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1 – 10 of over 1000
Article
Publication date: 15 February 2021

Devika Vashisht, HFO Surindar Mohan, Abhishek Chauhan and Raveesh Vashisht

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of game-product fit on brand advocacy and mediating role of thought favorability in fit and brand advocacy relationship in…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of game-product fit on brand advocacy and mediating role of thought favorability in fit and brand advocacy relationship in the context of in-game advertising (IGA) using congruity theory and heuristic systematic model. This expounds the conditions under which in-game brand placements form favorable or unfavorable thoughts about the game and the advertised brand, and following brand advocacy.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 144 student-gamers participated in the study. One-way ANOVA and a path analysis were used for hypotheses testing.

Findings

Results showed that the high-fit game resulted in higher thought favorability and greater levels of brand advocacy than the low-fit game. Furthermore, results also revealed that thought favorability mediated the relationship of game-product fit and brand advocacy among players.

Research limitations/implications

Research on IGA is still in its relative infancy, and how gamers respond to brand placements in games has yet to be fully established. This paper’s theoretical implications are primarily in the context of in-game advertising and explain the role played by game-product fit as an originator to thought favorability that further adds value to thought favorability and brand advocacy relationship.

Practical implications

The study offers important implications for marketers, advertisers, policy-makers in terms of effective game-designing and IGA execution.

Originality

Since very little research has been done focusing on mediating role of thought favorability in game-product fit and brand advocacy relationship in the context of IGA from attention and elaboration perspectives, this paper scores as a pioneering study of its kind in India.

Details

Arts and the Market, vol. 11 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-4945

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 May 2018

Devika Vashisht and Surinder Mohan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of game-speed on brand attitude and mediating role of thought favorability in the speed-attitude relationship in the context…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of game-speed on brand attitude and mediating role of thought favorability in the speed-attitude relationship in the context of in-game advertising (IGA). Specifically, this investigation employs the Limited Capacity Model of Attention and the heuristic-systematic model to explain the conditions under which in-game brand placements form favorable or unfavorable thoughts about the game and the embedded brand, and subsequent brand attitude.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 78 student-gamers participated in the study. One-tailed independent-samples t-tests and a path analysis were used for hypothesis testing.

Findings

Results revealed that fast-paced games resulted in higher thought favorability and more favorable brand attitude than the slow-paced games. Furthermore, the results also showed that thought favorability mediated the relationship of game-speed and brand attitude among Indian gamers.

Research limitations/implications

This paper adds to advertising literature from a non-traditional advertising perspective, primarily in the context of IGA, and explains the role played by game-speed as an antecedent to thought favorability that adds value to thought favorability and brand attitude relationship. Also, the study provides an important implication for the marketers that to generate more positive brand attitudes and high favorable thoughts, advertisers and game-developers must focus on high-speed games.

Originality/value

This study is the first in its stream toward understanding the mediating role of thought favorability in determining the persuasion effect on Indian gamers’ brand attitude in the context of online advertising from attention and elaboration perspectives.

Details

Arts and the Market, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-4945

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 February 2019

Devika Vashisht, Marla B. Royne and Sreejesh S.

Advergames, or integrated brand messages within digital games, have received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. Despite increased use of advergames as a…

3263

Abstract

Purpose

Advergames, or integrated brand messages within digital games, have received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. Despite increased use of advergames as a brand promotion strategy by a range of well-known brands, limited understanding exists about a number of issues related to the effective use of such games. This paper aims to critically review the literature on advergames by performing a detailed analysis of existing research in this area and propose an organizing framework. Based on this framework, the authors discuss key issues with current understanding and propose important questions for future research.

Design/methodology/approach

This literature review follows Webster and Watson’s (2002) concept-driven systematic review methodology elaborating on the key antecedents and consequences identified in advergame studies (what we know: current knowledge), followed by the discussion of key factors that should be investigated as antecedents and consequences (literature gaps).

Findings

This paper presents a review and synthesis of advergame studies based on Terlutter and Capella’s (2013) integrated marketing communication framework. It identifies game, individual and social factors and suggests how these factors could affect a consumer’s brand-related cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral responses. The authors further propose an advergame framework that identifies two different “unit of analysis” (antecedents and consequences of game factors and antecedents and consequences of individual and social factors), which can be used by scholars to center their research efforts in a more detailed fashion.

Research limitations/implications

Research questions posed in this literature review indicate that future research in the area of advergames should focus on investigating the effects of various game, individual and social factors on consumers’ cognitive, affective and behavioral responses.

Practical implications

The advergame framework provided here provides firms with a guide to the factors that may affect their consumers’ cognitive, affective and behavioral responses and helps them in developing effective advergames.

Originality/value

The paper provides a comprehensive review of the advergame literature that has not been done before and develops a general advergame framework that can be applied in all contexts and will guide future studies in the area. Overall, the study helps the researchers to identify critical issues and concepts related to advergames and shapes future research in the field.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 53 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 June 2018

Jennifer L. Lemanski and Jorge Villegas

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of personal relevance, source credibility and advertising appeal type on the emotional and cognitive processing of a direct to…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of personal relevance, source credibility and advertising appeal type on the emotional and cognitive processing of a direct to consumer pharmaceutical ad for a meningitis vaccine.

Design/methodology/approach

A 2 × 2 experiment was used, and path analysis was undertaken to test the hypotheses.

Findings

Resultant models indicated that unvaccinated (more at risk) and vaccinated (less at risk) participants are persuaded through different pathways. More specifically, vaccinated participants rely more on message credibility than creative strategy to form their cognitive evaluation of the message, whereas non-vaccinated subjects’ cognitive evaluations of the message depend on creative strategy (advertising appeal type) more than message credibility. Differences between individuals who were certain of the vaccine status and those who were not certain of their vaccine status were also apparent. Implications and areas for future research are also presented.

Practical implications

When using direct to consumer pharmaceutical ad for a vaccine, advertisers should take into account the perceived risk level of and relevance to audience members.

Originality/value

Personal relevance and risk are issues which impact the effectiveness of different types of advertising appeals, but less prior research has focused on this aspect of the target audience for direct to pharmaceutical vaccine advertisements.

Details

International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, vol. 12 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-6123

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 September 2017

Seth Ketron and Kelly Naletelich

Although vanity sizing has often been conceptualized as “smaller is better” in apparel sizing, this perspective is limited in that many products would be more negatively perceived…

1155

Abstract

Purpose

Although vanity sizing has often been conceptualized as “smaller is better” in apparel sizing, this perspective is limited in that many products would be more negatively perceived if viewed as smaller in size. In such scenarios, “larger is better” would be a more appropriate heuristic. Thus, vanity sizing should be redefined as a practice in achieving social desirability in size labeling. Namely, vanity sizing actually seeks to induce feelings of either smallness or largeness depending on the context. The purpose of this paper is to address this redefinition.

Design/methodology/approach

The current research provides initial empirical support of this redefinition with two studies that utilize a blended qualitative/quantitative approach and a hypothetical product scenario in which “larger is better” (bras).

Findings

Study 1 indicates that consumers seek to feel smaller and larger across different bodily areas. Further, study 2 found that compared to consumers of larger cup sizes, consumers of smaller cup sizes react more favorably to larger-than-typical cup sizes, forming more positive cognitive/affective reactions. Further, these cognitive/affective reactions influence purchase intentions, confirming findings of prior literature concerning attitudes and purchase intentions. Overall, the findings support the need to redefine vanity sizing.

Originality/value

The present conceptualization of vanity sizing is too narrow and limits understanding of the implications of vanity sizing across all sizing situations. Thus, this paper redefines vanity sizing and furnishes empirical evidence that such redefinition is warranted.

Details

Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1361-2026

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 June 2019

Minji Kim and Joseph N. Cappella

In the field of public relations and communication management, message evaluation has been one of the starting points for evaluation and measurement research at least since the…

Abstract

Purpose

In the field of public relations and communication management, message evaluation has been one of the starting points for evaluation and measurement research at least since the 1970s. Reliable and valid message evaluation has a central role in message effects research and campaign design in other disciplines as well as communication science. The purpose of this paper is to offer a message testing protocol to efficiently acquire valid and reliable message evaluation data.

Design/methodology/approach

A message testing protocol is described in terms of how to conceptualize and evaluate the content and format of messages, in terms of procedures for acquiring and testing messages and in terms of using efficient, reliable and valid measures of perceived message effectiveness (PME) and perceived argument strength (PAS). The evidence supporting the reliability and validity of PME and PAS measures is reviewed.

Findings

The message testing protocol developed and reported is an efficient, reliable and valid approach for testing large numbers of messages.

Research limitations/implications

Researchers’ ability to select candidate messages for subsequent deeper testing, for various types of communication campaigns, and for research in theory testing contexts is facilitated. Avoiding the limitations of using a single instance of a message to represent a category (also known as the case-category confound) is reduced.

Practical implications

Communication campaign designers are armed with tools to assess messages and campaign concepts quickly and efficiently, reducing pre-testing time and resources while identifying “best-in-show” examples and prototypes.

Originality/value

Message structures are conceptualized in terms of content and format features using theoretically driven constructs. Measures of PAS and PME are reviewed for their reliability, construct and predictive validity, finding that the measures are acceptable surrogates for actual effectiveness for a wide variety of messages and applications. Coupled with procedures that reduce confounding by randomly nesting messages within respondents and respondents to messages, the measures used and protocol deployed offer an efficient and utilitarian approach to message testing and modeling.

Details

Journal of Communication Management, vol. 23 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-254X

Keywords

Content available

Abstract

Details

Arts and the Market, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-4945

Article
Publication date: 19 July 2021

Devika Vashisht

The motivation behind the study is to look at the impact of novelty in games on brand recall and attitude, and to dissect the directing job of game interactivity from the points…

Abstract

Purpose

The motivation behind the study is to look at the impact of novelty in games on brand recall and attitude, and to dissect the directing job of game interactivity from the points of view of “contrast effect,” “engagement theory” and “transportation theory”.

Design/methodology/approach

A 2 (novelty: congruent or incongruent) × 2 (game interactivity: high or low) between-subject measures design was used. In total, 172 management students participated in the study. A 2 × 2 between-subjects measure multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was utilized to test the hypotheses.

Findings

Incongruent novelty results in higher brand recall but less favorable brand attitude than congruent novelty. Interactivity moderates the relationship between novelty congruence and brand recall such that in a high-interactivity condition, incongruent novelty results in higher brand recall than that in the low-interactivity condition. But, in case of the high-interactivity condition, congruent novelty results in more favorable brand attitude than that in the low-interactivity condition.

Practical implications

Developing high brand recall rates and attitudes are the prime objectives of the marketers for choosing a medium to advertise their brands. This investigation adds knowledge to the area of interactive marketing, particularly in-game advertising as a media technique to promote brands taking novelty and game interactivity factors into thought.

Originality/value

From the perspectives of interactive marketing, psychological elaboration, mind-engagement and transportation of experience, this investigation adds to the literature of advanced media advertising, explicitly to in-game advertising by looking at the effect of novelty and game interactivity.

Details

Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7122

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 April 2023

Xiaohan Wen and S. Sinem Atakan

This study aims to examine consumers’ responses to crowdsourcing campaigns in the request initiation stage using the signaling theory from economics. The purpose of the research…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine consumers’ responses to crowdsourcing campaigns in the request initiation stage using the signaling theory from economics. The purpose of the research is threefold. First, it provides a comprehensive classification of various task types within crowdsourcing. Second, it conceptualizes crowdsourcing announcements as signals of customer orientation and empirically tests the differential effects of the two most common crowdsourcing task types (product- and communication-related) on customer orientation perceptions. Third, it illuminates the downstream behavioral consequences of crowdsourcing campaign announcements.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted secondary data analysis of 883 crowdsourcing campaigns (pilot study) to provide evidence on the differential effects of crowdsourcing task types. In addition, four laboratory experiments were conducted to test the theoretical arguments. To test the main effect of crowdsourcing task types, Study 1A (N = 252 MTurk workers) used a one-factor (product- vs communication-related crowdsourcing vs control) between-subject design, whereas Study 1B (N = 171 undergraduate students) used a 2 (task type: product- vs communication-related) by 2 (product category: restaurant vs fashion) between-subject design. Study 2 (N = 93 MTurk workers) explored the underlying mechanism using a one-factor (product- vs communication-related) between-subject design. Study 3 (N = 375 MTurk workers) investigated the boundary condition for the effect of task type with a 2 (task type: product- vs communication-related) by 3 (company credibility: low vs neutral vs high) between-subject design.

Findings

The pilot study provides evidence for the conceptualized typology and the differential effects of crowdsourcing task types. Study 1A reveals that product-related crowdsourcing tends to have a more substantial impact than communication-related crowdsourcing on how customer-oriented consumers perceive a company. Study 1B validates the results of Study 1A in a different product category and population sample. Study 2 shows that the differential customer-orientation effect is mediated by the perceived cost of implementing the crowdsourcing outcome and unravels the differences in consumers’ purchase and campaign participation intentions depending on task type. Study 3 highlights that the customer-orientation effect attenuates as company credibility increases.

Research limitations/implications

This research contributes to the crowdsourcing literature by categorizing the various types of crowdsourcing campaigns companies undertake and revealing the differential impact of the different types of crowdsourcing campaigns on consumers’ perceptions and behavioral intentions. In doing so, this research converges two lines of consumer research on crowdsourcing, i.e. product- and communication-related crowdsourcing. The findings add to the debate over the returns from research and development (R&D) versus advertising and extend it from marketing strategy to crowdsourcing literature.

Practical implications

The findings highlight the importance of choosing specific task types for crowdsourcing and lead to practical recommendations on designing crowdsourcing campaigns to maximize their benefits to crowdsourcing brands.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that differentiates crowdsourcing task types and compares their effectiveness from a consumer perspective.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 57 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 October 2019

Devika Vashisht

The purpose of this paper is to examine the combined effect of game-interactivity and game-product congruence on consumers’ brand advocacy and brand acceptance in the context of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the combined effect of game-interactivity and game-product congruence on consumers’ brand advocacy and brand acceptance in the context of in-game advertising.

Design/methodology/approach

A 2 (interactivity: high or low)×2 (game-product congruence: high or low) between-subject measures design is used. In total, 140 students participated in the study. A 2×2 between-subjects multivariate analysis of variance is used to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The results reveal that for a high-interactive game, congruent condition results in higher brand advocacy and superior brand acceptance than the incongruent condition. However, for a low-interactive game, both congruent and incongruent conditions will result in the same level of brand advocacy as well as equal levels of brand acceptance.

Research limitations/implications

This paper provides implications for theory as well as practice by providing the empirical evidence of the combined effect of game-interactivity and game-product congruence on consumers’ brand advocacy and brand acceptance from the perspective of attention and elaboration. If higher brand advocacy and greater brand acceptance are the objectives of the brand managers, then a high interactive with congruent brand placements would be the right approach for effective advergames.

Originality/value

This investigation contributes to non-traditional advertising media literature, specifically to the area of branded entertainment, like brand placements in digital games by examining and exploring the influence of game-specific factors on players’ brand advocacy and brand acceptance. Moreover, this paper is one of the first to reveal the real-time roles of game-specific factors in generating gamers’ brand advocacy and brand acceptance from the perspectives of attention and elaboration, in an emerging marketing context, like India.

Details

Arts and the Market, vol. 9 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-4945

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 1000