Enabled by new technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual celebrity spokesperson have gradually emerged and penetrated into many consumer areas. There are two different effects of virtual celebrity spokesperson and real celebrity spokesperson endorsement: substitution effect and complementary effect. The reason is that consumers have different expectations for spokesperson types in different advertising appeal situations. Based on the elaboration likelihood model and language expectation theory, this study reveals the matching effect, influence mechanism and boundary conditions of spokesperson type and advertisement appeal on consumers' purchase intention through four experiments. The findings are as follows: (1) There is a matching effect between the type of spokesperson and the advertising appeal, that is, for the advertising situation with rational appeal (emotional appeal), consumers have a higher purchase intention based on the recommendation of virtual celebrity spokesperson (real celebrity spokesperson); (2) Perceptual diagnosis mediates the above matching effect, that is, in the context of rational appeal (emotional appeal) advertising, recommendation based on virtual celebrity spokesperson (real celebrity spokesperson) will improve consumers' perceptual diagnosis, and thus enhance consumers' purchase intention; (3) The main effect and mediating mechanism are again verified, while alternative explanations for perceived pleasure and information processing fluency are excluded; (4) Product type moderates the above matching effect, that is, for practical products, there is a matching effect between the type of spokesperson and the advertising appeal in the context of rational appeal, while the matching effect is suppressed in the context of emotional appeal. For hedonic products, the matching effect between the type of spokesperson and the advertising appeal exists in the advertising context of emotional appeal, while the matching effect is suppressed in the rational appeal. The above conclusions not only help to enrich the theoretical research of spokesperson endorsement, but also help to provide marketing enlightenment for enterprises to effectively improve the advertising recommendation effect by using spokesperson endorsement strategy.