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.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of interactivity and game-product congruence on the players’ feelings of presence and their brand attitude in the context of in-game advertising. Specifically, this research illustrates the conditions under which the brand placements in digital games create attention, engagement, subsequent feelings of presence and brand attitude by drawing the insights from the “limited capacity model of attention,” the “vividness effects theory” and the “transportation theory.” Design/methodology/approach A 2 (interactivity: high or low)×2 (game-product congruence: high or low) between-subject measures design is used. In total, 152 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 game-product congruent game, high interactivity results in greater levels of feelings of presence than a low-interactivity condition. However, for a low game-product congruent game, both high- and low-interactivity conditions result in the same level of presence. Furthermore, the findings also show that for a high game-product congruent game, high interactivity results in more favorable brand attitude than a low-interactivity condition. On the other hand, for a low game-product congruent game, both high- and low-interactivity conditions result in the same level of brand attitude. Research limitations/implications This paper provides implications for theory as well as practice by providing the empirical evidence of the combined effect of game-product congruence and interactivity on feelings of presence and brand attitude from the perspectives of attention, engagement and transportation of experiences in an emerging marketing context like India. The findings are useful for marketing practitioners in terms of effective in-game advertising, designing and execution. Future research can be conducted by exploring the in-game advertising effects of various other variables, such as product-involvement, game-involvement or game-repetition. Originality/value This investigation contributes to the literature of non-traditional advertising media, specifically to the area of branded entertainment, like brand placements in digital games by examining and exploring the influence of game-specific factors on the players’ feelings of presence and brand attitudes. Moreover, this paper is one of the first to reveal the real-time roles of game-specific factors in creating gamers’ feelings of presence and brand attitude from the perspectives of attention, engagement and transportation of experience in an emerging market context like India.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to enhance the knowledge of advertising effects of nature of advergame (game speed) on gamers’ brand recall and attitude. More specifically, this study investigates varying effects of game speed in advergames on young Indian gamers’ brand recall and attitudes under varied game-product congruence and persuasion knowledge conditions from attention, elaboration and persuasion perspectives. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 (nature of advergame: fast or slow) × 2 (game-product congruence: high or low) × 2 (persuasion knowledge: high or low) between-subject measures design is used. Experimental data were collected from 235 Indian graduate students. ANOVAs and MANOVA with pre-planned contrasts are used to test the hypotheses. Findings – The results indicate that for a slow-paced advergame, low game-product congruence result in high brand recall than high game-product congruence. For a fast-paced advergame, there is no difference in brand recall between low game-product congruence and high game-product congruence. Furthermore, findings reveal that for a slow-paced advergame with low game-product congruence, subjects with high persuasion knowledge report high brand recall and less favorable brand attitude than subjects with low persuasion knowledge. On the other hand, for a fast-paced advergame with low game-product congruence, there is no difference in brand recall and brand attitude between the subjects with high persuasion knowledge and the subjects with low persuasion knowledge. Practical implications – The findings of the study are very important for advertising practitioners, as selection of media that fit the advertised product with reference to the nature and content of the media is a planning strategy that has been widely used by media planners. Thus, if advertisers want to create high brand awareness by creating high brand memory, then slow-paced advergames with low congruent brand placements can be chosen as an effective in-game media strategy for online advertising. Additionally, game developers and marketers can plan and develop more effective advergames by taking into account the persuasion knowledge factor so that the implementation would have the strongest positive effect on consumers’ brand recall and brand attitude. Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature of non-traditional media advertising, specifically advergaming context by exploring the impact of nature of game and game-product congruence on gamers’ ad-persuasion. Also, this study is the first attempt to understand how the game speed and its boundary conditions influence gamers’ brand recall and attitude and in attention, elaboration and persuasion perspectives.