The Effect of Viral Promotional Advergames on the Behavioral Reactions

Objective Viral promotional advergames combine a promotional game with an advergame in a viral marketing campaign, aiming to encourage customer word of mouth, so that customers become willing promoters of the related brand. When designing a viral promotional advergame, marketers focus on game schemes and prizes to trigger players' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and elicit certain behavioral responses, such as sharing personal data and forwarding the game. Therefore, the current research aimed to investigate how intrinsic playfulness and the extrinsic value of prizes affect people's behavioral responses. This research used data from pre-measure and post-measure assessments within a real viral marketing campaign. This field study examines the factors that lead to behavioral reactions in these types of games. In this connection, Poisson regression was used to investigate the effect of perceived playfulness and the perceived value of prizes on the variable of game forwarding, while logistic regression was used for the variable of personal data sharing. Methodology In this research, data were collected using pre-measure and post-measure assessments within a real viral marketing campaign. This field study examines the factors that lead to behavioral reactions in these types of games. Poisson regression was used to investigate the effect of perceived playfulness and the perceived value of prizes on game forwarding, while logistic regression was used to analyze personal data sharing. Findings The results showed that perceived playfulness is positively related to both game-forwarding and personal data-sharing behaviors. Games that evoke higher levels of enjoyment and concentration make players more inclined to share their data and forward the game. While the perceived value of prizes has a positive and significant effect on game forwarding by players, it does not significantly affect personal data sharing. Additionally, prior brand attitudes moderate the effect of the perceived value of prizes on game-forwarding behavior. Players with greater intrinsic enjoyment and psychological immersion tend to invite more people to the game and share more personal data about themselves. Perceived reward value is positively related to game-posting behaviors, though it is not related to personal data sharing. That is, players appear to communicate more about the game when extrinsically motivated but are less likely to share personal data with the brand. On the other hand, extrinsically motivated players still have significant privacy concerns. In contrast, perceived playfulness is positively related to personal data sharing, suggesting that fully immersed players tend to "lose themselves" and forget their more conscious concerns (consistent with definitions of escapism). As a result, they seem more likely to share personal data with the brand. Another interesting finding is the absence of a reciprocal relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation concerning both behaviors. This may be due to the complexity of external rewards in this study. Conclusion Companies that want to obtain customers' personal information should focus more on designing game elements than on prizes, as the perceived value of prizes does not seem to have a significant effect on sharing personal information. Games must also be designed to induce psychological immersion in players—that is, game design elements must optimize the Flow state. Companies that want to encourage players to share their game should focus on both game design and prize placement, with prizes offered at different value levels to influence player evaluations.