From Monologue to Dialogue: Remaking Public Service Communication with Celebrity-as-a-Service

Public service communication aims to raise awareness and change behaviors on critical public issues, such as health, safety, and the environment. Public service communication typically takes one of two forms: a public service announcement (PSA), such as a TV or radio advertisement that broadcasts information (a monologue), or a public service interaction (PSI), such as a meeting with officials that both provides and collects information (a dialogue). Celebrity involvement has traditionally been limited to PSAs due to cost and scalability challenges, but advancements in AI now enable the use of digital humans as scalable, interactive “celebrity-as-a-service” solutions. These AI-controlled digital celebrities mimic real people, enabling one-on-one celebrity interactions at scale. In an online experiment, we compared a digital celebrity to a non-celebrity digital human delivering a skin cancer awareness message in both a PSA and a one-on-one PSI. Results showed that both perceived celebrity (celebrity vs. non-celebrity) and interactivity (PSI vs. PSA) increased trustworthiness and enjoyment. Trustworthiness, in turn, increased the intention to comply with the public service message, while both trustworthiness and enjoyment increased the likelihood of sharing the message. We conclude that AI-controlled digital celebrities open the door to incorporating celebrities into one-on-one PSIs to drive more effective, scalable, and cost-effective public service communication.