Transferring game attitudes to the brand: persuasion from age 6 to 14

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to replicate previous findings regarding the differential impact of TV advertising and advergames on children's brand attitudes and pester intentions. Using a large data-set (N = 940, M_age = 9.8, SD = 2.4), with children ranging between 6 and 14 years old, the influence of passive exposure to TV advertising is compared to active exposure to an advergame. In addition, the potential moderating effect of age is explored. In a between-participants experiment, Flemish children were randomly assigned to watch a TV ad, play an advergame, or a no marketing control condition. Results revealed that children who had played the advergame reported significantly more positive brand attitudes compared to children who had watched the TV ad and children in the no advertising exposure control group. Children's pester intent was significantly higher for the advergame compared to the TV ad, but not compared to the no advertising exposure control group. The findings further showed that children's attitudes towards the ad format mediate the impact of the advertising format on pester intent. The advergame was indirectly more persuasive than the TV ad since children reported more positive attitudes towards the advergame compared to the TV advertisement. Moreover, this mediation effect did not differ by children's age. Persuasion knowledge did not mediate the influence of the advertising format on pester intent since children's persuasion knowledge was not significantly related to pester intentions regardless of children's age.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• adolescents
• TV advertising
• advergames
• advertising format
• age differences
• advertising processing
• affective responses

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Images of the experimental TV commercial and advergame can be retrieved from the authors.

2. In the control group, 67% preferred Kellogg's Coco-Pops over three other similar brands, compared to 75% in the advergame group, and 66% in the TV ad group. However, further analysis of brand preference lies outside of the scope of this study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Evy Neyens

Evy Neyens is a PhD student at the Institute for Media Studies at KU Leuven where she studies the influence of food marketing on children.

Tim Smits

Dr. Tim Smits is an associate professor in persuasion and marketing communication at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the KU Leuven.

Emma Boyland

Dr. Emma Boyland is a lecturer at the Institute of Psychology, Health and Society at the University of Liverpool.