Effect of advergames on customers brand memory persuasive intent and brand attitude an empirical study in Indian context

Abstract

newline Embedding promotional messages within the game, called as advergames has got considerable attention from academicians and practitioners in the past. Despite this consideration and the increased use of this medium as a promotion strategy, the current understanding in this area bear some issues, which may leads to various difficulties in advergame-designing and its execution. The major issues pertinent to the current understanding in this area are: firstly, there exist a lot of inconsistencies in research findings and no research attempt has been made to consolidate and integrate the same in marketing literature. This has to be resolved urgently, as with the growing dependence on online advertising and the increased use of advergames as a brand promotion strategy, resolving these inconsistencies will help advertising practitioners to know what factors make advergames more effective. Secondly, there is relatively little scientific evidence regarding what major game-specific and gamer-specific factors influence ad-persuasion and memory. Moreover, how and to what extent these factors create attention, elaboration and thereby subsequent persuasion and memory of the embedded brands in the games? The results are of interest to both academicians and marketing professionals attempting to know what really creates ad-persuasion and memory of the embedded brand, and how it really works. newlineIn response to the above mentioned limitations, this dissertation begins with an introduction to the context under consideration followed by seven essays discussed in detail. In essay 1, considering the first limitation, this dissertation makes an attempt to synthesize and integrate the extant literature in this field and suggest a literature review framework for advergames. Furthermore, it discusses the key issues with current understanding and proposes important game- and gamer-specific factors which should be considered in future studies. Eventually, the essay concludes with nineteen important questions which can be address