국내 광고 캐릭터 연구의 지식 구조 탐색: 텍스트 마이닝과 네트워크 분석을 중심으로 = Exploring the Knowledge Structure of Advertising Character Research in Korea: Focusing on Text Mining and Network Analysis

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

‘A single character can carry an entire brand’ this is no longer an overstatement. Brand characters have evolved from simple mascots into strategic assets that forge emotional bonds with consumers, yet a systematic analysis of the knowledge structure underlying advertising character research in Korea remains insufficient. This study applies text mining and keyword network analysis to Korean academic journal articles on advertising characters published between 2000 and 2025. TF analysis identified ‘advertising’ and ‘character’ as the core axes of the field, while TF-IDF analysis revealed ‘brand’ as the keyword with the highest relative importance, confirming its role as a central theoretical construct. CONCOR cluster analysis further identified four clusters advertising communication as a core axis, media content industry, cultural and social expression, and brand/consumer marketing communication reflecting a multilayered knowledge structure. These findings suggest that advertising character research has grown into an interdisciplinary domain intersecting brand management, consumer behavior, cultural studies, and media industry research, and call for future studies on platform-specific character strategies and the cultural appropriateness of AI-generated characters.