Receptiveness of Gamers to Embedded
Brand Messages in Advergames:
Attitudes towards Product Placement
Tina Winkler, Kathy Buckner
Napier University, Edinburgh, UK
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.
Introduction
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 towards product placement might influence receptiveness to the embedded message; and, (3) whether attitudes towards advertising in general are related to attitudes towards product placement in advergames.
Advertising in online games involves the use of interactive gaming technology to deliver embedded advertising messages to the consumer. Increasingly, the term branded entertainment (Deal 2005) is being used as a label for a genre of online entertainment in which the persuasive and entertainment elements of games are integrated and blurred (Grigorovici and Constantin 2004). In this paper we focus on the sub-category of branded entertainment known as advergames. Advergames are online games designed for the specific purpose of marketing a single brand or product. Along with Wallace and Robbins (2006), we differentiate advergames from in-game advertising of multiple products or brands in video games. In advergames the brand or product is generally a central feature of the game, whereas in in-game advertising products are more typically placed in the background of the game (e.g., as fast food restaurants in a street scene, on billboards around a sports stadium, or as logos on sports equipment).
Advergames are normally commissioned by the marketing department of an organization to promote its own brand or product and the game can frequently be accessed via the organization's corporate website. In-game advertising, on the other hand, is increasingly being coordinated through independent gaming organizations, such as Massive Incorporated (http://www.massiveincorporated.com/). These organizations coordinate the selling of in-game advertising and its delivery through dynamic ad-insertion networks (Svahn 2005).
Product Placement
The term product placement is used to refer to the positioning of images of a brand or product in an entertainment medium such as an online game. The phenomenon of positioning products in the entertainment media for marketing purposes is not new. It began in the very early days of the movies with the incorporation of branded products in silent films, progressed into the medium of television in the 1950s, and then in the 1990s moved into the online game environment (Villafranco and Zeltzer 2006). In film and TV, branded products are used to convey a sense of realism to a set or scene. This type of product placement has been carried through into some online game environments where products are used by game characters or integrated into the background of the game scene.
There is a growing body of work examining product placement in advergames. For example Dahl, Eagle, and Baez (2006) review the effect on children, Gould, Gupta, and Grabner-Krauter (2000) comment on cross cultural differences, suggesting that messages are not always transferable across different cultures, and Villafranco and Zeltzer (2006) report on the role of regulators. However, previous studies exploring the usefulness and effectiveness of marketing messages embedded in gaming environments have for the most part used video games or ordinary online games fitted with more or less obvious advertising messages as a basis for their research (Chaney, Lin, and Chaney 2004; Lee 2004; Nelson 2002). Chaney, Lin, and Chaney (2004), for example, looked at the recall of products/brands in billboards embedded in an online game environment. They also investigated whether game experience had an impact on the level of recall and whether the inclusion of billboards affects the game experience. The results of the Chaney, Lin, and Chaney (2004) study showed that brand/product recall was low and depended on the way the products/brands were presented (as pictures or in words). Game experience itself had no positive influence on product/brand recall. The findings of our study on recall of brand messages in advergames will be compared to the findings of the Chaney, Lin, and Chaney (2004) study about the recall of messages from billboards and whether game experience has influenced the level of recall.
Some researchers have investigated the receptiveness of game players to the advertising message. Several studies have attempted to ascertain whether the use of commercial products by game characters has an impact on purchasing behavior (Lee 2004; Nelson 2002; Nelson, Keum, and Yaros 2004). To be able to detect whether game players are positive about product placement in games, most of the studies first look into game players' attitudes towards product placement in general. Nelson, Keum, and Yaros (2004) determined that those who are negative about advertising in general are also negative about advertising in games and vice versa. They also noted that players are more positive about brands in games with added realism and that product placements seem to be more effective when used in more subtle ways. When used inappropriately, players tended to reject the product placement. This finding was also confirmed in a study of Hispanic attitudes towards advergames (Hernandez et al. 2004). Nelson, Keum, and Yaros (2004) also observed a weak correlation between attitudes toward advertising and purchase behavior. Favorable attitudes toward advertising had a positive effect on the individuals' consumption behavior. The results of Nelson, Keum, and Yaros' (2004) study into how attitudes towards advertising in general influenced attitudes towards advertising in games are taken as a starting point against which to evaluate the findings of this research into attitudes towards product placement in advergames.
Advergames and Product Integration Strategies
Chen and Ringel (2001) suggest that advergames should be assessed against three critical factors: the message, the medium, and the money. This study is concerned with the first of these: the message. It investigates the extent to which online game players can recall the company, the brand, and the product that is incorporated into the advergame and whether level of recall might depend on different influences such as online game experience. In conjunction with message receptiveness, we investigate whether individuals' attitudes towards advertising in general influences their attitudes towards advertising in games.
To be able to analyze how a message can be delivered effectively through advergaming, it is essential to know about the different methods that are used to integrate a product or brand into an online game. Advergames are frequently used to boost brand awareness among its players and get them engaged in the product. To do so, the brand needs to be successfully incorporated into the gaming environment. This can occur to various degrees. Chen and Ringel (2001) have distinguished between three levels of integration of the product in advergames, ranging from associative to illustrative to demonstrative.
The lowest level of integration is considered to be associative. In this case, the product or brand is linked to a certain lifestyle or a particular activity featured in the game. Most commonly this is realized by displaying the logo or product of a company in the background. For example, Jack Daniel's launched a billiard game where its logo was imprinted on and around the pool table. Another example would be a soccer game where banner ads of breweries would appear around the stadium, because in many countries drinking beer while watching a soccer game is closely related. This format is most suitable when the brand image is reinforced by the content or theme of the game (Chen and Ringel 2001)
Illustrative integration can be considered the second level of brand incorporation. Here, the product itself plays a significant role in the game play (Chen and Ringel 2001). For example, Lego uses Lego characters in its online games.
The highest level of brand incorporation is represented by demonstrative integration. This concept allows the player to experience the product in its natural context that is reproduced in the gaming environment. Thus, the participant has the opportunity to interact with the features of the product, to "live and feel" it within its virtual boundaries, or to select from a range of products. In a Nike game, the player could select a shoe model for a virtual character in the opening sequence of the game which would then demonstrate the various features of the different shoe models within the game (Chen and Ringel 2001). Another example would be a digital racing game which enables the player to select a car model whose performance could then be compared with that of other models during the course of the race.
Svahn (2005) is somewhat critical of Chen and Ringel's (2001) categorization and suggests that the categories are not mutually exclusive in that different strategies can be successfully combined in a single game. Notwithstanding this limitation, the decision about which design concept is most appropriate to best communicate the brand message depends on the nature of the product on the one hand and on the scope of the marketing campaign on the other hand. Associative and illustrative concepts are generally lower-priced alternatives to call attention to a particular product and thus increase brand awareness in existing and potential customers. The demonstrative approach usually requires a sophisticated and customized game concept that is comparatively expensive to develop and maintain, but gets the customer more involved with the product through its interactive component and will thus leave a deeper impression. This study uses three online games each of which incorporates a different one of the product integration strategies discussed above.
Research Questions
Given the increasing level of adoption of advergames as a marketing communication medium, it is important to investigate the extent to which people are responsive to advergaming and the message incorporated in advergames. Furthermore, we need to understand how attitudes towards product placement might influence receptiveness to the embedded message. And finally we need to know whether attitudes towards advertising in general are related to attitudes towards product placement in advergames. In this exploratory study we use the following research questions to investigate these issues:
RQ1: What is the level of recall of products and brands?
RQ2: Is attitude towards product placement related to attitude towards advertising in general?
The last research question was investigated by Nelson, Keum, and Yaros (2004). Their findings were that individuals who had a favorable attitude towards advertising in general, also indicated a favorable behavior towards product placement in games. Individuals who were negative about advertising, were also negative about advertising in games. The results of our study challenge their findings and suggest further work is needed.
Method
The method used in this exploratory study adopted a social survey research strategy and employed an online questionnaire to elicit data from a snowball sample of advergame players. This form of sampling is often used when it is impossible to identify beforehand all those who might fall into the project's category of interest (Hall and Hall 1996). Within this project, snowball sampling was used in a slightly different way. Since the research described in this paper was part of a larger study that also investigated the use and efficiency of distributing advergames by viral email, snowball sampling was deployed to be able to recreate the process of viral emailing or viral marketing, a concept that is widely used by a lot of companies to distribute their advergames. One of the problems with using snowball sampling is the fact that it is unlikely to obtain a representative sample, because there is no real control of the snowball effect. However, snowball sampling is the only sampling method that allows us to test the viral effect in relation to advergaming by exploiting existing social networks between people.
An initial sample of 80 individuals was used, mostly acquaintances of one of the researchers. No particular criteria were employed to select the participants. The only limitation was that participants should be of an appropriate age, and hence for ethical reasons no children or teenagers were included in the study. Table 1 provides an overview of the initial sample. As can be seen, the majority of participants (87.5%; n=70/80) were German and in their twenties (matching the profile of the researcher selecting them) and almost three quarters (71.25%; n=57/80) were male.
Table 1. Sample Attributes
The survey was set up in such a way that participants had to play an advergame first and then fill out the questionnaire. The questionnaire required responses related to the game play, their gaming experience, their attitudes towards advertising in general, and towards advertising in games specifically. Participants had the choice of three different advergames that were introduced with a small picture, and a short introductory paragraph. Respondents could play the selected game as many times as they wanted before completing the questionnaire. Game 1 is a sports game and featured the BMW X3 (http://demos.skyw.com/bmw/). In the first part the player has to drive the BMW through a hilly countryside to the site of a sports challenge. Thus, the player has the possibility to experience the car in its natural setting. Before starting, the player can ‘explore' the car inside out and can obtain a lot of information about certain parts of the car such as the engine and the interior. Furthermore, s/he can choose the favorite color, thus revealing some personal preferences. In the second part of the game, the player has to complete a virtual sports challenge involving mountain biking, canoeing, or snow boarding. Throughout the game, the X3 or BMW logo is consistently displayed along the course or on various objects. This game utilizes a demonstrative approach to present the product.
Game 2 is a golf game and is sponsored by Nabisco (http://www.nabiscoworld.com/Games/game_large.aspx?gameid=10010). Instead of playing on a golf course, the player has to maneuver the golf ball around various objects that might be found on a desktop such as documents, office equipment, games, toys, foods, etc. Different kind of Nabisco cookies and crackers are promoted in this game in an illustrative way, i.e. the cookies are integrated in the game play. With each of the 18 holes a different kind of cookie or cracker including its wrapping or packaging is displayed. The Nabisco logo appears throughout the game.
Game 3 is a puzzle
or strategy game. It promotes M&M's candies
(http://mms.kewlbox.com/online.cfm?gameId=71).
The goal is to get three candies of the same color or kind in
a row to get points. The game runs through several levels and
uses a simple but very addictive game play format. The M&Ms
are promoted using an associative approach, i.e. they are only
displayed. It is not possible to acquire any further information
about the product itself.
All three games offered the option to forward the game to a friend or challenge a friend with a high score. Furthermore, game 1 required registration before playing whereas game 2 and 3 could be played straight away.
Results and Discussion
Forty-two questionnaires were collected over a one-month period. Chart 1 shows that 83% (n=35/42) of respondents were in the age range 21 to 30. The majority of respondents, 83% (n=35/42) were male and 52% (n=22/42) of the participants were students. The nationality of respondents also closely matched o the initial target sample with 85.7% (n=36/42) being of German origin.
Chart 1. Gender and Age of Respondents
An overall response rate of 52% (n=42/80) seems to be quite
high at first glance. But considering that the data collection
was based on a snowball effect as described earlier, then the
response rate is lower than initially expected. There are various
reasons that might account for this. The individuals selected
for the sample might not have been the right audience for advergames,
i.e. they lacked interest, or they did not have the appropriate
technical equipment, such as Internet access or up-to-date computer
soft- and hardware. However, it is known that at least 10 participants
forwarded the game link including the questionnaire to around
250 friends and acquaintances. This is known, because participants
were asked to include a specific email address when forwarding
the link by email. Thus, it was possible to detect how the viral
or snowball effect progressed. Furthermore, the viral distribution
or effect could be observed through the questionnaire itself.
While submitting the questionnaire, the current date was stored
in a separate database table. Chart 2 shows how many questionnaires
were submitted per day and provides limited evidence of a snowball
effect in that it could be reasoned that the smaller peaks were
triggered by individuals forwarding the game link and thus challenging
individuals beyond the initial sample to play the game and take
part in the survey.
Chart 2. Dispersion of questionnaire (survey start:10/03/05; survey end:12/04/05)
In spite of the requirement to register for it, half of all respondents (50%; n=21/42) chose game 1 (BMW game), 33% (n=14/42) selected game 2 (Nabisco golf game) and 17% (n=7/42) played game 3 (M&M's). Most of the participants played the games only once before submitting the questionnaire (Chart 3).
Chart 3: Allocation of players to games and number of game plays
Receptiveness of Online Gamers to Embedded Brand Messages
This study attempted to investigate the receptiveness of advergame players to the more or less subliminal advertising messages that were incorporated into the game and whether game experience has any influence on the level of brand or product recall. Since two of the main purposes of advergames are to introduce new brands and to boost brand awareness in general, it is of great importance to investigate whether this works at all. This was examined by asking respondents to enter the name of the company, the brand, and what kind of product was supported in the game, if they could remember. The overall level of recall was high with only six players (14%) not recalling any of the three categories. Three of those had played game 1 and the other three played game 2. All users that had played game 3 (M&M) had remembered at least one of the three categories. This could be an indication that an advertising message combined with very simple and easy game play might be a very effective concept, because players do not get so engrossed in the game play that they simply ‘miss' the advertising messages.
Table 2 illustrates the recall of company, brand, and product between the three different games. The level of recall of the company name in game 2 was below that in the other games. The reason for this might be that most of the questionnaire respondents were from Germany, and the Nabisco company, brands, and products are not well known in Germany. However, these results can only be taken as an indication of an association between familiarity and recall because other variables such as the way the products were advertised in the games could have influenced these results. Nevertheless, it might suggest that advergames could be more effective when used in combination with an overall marketing strategy instead of being used as a stand-alone tool. Thus, advergames may be more suitable for use in enhancing brand value, rather than for building brand awareness for a product that is new to its target audience.
Table 2. Level of Recall of Company Name, Product, and Brand by Game
Players were also asked whether they had seen any kind of company logos in the game and if yes where it was placed; 86% (n=36/42) remembered seeing a logo and 97% of those (n=35/36) could recall at least one position of the logo within the game (Table 3).
Table 3. Level of Recall of Position of Company or Brand Logo
The level of recall from advergames is quite favorable when compared to recall from video games. Chaney, Lin, and Chaney (2004) investigated the level of brand and product recall in video games where advertising was integrated in the form of embedded billboards. In that study although players could recall passing the billboards, half of the players could not recall the names of either the products or the brands after the gaming session. This is potentially an inbuilt advantage for advergames in that they only promote one brand or product instead of several as in the case of advertising in video games. However, as recall from advergames is higher they might be considered to be the better tool for advertising in games at least at the level of promoting company or product recall.
Attitude towards Product Placement in Online Games
To be able to assess whether the concept of advergames appealed to the respondents at all, their attitude towards advertising in general was measured. In doing this we wished to ascertain whether players' opinions towards product placement in games could be traced back to their opinions about advertising in general.
The various attitudes were tested with five-point, Likert-type scale items (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree). Attitude towards advertising in general was measured with four questions:
1. I hate
watching ads on television.
2. While watching a TV program, I frequently flip the channels
to escape watching ads.
3. Ads provide information about products.
4. Ads can be entertaining.
Questions three and four were reverse coded to cross check whether respondents ‘clicked their way through the response set' using one response on the scale. The questions were adopted from Nelson, Keum, and Yaros (2004) to facilitate comparison and extension of the results. The responses were evaluated using mean scores. The higher the mean score, the more unfavorable the attitude. Applying this technique, it became apparent that 50% (n=21/42) of the respondents were negative about advertising in general, while 29% (n=12/42) were positive about advertising and 21% (n=9/42) were undecided about advertising in general. The mean score for the first two questions was 4.0 with a standard deviation of 1.01. The mean score for questions three and four together was 2.4 with a standard deviation of 0.70.
Attitude towards product placement in games was measured through two indicators presented in the following questions:
1. I generally
prefer games that do not have product placement in them to those
that do.
2. I don't mind if brand name products appear in games.
These questions were also adopted from the study by Nelson, Keum, and Yaros (2004) to be able to better compare and extend the results of the studies. Question two is reverse coded. Once again mean scores were used to evaluate the responses. Fifty percent (n=21/42) of the participants indicated that they were negative about advertising in games, 29% (n=12/42) were positive about advertising in games, and 21% (n=9/42) were undecided about advertising in games. Although the results correspond exactly with the results about advertising in general this may be misleading. By looking in more depth at the data, we discovered that 71% (n=15/21) of the participants that were negative about advertising in general were also negative about advertising in games. On the other hand, only 50% (n=6/12) of the participants that were positive about advertising in general were also positive about advertising in games. This suggests that the majority of individuals who are negative about advertising in general are also negative about advertising in games. But individuals who are positive about advertising in general are not necessarily positive about advertising in games. Although the sample size was very small this may be an indication that a negative feeling in terms of advertising influences people more strongly in their behavior than a positive feeling. This finding challenges the previous work by Nelson, Keum, and Yaros (2004) which suggests that individuals who had favorable attitudes towards advertising in general were more likely to report favorable attitudes towards product placement in games.
Conclusion and Future Research
This exploratory study has three outcomes which are of relevance to marketing strategists:
First, the results suggest that players of advergames are very receptive to the advertising message or at least to the product or company that is displayed within the game. It is also evident that players remember quite a lot of details, such as the different locations of the logo. The level of recall can be considered high when compared to the results of the study of advertising in online-games undertaken by Chaney, Lin, and Chaney (2004). This might be because even though most advergames are based on a concept that is engrossing and keeps the player immersed in the game, the game play itself is generally simple and straightforward. Thus, the user is not so involved in dealing with the game concept and can subconsciously focus better on the advertising messages.
Second, our findings suggest that advergames might work more effectively for brands that are already known to the game player in some way. Thus, advergames may be more suitable to enhance and alter the brand impression instead of building brand awareness for a product that is new to the target audience.
Third, this study revealed that the majority of respondents that were negative about advertising in general were also negative about advertising in games. But individuals who were positive about advertising in general were not necessarily positive about advertising in games. We tentatively suggest that being negative about advertising in general has a stronger influence on the attitude towards product placement in games than being positive about advertising in general.
These insights may assist marketing strategists in their efforts to determine how advergames should be positioned in the context of a marketing campaign.
The outcomes of this study need to be considered within the context of its limitations. First, the sample was skewed toward German males. Second, the number of respondents was relatively small (n=42) and with such a small sample it was deemed inappropriate to undertake statistical testing. Any future studies should recruit a larger and more representative sample so that more robust results and conclusions can be drawn. There are several uncontrolled variables which may have affected the results of the study. For example, participants were free to choose any of the three games and were also allowed to play the games as many times as they wished; these factors may have affected the level of product or brand recall.
It would be worth extending the research to investigate whether advergames are more effective and efficient in promoting already know brands rather than supporting the introduction of new brands or brands that are new to the target audience. It appears that game players can more easily remember products to which they had previously been exposed. Thus, it might also be easier for the game player to connect new information that is provided within the game to the promoted product. It would also be worth investigating more systematically whether the kind of brand integration used in advergames ranging from associative to demonstrative makes a difference in the level of brand recall, and for what kind of products advergames would work most efficiently. In terms of brand or product recall it would also be interesting to compare whether targeting a game to a specific demographic makes a difference to the receptiveness of players to the advertising message.
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About the Authors
Tina Winkler studied for a diploma at Ulm University in Germany prior to graduating with a BSc (Hons) in Computing at Napier University in 2005. Her final year project was based on a study of advergames.
Kathy Buckner is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems in the School of Computing at Napier University, Edinburgh. Her research interest lies predominantly in the domain of social informatics. She has a special interest in the role, use, and exploitation of social networks in organizations and domestic environments.
