Investigating the Effects of Active Control on Brand Recall Within In-Game Advertising

Abstract

Through the use of an experiment, this research investigates the value of active user control of brand exposure in a racing-style video game, and the moderating effect of brand familiarity. It is found that, for familiar brands only, giving the game player active control to select a branded race car or racetrack results in better recall of the brand compared to low control (passive exposure on a billboard). The effect of active control via brand choice was found for both visual and verbal brand exposures, indicating that the effects are independent of visual placement proximity within the game. The findings are discussed with respect to the limited-capacity model of attention and processing fluency theory, and a conceptual diagram of the relationship between active control, attention, processing fluency, and brand recall is presented.

Keywords:

• in-game advertising
• brand placements

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their assistance during the review process.

FUNDING

Funding provided by the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Missouri was appreciated.