Here’s what the Imma virtual influencer is, who makes her, which brands have paid for her, and why she matters.
Who is Imma?
Imma (often written “imma,” all lowercase) is a virtual influencer the Tokyo CGI studio ModelingCafe launched in 2018. You know her by the pink bob. Add the pared-back Japanese street style and photos that look like magazine editorials, and you get one of the best-known virtual characters anywhere. By 2026 she had more than 400,000 Instagram followers and campaigns for Ikea, Porsche, Dior, Valentino, Amazon Fashion, and SK-II behind her.
Lil Miquela sells feelings. Imma sells a look. Scroll her grid and it reads like a fashion spread, not a diary. No tears, no protests, no singles. She wears clothes, has coffee in pretty Tokyo cafes, and walks through galleries. That restraint is on purpose: Japanese marketing prizes quiet elegance over the American habit of confessing everything, and Imma was designed for that market.
Who Created Imma?
Imma comes from ModelingCafe, a Tokyo CGI shop whose background is commercial post-production for film and ads. In 2018 the studio built its own virtual influencer. Part of the reason was to show off what it could do. Part was a bet on where Japanese marketing was going. Her team is a mix of 3D artists, art directors, and brand managers, plus a small content crew that writes her storylines and signs off on brand deals.
ModelingCafe has also been far more upfront about Imma being CGI than Brud ever was about Lil Miquela. She was introduced as a virtual character from day one. People who were sick of being tricked by heavily filtered human influencers liked that. And in Japan, where anime, vocaloids, and idol culture have smudged the line between fiction and reality for decades, being openly virtual helped her. It didn’t hurt.
Imma’s Most Important Brand Deals
Her international breakout was the 2020 Ikea Harajuku campaign. For three days she “lived” in a fully furnished Ikea window display in central Tokyo. The photos of her lounging around the showroom spread worldwide, and they showed a virtual character could carry experiential marketing.
Other big collaborations:
- Porsche Japan put Imma in driving content and digital ads that pitched the Taycan as a lifestyle car for people looking ahead.
- Dior booked her for an editorial shoot that ran in Vogue Japan.
- SK-II built a skincare campaign around her, playing on the joke that a CGI character can’t actually use skincare.
- Amazon Fashion hired her for a style campaign aimed at Japan.
- Coach used her in handbag campaigns.
- Valentino brought her into a Tokyo fashion week activation.
Her fee per campaign is reportedly somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 dollars. Estimates put her yearly earnings at 1 to 3 million dollars.
What Makes Imma Different
Compared with her American and European peers, three things stand out.
The look. Pink hair and minimal Japanese styling jump out of a busy feed. Brands hire her because she doesn’t look like anybody else.
The production. You can tell ModelingCafe came from commercial post-production. Her images beat most human fashion influencers’ photos, and it’s not close, because every “shoot” is rendered in a high-end 3D pipeline instead of shot on a real camera.
The place. Imma is obviously from Tokyo. Her locations, her outfits, her visual references are all deeply Japanese. So brands trying to break into Asia often pick her over Western virtual influencers. She connects with audiences there in a way Lil Miquela never could.
Imma’s Place in the Virtual Influencer Ecosystem
Lil Miquela showed virtual influencers could win American brand deals. Imma showed they could carry Asian marketing budgets. After her came other Asian virtual characters: Liam Nikuro (another ModelingCafe creation), Plustic Boy, and a growing list of Korean and Chinese characters out of studios in Seoul and Shanghai.
Most of them run on the same business model. A small CGI studio keeps two to four characters as a portfolio and aims each one at a slightly different crowd. Imma takes high fashion. Liam takes streetwear. Others handle beauty or gaming. Running a portfolio like this costs a lot less per result than betting everything on one character.
Can You Talk to Imma?
Imma, like most big virtual influencers, is mostly a broadcast character. You can’t chat with her; there’s no public interface for it. Fans who want an actual conversation with a character built in a similar style are more and more often going to platforms like Vinfluencer.ai, which designs virtual influencers for chat from the start.
Why Imma Matters
Imma got fashion brands to take CGI characters seriously. That’s her legacy. Before her, even the brands willing to try a virtual influencer treated it as a gimmick. After her, nobody was asking whether to use one. They were asking which one fit the campaign. She also showed that production quality beats personality drama, and the rest of the industry still hasn’t fully caught on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Imma a real person? No. She’s entirely CGI, made by ModelingCafe in 2018.
Where is Imma from? Tokyo, Japan. That’s where ModelingCafe is.
How does Imma earn money? Brand campaigns, magazine features, and licensing.
What is Imma’s signature look? A pink bob and minimal Japanese street fashion.
Can I message Imma directly? Not through her Instagram. If you want virtual influencers you can chat with, try Vinfluencer.ai.
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