Do social advergames affect brand attitudes and advocacy?

Abstract

Advergames have been used for some time as a form of branded entertainment designed to engage prospective customers in a branded activity for an extended period of time. Increasingly, advergames are imbued with social qualities related to the rise in popularity of social media, especially social networking. Despite the popularity of social advergames, little is known about the brand benefits of incorporating social features into games. Moreover, while creativity has been studied in the context of more traditional advertising, less is known about its effects on brand development in the context of advergames. Although advertising creativity, as characterized by novelty and relevance, has been shown to impact advertised brands, it is not clear how creativity interacts with advergame socialness to affect brand development. To address these gaps in the literature, this paper reports on three experimental studies that compare the brand effects of advergames that enable social interactions to advergames that are not social. The results indicate that relative to non-social advergames, social advergames result in more positive game attitudes, attitudes toward the brand sponsor, and brand advocacy, particularly when advergames are novel. Finally, this article discusses implications for managers and directions for future research.

Keywords:

• advergames
• brand attitudes
• brand advocacy
• advertising creativity

Notes

^1. Email: [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tracy L. Tuten

Tracy L. Tuten (PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University) is Full Professor of Marketing at East Carolina University where she teaches and conducts research on social media marketing and advertising. She is the author of Social Media Marketing.

Christy Ashley

Christy Ashley (PhD, University of Rhode Island) is Assistant Professor of Marketing at East Carolina University. Her research is focused on consumer-brand relationships and customer experience management.