Avatar-mediated Interactions in the Metaverse: A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda
(A2023-114291)

AUTHORS

Yue Peng, King's College London; Shintaro Okazaki, King's College London; Prokriti Mukherji, King's College London

ABSTRACT

The metaverse is becoming increasingly popular in recent years. As a mixed-reality media platform, the metaverse is essentially a shared virtual environment where consumers can interact synchronously through their avatars with other agents and objects. In the metaverse, digital avatars, instead of physical human beings, become the main interaction entities, which will shift the current digital marketing paradigm. So far, literature on consumer-embodied avatars and avatar-mediated interactions is highly fragmented and still sits in its primitive stage of development. To synthesise the current knowledge and shed light on future research on metaverse marketing, the authors conduct a systematic review of the extant literature on avatars and avatar-mediated communications in marketing domains. Three research themes are identified from the reviewed literature, and a theme-based research agenda is provided for future marketing researchers.