Roles of cognition demand and advertising literacy in advergames

Purpose To determine the impact of advergame specific factors on players’ brand recall and brand attitude by conducting two experimental studies. Design/methodology/approach Two 2 × 2 × 2 experiments were conducted in this study. Findings Individuals with high-cognition-demand reported superior brand recall for an advergame with prominent brand placements and low game-product analogy and a more favorable brand attitude for a prominently placed game with high game-product analogy than the low-cognition-demand individuals. Individuals with high advertising literacy reported higher brand recall but less favorable brand attitude for games with less game-rapidity but high product-involvement than those with low advertising literacy. Practical implications The research outcomes are highly significant for the marketing specialists, as choosing a communication tool that best fits the advertised product with regard to the content of the media is a planning stratagem that has been broadly used by the media designers. Originality/value This research mainly adds to the literature of online advertising, exclusively the advergames by probing the impact of game-specific and gamer-specific factors on brand recall and brand attitude. Also, this study supports comprehending the moderating roles of cognitive demand and advertising literacy on players’ cognitive and affective brand responses.