SEOUL — The home shopping channel of South Korea’s conglomerate Lotte has selected virtual model Lucy as the host for a TV show designed to promote popular fashion brands for young consumers. The virtual human with about 171,000 Instagram followers interacts with viewers on Lotte Homeshopping’s weekly TV show “Lucy Talk Live” to sell trendy fashion items, such as sweaters and zip-up hoodies.
Lucy, created by synthesizing a face with an image of a real person, has interacted with viewers through live commerce shows. She has appeared in shows for apparel items designed by Vivienne Westwood, a London-based fashion brand, and Italian fashion brand Miu Miu. The 171-centimeter (5’7.3″)-tall digital model often posts pictures of herself in many casual and trendy fashion items on Instagram.
Lotte Homeshopping said in a statement on February 13 that Lucy became the host of the Lucy Talk Live show. The virtual model promotes products from independent fashion brands without the assistance of a human host. Her voice is produced using text-to-speech technology, which converts written text into spoken words. Lucy Talk Live is available at 2:35 p.m. (0535 GMT) every Thursday on Lotte Homeshopping’s channel.
In September 2022, the home shopping channel operator partnered with 4by4, a domestic virtual production firm, to give Lucy a more human-like appearance. Lotte Homeshopping will continue to focus on visual effects (VFX) that integrate computer graphics (CG) elements to develop a fully autonomous virtual human.
Many artificial humans are active as models in South Korea. In July 2021, virtual influencer Rozy was chosen as a model for Shinhan Life Insurance, the insurance wing of South Korea’s major financial group Shinhan Financial. In December 2021, this digital figure became a promotional model for GS Retail, the operator of convenience store franchise GS25.