Os efeitos de jogar um advergame

: impactos na atitude e nas associações à marca, no recall e na intenção viral

Abstract

Nowadays, the trend towards the standardization of the functional features of products leads brands to a differentiation based in emotional factors. These circumstances justify the increasing use of branded entertainment as a means to emotionally bond brands to positive experiences in the consumers head mind. One of these mechanisms is the use of games to deliver brand messages that engage individuals through an interactive environment. Initially this was made through product placement of brands in existing games. However, a new concept has arisen – the advergame – in which the brand has absolute control over the game and doesn’t have to compete for attention with other competing brands. Being a recent option, this is a relatively unexploited field in independent academic research. This work is a modest attempt to fill that gap. Therefore, using an experimental method, we tested the effect of playing an advergame in the recall of brand, product and logo, in the attitude and associations towards the brand and in the viral intent. A convenience sample of university students was randomly split in two: the treatment and control groups. The first group played the advergame followed by a questionnaire; the second only answered the questionnaire. We have applied descriptive and inductive analyses. Our findings show that the levels of recall are considerably high, the attitude and some associations are positively modified due to the advergame. We have also discovered that the sample is Net Gen and that there is an association between liking the game and the intention to forward it to a friend. We have concluded that the use of advergames is a good alternative to enhance recall and change attitudes towards the brand and associations to it. A high entertaining content should be provided in order to boost the viral intent.

Date of Award	2009
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Andrade (Supervisor)