Anthropomorphism in Marketing

This study examines the concept of anthropomorphism from a bibliometric perspective, as it has become increasingly important in the field of marketing alongside advances in digital technologies. Virtual influencers, robots, mascots, and chatbots have started to display more human-like characteristics, leading to important changes in consumer-brand relationships. Anthropomorphism stands out as an important factor that shapes and transforms consumer responses through the attribution of human-like emotions and characteristics to non-human entities. The study presents the current state of academic research on anthropomorphism within the marketing literature. In this context, publications indexed in the Scopus database were analyzed through bibliometric analysis to identify publication trends, citation structures, country distributions, and thematic clusters within the field. The findings show that studies focusing on anthropomorphism have increased rapidly, particularly after 2019, together with the growing role of artificial intelligence in marketing. The results also indicate that anthropomorphism has become a multidimensional area of research within the marketing discipline. Chatbot interactions, brand personality, virtual influencers, and service robots are among the most prominent themes in the literature, while strong relationships are also observed with variables such as social presence, consumer engagement, and parasocial interaction. At the same time, issues such as perceptions and biases toward artificial intelligence, consumer vulnerability, ethical risks, and cross-cultural differences appear to receive relatively limited attention in the literature. This study aims to systematically map research on anthropomorphism within the marketing discipline, identify current research gaps, and provide guidance for future studies. In today’s rapidly evolving digital environment, understanding the effects of humanlike entities on individuals is important from both academic and managerial perspectives.