The Human Brand: A systematic literature review and research agenda
The purpose of this article is to provide an in-depth overview of the scientific literature pertaining to the Human Brand (HB) and to highlight research opportunities based on trends and gaps identified over the course of our study. We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) examining a total of 3910 articles containing the keywords "personal brand" OR "personal brands" OR "personal branding" OR "human brand" OR "human brands" OR "human branding" OR "influencer*" published between 2006 and 2019. We analysed these documentary sources according to our criteria of inclusion and exclusion, then selected 101 articles from 77 different scientific journals. Based on our results, the artistic industry represents the most studied industry and, it is the influencer which prevails as the most studied type of HB. In addition, influencer identification on social media represents the most studied subject. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, we present a comprehensive research agenda for potential future studies in this academic field. Secondly, to our knowledge, this is the first SLR focusing on the HB. Based on the existing literature, we offer an overview of past research while providing findings contributing to a better theoretical and contextual understanding of the subject of interest.