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Gamification has recently become a popular topic in marketing practice. It is perceived as being a promising way to provide improved consumer experiences and to positively influence consumer behavior. An inherent characteristic of gamification is the gameful experience of consumers when using a gamified application. However, no existing measure captures the gameful experience consumers feel when they engage with gamified applications. Based on an extensive literature review and six consecutive studies, the authors develop and validate a new gameful experience scale [GAMEX] for measuring gameful experience in gamification. The results confirm that the GAMEX is a reliable and valid measure, which is useful for both, researchers and practitioners, and easy to apply in different gamification settings.

Foreign branding—or using brand names that evoke foreign associations through, for example, spelling a brand name in a foreign language—is a popular means in both developed and emerging countries of suggesting a specific country of origin (COO) in the hope that it will evoke certain product qualities. As a result, consumers increasingly encounter products with brand names that imply a COO that differs from the actual COO (where the product is manufactured). In four experiments, the authors find support for the hypothesis that incongruence between the actual COO and implied COO decreases purchase likelihood asymmetrically. Incongruence backfires in hedonic categories but has hardly any effect in utilitarian categories. Furthermore, incongruence decreases purchase likelihood more if the actual COO is an emerging rather than developed country. The authors address the psychological process underlying the asymmetric effect of incongruence by showing that consumers apply different information-processing strategies to hedonic versus utilitarian products. These results have important implications for (foreign) branding decisions.

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