Anthropomorphic brand management: An integrated review and research agenda

Brand Anthropomorphism (BA) is gaining prominence in both marketing research and practice. Researchers have often used different perspectives for studying humanized brands, but this has led to theoretical and conceptual confusion creating challenges in the theoretical development of this field. This paper aims to critically review the existing literature on brand anthropomorphism and propose an integrated framework for identifying future research opportunities. A systematic review of 101 articles spanning more than two decades (1997–2021) was conducted to investigate the concept of brand anthropomorphism and human-like brands. This review identifies and synthesizes two diverse research traditions- designed brand anthropomorphism and perceived brand anthropomorphism- on the basis of complementary yet unique features of both traditions. We outline the fundamental issues and the key limitations in the existing literature and provide recommendations for future research.