Swedish Supermarket Chain Launches Virtual Humanoid Baby Influencer

ICA is a Swedish supermarket chain, focusing mainly on food and health products. The retailer recently launched a virtual humanoid six-month-old baby influencer, Elis.

Elis is a curious, playful and adventurous baby, just like any other six-month-old – except she isn’t real.

ICA first announced Elis on Wednesday in an Instagram post, which has already got more than 2500 people following it.

View this post on Instagram

Äntligen❣️Det är med stor glädje vi kan presentera ICA-familjens senaste tillskott: Elis, en bebis på strax över 6 månader med en stor aptit för allt livet har att erbjuda. Oftast är hon glad och nyfiken men det är heller inte alltid lätt att vara liten i en stor värld?? På det här kontot kommer ni få följa Elis och hennes liv som inte är helt olikt andra bebisars med mat, lek, äventyr och en och annan liten kompis. Ni kommer också att få träffa fler medlemmar i hennes familj, bland annat en dietist och en farmaceut som kommer dela med sig av användbara tips och råd för att göra vardagen med småbarn enklare! Häng med!?

A post shared by Elis (@bebiselis) on Oct 9, 2019 at 12:00am PDT

According to the company’s press statement, the aim of creating Elis is to bring people’s attention to the company’s new wider range of baby foods.

Paula Frösell the ICA’s dietician said: “Becoming a parent for many people is fun, scary and confusing; with Elis we want to help in this confusion and create an entertaining, informative and hopefully very rewarding place where people can get answers on diet, health and everyday things.”

Baby Elis has been a hit with people with some calling her ‘cute’ and others ‘sweet’. But she has not gone down well with everybody with some people horrified by her and others calling her something from a nightmare.

One Twitter user wrote, saying “a baby from a horror film” another Twitter user said “thanks for the inspiration for my nightmares”. Sofia Meaden commented how the baby looked creepy: “Based on the picture alone? Creepy.” While some on Twitter also pointed out the baby looked a lot like the evil doll Chucky, from the Child’s Play movie series.

Hej #bebiselis! https://t.co/tOMSCFyT9r pic.twitter.com/tLS00MqyRs

— Julon Must ? (@borickard) October 10, 2019

Alex Black commented “Uncanny valley right there” on The Local’s Facebook page. Touching on the theory of how humanoid objects tend to almost resemble humans giving a terrifying feeling.