Avatars are becoming increasingly popular in contemporary marketing strategies, but their effectiveness for achieving performance outcomes (e.g., purchase likelihood) varies widely in practice. Related academic literature is fragmented, lacking both definitional consistency and conceptual clarity. This article makes three main contributions to avatar theory and managerial practice. First, to address ambiguity with respect to its definition, this study identifies and critically evaluates key conceptual elements of the term avatar, offers a definition derived from this analysis, and provides a typology of avatars’ design elements. Second, the proposed 2 × 2 avatar taxonomy suggests that the alignment of an avatar’s form realism and behavioral realism, across different contingencies, provides a parsimonious explanation for avatar effectiveness. Third, the authors develop an emerging theory of avatar marketing, by triangulating insights from fundamental elements of avatars, a synthesis of extant research, and business practices. This framework integrates key theoretical insights, research propositions, and important managerial implications for this expanding area of marketing strategy. Lastly, the authors outline a research program to both test the propositions and insights as well as advance future research.

化身在当代营销策略中正变得越来越流行，但是它们在实现绩效结果（例如购买可能性）方面的有效性在实践中差异很大。相关的学术文献是零散的，缺乏定义的一致性和概念的清晰度。本文对化身理论和管理实践做出了三点主要贡献。首先，为了解决关于其定义的歧义，本研究确定并严格评估了“头像”一词的关键概念元素，提供了根据此分析得出的定义，并提供了化身设计元素的类型。其次，拟议的2×2化身分类法表明，化身的形式现实主义和行为现实主义在不同情况下的一致性为化身的有效性提供了简化的解释。第三，作者通过对化身基本要素的见解进行三角剖分，现有研究的综合和商业实践，发展了化身营销的新兴理论。该框架整合了关键的理论见解，研究命题以及对这一扩展的营销策略领域的重要管理意义。最后，作者概述了一个研究计划，以测试命题和见解以及推进未来的研究。