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The purpose of this paper is to study motivational effects and age differences of gamification in product advertising. Game-elements can easily be embedded within product advertisements, but little is known about the success factors of this technology. We investigated which motivational incentives of game designs influence the purchase intentions of consumers. The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) was expected to explain purchase intentions for non-gamified sports products, whereas the modified technology acceptance model (Herzig et al., 2012) was expected to predict purchase intentions of gamified sports products.

Participants were 101 consumers who performed sports on a regular basis. Age and prior experience with digital games were assumed to influence the effectiveness of gamification.

Purchase intentions of conventional products were predicted by attitudes, subjective norm and perceived control, whereas purchase intentions of gamified products were predicted by attitudes and the perceived usefulness. Enjoyment and flow were significant mediators between motivational incentives and purchase intentions. Consumers with prior gaming experience had higher purchase intentions for gamified products.

Gamify products for younger target groups with gaming experience; use intrinsic and extrinsic motivational incentives; focus on enjoyment, flow and the perceived usefulness.

Game-elements in sports advertisements might also be suitable for public health campaigns. They may motivate people be more physically active and lead a healthier lifestyle.

This study specifies predictors for purchase intentions of gamified products and emphasizes the importance of flow and enjoyment as mediators. Age differences indicate that young consumers had higher intentions to purchase the gamified product, judged it as more useful and perceived more flow and enjoyment than the older age group.

First January 1973 will not only mark the beginning of a New Year but a year which history will mark as a truly momentous one, for this is the year that Britain, after centuries of absence, re‐enters the framework of Europe as one of the Member‐States of the enlarged European Community. This in itself must make for change on both sides; Britain is so different in outlook from the others, something they too realize and see as an acquisition of strength. There have been other and more limited forms of Continental union, mainly of sovereignty and royal descent. Large regions of France were for centuries under the English Crown and long after they were finally lost, the fleur de lis stayed on the royal coat of arms, until the Treaty of Amiens 1802, when Britain retired behind her sea curtain. The other Continental union was, of course, with Hanover; from here the Germanized descendants of the Stuarts on the female line returned to the throne of their ancestors. This union lasted until 1832 when rules of descent prevented a woman from reigning in Hanover. It is interesting to speculate how different history might have been if only the British Crown and the profits of Tudor and Stuart rule had been maintained in one part of central Europe. However, Britain disentangled herself and built up overwhelming sea power against a largely hostile Europe, of which it was never conceived she could ever be a part, but the wheel of chance turns half‐circle and now, this New Year, she enters into and is bound to a European Community by the Treaty of Rome with ties far stronger, the product of new politico‐economic structures evolved from necessity; in a union which cannot fail to change the whole course of history, especially for this country.