Emojis in Marketing and Advertising: A Systematic Literature Review

TL;DR

This paper reviews how emojis are used in marketing and advertising, finding a growing but immature field with varied theories and methods.

Contribution

The study provides a systematic review and bibliometric analysis of emoji research in marketing using the T-C-C-M framework.

Findings

A quarter of studies are atheoretical, with EASI and emotional contagion theory being the most used.

Emojis are mainly studied in social media and the travel and food industries.

Experimental designs dominate, but field experiments and advertising applications are underexplored.

Abstract

Studies examining emoji applications in digital marketing and advertising are characterized by considerable heterogeneity in their theoretical orientation, methodologies, and contextual factors. A domain-based systematic literature review with the Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (T-C-C-M) framework following PRISMA guidelines was conducted to answer how emojis are researched in marketing, and a bibliometric review was constructed to shed light on important aspects. We found a field growing in volume yet immature, with a diversity of theories and methodologies used to explore the multiple roles of emojis. An analysis of explicit and implicit theories identified that almost a quarter of studies are atheoretical, and the mostly used theories are the Emotions as Social Information Theory (EASI) and the emotional contagion theory. Emojis are mainly researched in social media and in the travel and food industry. The most common methodological categories are experimental designs, with emojis used as independent variables in simple designs. Despite the focus on short-term outcomes (engagement, purchase intention), little attention was given to advertising and to field experiments, constraining ecological validity. Our study reveals the need for a robust theoretical framework that can explain the multiple functions of emojis, and EASI emerged as the leading theory to be tested more extensively.

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