREL. Findings during consumers’ use augmented reality environments has positive effect engagement. Furthermore, mediation analysis reveals that improves attitude processing. results are confirmed two popular brands. Originality/value Grounded extended self theory, best authors’ knowledge, first study show realistic encourages self-extension process starting from more attitudes. enabled by self-presence.