A new frontier: alcohol sponsorship activation through esports

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of alcohol sponsorship-linked advertising through esports upon young gaming audiences and how gaming behaviours affect advertising response.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey study was employed to examine the prevalence and nature of alcohol advertising in esports, and the impact of esports participation upon young audiences' consumption and preferences concerning alcohol. Survey data were collected from 976 young Australian gamers aged between 16 and 34 years (58.9% male) using online questionnaires.FindingsResults revealed a vulnerability to alcohol sponsorship and advertising among 25 to 34-year-old and heavy gamer cohorts. As predicted, heavy gamers were more receptive to alcohol advertising in terms of awareness, preference and consumption while gaming than casual gamers.Practical implicationsThis research advances theories of consumer behaviour and advertising exposure situated in a new landscape of converging virtual and real experiential marketing. It also provides much-needed evidence to guide marketing strategy to the next-generation audiences and regulation of new and burgeoning digital platforms. Our research also highlights a need for policy to address the burgeoning, largely unregulated nature of online gaming.Originality/valueThis research provides the first empirical evidence of the impacts of alcohol-linked sponsorship in esports upon young playing and streaming audiences. It informs marketing strategy and policy in relation to the rapidly growing, potentially vulnerable online competitive gaming audience.

The New Frontier of Esports and Gaming: A Scoping Meta-Review of Health Impacts and Research Agenda

“…There is little research on the impacts of gaming on healthy lifestyle behavioral factors, including sedentary behavior, diet, and effective mitigation strategies. Given that obesity and associated adverse health issues are a critical priority for health policy makers globally, and there is evidence of growing sponsorship of esports and in-game product placement by harmful product categories such as alcohol, gambling, and junk food (Kelly and Van der Leij, 2020), research considering the well-being impacts of gaming is needed. Diet and metabolic risks have risen as leading drivers of diseases (Gakidou et al, 2017), but we currently do not have data on whether these risk factors are elevated among the increasing population of competitive online gaming participants.…”

Emerging adult gamers and their diet – a socio-ecological approach to improve health behaviour

“…What are the challenges to and opportunities for influencing the dietary behaviour of EAs through the online game ecosystem? Previous studies have shown the potential negative impact that online games have on dietary behaviour (Chan et al, 2022) and the range of marketing that is being targeted at EAs through the behavioural ecology (Elasri-Ejjaberi et al, 2020;Kelly and Gerrish, 2019). The influence of playing online games on food choices has also been explored (Cronin and McCarthy, 2011).…”

“…Furthermore, there is an increasing amount of advertising and Emerging adult gamers and their diet sponsorship by the food industry throughout game spaces, which has seen the benefits of using online game channels to reach EAs who are difficult to engage by traditional channels (Elasri-Ejjaberi et al, 2020;Pollack et al, 2020). Examples of food and energy drink advertising can be found through in-game placement, sponsorship of esports tournaments, sponsorship of players and microcelebrities and advertising on digital channels (Kelly and Gerrish, 2019). Consequently, EA gamers are potentially compounding a sedentary activity with exposure to food marketing, which also impacts consumption (Bragg et al, 2018).…”

Refugee awareness of a transformative intervention to increase blood donations

“…To “close the loop”, this study evaluates the implemented intervention by measuring awareness levels, with the prediction that increasing awareness is a prerequisite for shifting attitudes and behaviour, as well as enhancing knowledge. This also builds on the extensive research in psychology, which suggests that simply being exposed to information, referred to as the mere exposure effect (Janiszewski, 1993), in itself can generate attitude and behaviour change (Kelly and Van der Leij, 2021). However, while the mere exposure effect has been explored in social marketing (Kouchaki and Jami, 2013), its role has rarely been studied within TSR (see, for exception, Mattila et al , 2016).…”