Abstract
As the present consumer market is no longer bound to traditional forms of advertising, it has led to several advancements including marketing through online platforms like digital and social media. One such advertising format that appeals most to the youth is advergames. The younger generation spends lot of time on the internet, giving an opportunity to the marketers to make the best use of this medium. Advergames, which consist of online gaming and advertising, are considered a promising form of reaching the youth market. Therefore, this chapter attempts to deal with the concepts related to advergames and a small empirical study showing the impact of advergames on children. The results of the study showed that there existed a relationship between attitude towards advergames and several variables involved. The relationship was most significant between entertainment and attitude towards advergames. The study of demographic variables showed no significant impact of gender, but there was a significant correlation of age with the persuasion knowledge, escape, and attitude towards advergames.
TopBackground
Affective and Cognitive Responses
There is a concept of advertising literacy which is a part of broad concept of persuasion knowledge (Hudders et al., 2015). Traditionally persuasion knowledge has focussed on cognitive theory developed by psychologists such as Piaget (1929). Therefore, it can be said that advertising literacy comprises of cognitive skills. But recent research has focussed on the affect based nature of advertising content. The affective advertising literacy refers to an automatic affective reaction. In particular, it refers to the innate tendency of individuals to resist persuasion attempts, as they restrict their freedom of choice (van Reijmersdal et al., 2012).
Children’s Emotions
The use of emotions has been recognised since a long time by advertisers. In order to magnify the effectiveness of the memorizing process, the use of emotions is crucial (Tóth & Nagy, 2011). Marketers aim to evoke positive appeal in order to evoke an emotional response. The emotional appeal is significant as there is a strong interplay between non-commercial and commercial content. Such mixed messages create confusion among children as they are not able to distinguish between these mixed messages (Verdoodt et al., 2016). This problem is greater among younger children who cannot distinguish among the two types of messages.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Attitude: A settled way of think or feeling about something.
Advergames: Online games that integrate advertisements into the games in order to influence the customers.
Cognitive: Relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering).
Sociability: It is a state marked by or conducive to friendliness or pleasant social relations.
Escape: To get away from what someone is doing.
BRAND: A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes an organization or product from its rivals in the eyes of the customer.
Advertising: It is an audio or visual form of marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service, or idea.
Persuasion Knowledge: Consumers' beliefs in and knowledge of the marketing system (e.g., production and consumption), a company's goals, marketing strategies, and products.
Affective: Relating to, arising from, or influencing feelings or emotions.