Brand recall in the advergaming environment: a cross-country comparison

摘要: Advertisers continually seek new, captivating, and persuasive environments to attain impact on their target audience and maximization of their investment. Electronic games are gaining increasing attention among companies around the world as a new and captivating advertising medium. Electronic games provide an environment with the capability of maintaining players' full attention during the time the game is being played, and represent an excellent niche for advertising. The increasing popularity of electronic games is another reason to consider the use of this medium. In the United States alone, the number of online-game players exceeded 50 million in 2002, and it is expected this number will increase to more than 80 million by 2005 (Fattah and Paul 2002). Players use the medium extensively: According to YaYa (2003), online players spend on average thirteen hours a week playing games. In sum, electronic games are increasingly popular, and the engagement of players is both intensive and extensive. Electronic games involve consumers in ways not possible with other media. Traditional methods of Internet advertising, such as banners and pop-up windows, have not been effective (Olsen 2001; Rodgers 2002). In contrast, advertising in electronic games-also called advergaming-emerges as an alternative advertising technique that offers companies an opportunity to build brand awareness through the promotion of their brands within the graphics of a computer game, gaining prolonged exposure to a target market.