Enjoyment of Advergames and Brand Attitudes: the Impact of Thematic Relevance

RECEPTIVENESS OF GAMERS TO EMBEDDED BRAND MESSAGES IN ADVERGAMES: ATTITUDES TOWARDS PRODUCT PLACEMENT

Tina Winkler and Kathy Buckner

ABSTRACT: Advergames are increasingly being used as part of a marketing campaign to promote products and brands. Previous research investigating the extent to which game players absorb messages in interactive environments has focused on video and more general online gaming environments. Using a snowball sampling technique we examined the level of recall of products, brands, and companies in advergames and whether the acceptability of product placement in advergames is related to attitude towards advertising in general. Our investigation shows recall of products and companies is high and that being negative about advertising in general has a stronger influence on attitude towards product placement in advergames than being positive about advertising. We conclude that advergames might work more effectively for products and brands that are already known to the game players and that advergames may be more suited to enhancing and altering brand impression rather than building awareness of products that are new to the target audience.

Many types of organizations are starting to use advergames as a part of their marketing strategy. Their aim is to improve branding, to boost product awareness, and collect detailed data about existing and potential customers, clients, and supporters (Afshar, Jones, and Banerjee 2004; Buckner, Fang, and Qiao 2002; Van der Graaf and Nieborg 2003). Despite the growth in adoption of this new form of interactive advertising, relatively little empirical developer/marketer-independent research has been undertaken which focuses specifically on evaluation of the effectiveness of advergames at delivering a promotional message. This study goes some way towards filling that gap by examining: (1) the extent to which people are responsive to advergaming and the message incorporated in advergames; (2) how attitudes...