Differences in Children’s Processing of Advergames and TV Commercials

Advergames are a new and fast-growing category of interactive advertising tools (Faber et al, 2004). Most of the common advergames can be described as casual browser games constructed around one particular brand, and in most cases they are available for free either on the manufacturer’s own site or on a high-traffic website (Lee and Youn, 2008; Svahn, 2005; Waiguny and Terlutter, 2009). Like TV advertising, advergames are part of marketing communications and usually promote only one brand. From the advertisers’ point of view, the main objectives of marketing communications are to foster brand awareness, to emotionalize brand attitude, and to foster brand relationships. However, advergames are different from TV advertising in several key ways (active vs. passive reception, non/low vs. high interactivity while exposed to the brand, exposure time etc.).The basic research question addressed by this study is:

In terms of advertising effects, how do advergames differ from traditional TV advertising?