Systems and techniques for employing perceptual characteristic similarity for item replacement in media content are presented. The system can include an identification component, a matching component and a replacement component. The identification component identifies at least a portion of an item in a media file. The matching component determines a replacement item from a set of candidate items based on a comparison between perceptual characteristics associated with the item and corresponding perceptual characteristics associated with the set of candidate items. The replacement component replaces the item in the media file with at least a portion of the replacement item.