Gamification Design for Mobile Marketing Effectiveness

Retailing and other business sectors have been buffeted by the diffusion of mobile technology. Millennials, in particular, consider such technology indispensable and have lately been using it for gaming applications. In order to thrive in the new mobile and game centric world, retailers will need to adapt and leverage mobile game-like applications using the process known as gamification. Our own sense is that the gamified interfaces currently offered by firms mostly miss the mark. We provide a systematic overview of game design and point out how principles derived from that field are highly applicable to gamified retail apps as well as to other firm offerings with game like elements. We are aided in our systematic approach by the work of Schell (2008) whose Elemental Game Tetrad Model allows us to offer a coherent look at the gamification antecedents of its psychological and marketing outcomes.Retailing and other business sectors have been buffeted by the diffusion of mobile technology. Millennials, in particular, consider such technology indispensable and have lately been using it for gaming applications. In order to thrive in the new mobile and game centric world, retailers will need to adapt and leverage mobile game-like applications using the process known as gamification. Our own sense is that the gamified interfaces currently offered by firms mostly miss the mark. We provide a systematic overview of game design and point out how principles derived from that field are highly applicable to gamified retail apps as well as to other firm offerings with game like elements. We are aided in our systematic approach by the work of Schell (2008) whose Elemental Game Tetrad Model allows us to offer a coherent look at the gamification antecedents of its psychological and marketing outcomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111727/1/1274_Manchanda.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111727/3/1274_Manchanda.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111727/5/1274_Manchanda_Aug15.pdfDescription of 1274_Manchanda.pdf : April 2015 - proper coverDescription of 1274_Manchanda_Aug15.pdf : August 2015 revisio

Influencer endorsement posts and their effects on advertising attitudes and purchase intentions

This study examines the effects of influencer posts on Instagram users. Based on uses and gratifications theory, this experiment- based investigation analyses the effect of three different levels of product exposure (strong, mild and low) within an influencer ad post on users’ attitudes toward the ad, and their purchase intentions. Based on a sample of 602 Instagram users from Generations Y and Z, the empirical findings show that users who attribute infotainment and credibility to an influencer ad post perceive it to have greater ad value, which improves their attitude toward the ad and, consequently, positively affects their purchase intentions. However, the results do not find support for the negative effect of irritation on ad value. The contributions of this study highlight that once users have freely decided to follow influencers on Instagram, they assume that their posts are going to be ad- related and this does not cause them to reject posts; consequently, endorsement exerts a similar effect on the value attributed to an ad post regardless of the level of salience of the product in the post

Towards a Video Consumer Leaning Spectrum: A Medium-Centric Approach

Purpose: As TV and digital video converge, there is a need to compare advertising effectiveness, advertising receptivity, and video consumption drivers in this new context. Considering the emerging viewing practices and underlying theories, this study examines the feasibility of the traditional notion of differentiating between lean-back (LB) and lean-forward (LF) media, and proposes a revised approach of addressing video consumption processes and associated advertising effectiveness implications. Methodology: An extensive, systematic literature review examines a total of 715 sources regarding current lean-back/lean-forward media research and alternative approaches as by (1) basic terminologies, (2) limitations of lean-back/lean-forward situations, (3) advertising effectiveness implications, (4) video-specific approaches. Findings/Contribution: Key differences between lean-back and lean-forward video consumption are presented. A conceptual integration of video ad receptivity/effectiveness drivers is proposed to guide future media and marketing research and practice. Video consumption today is no longer lean-back or lean-forward, but a “leaning spectrum” with two dimensions: leaning direction and leaning degree. Designing video content today requires focusing on consumption drivers and platform synergies for owning the “leaning spectrum”

Gamification and Mobile Marketing Effectiveness

A variety of business sectors have been buffeted by the diffusion of mobile technology, a trend that presents a variety of difficult challenges but interesting opportunities to marketers. One such opportunity is gamification, which, one hopes, will enhance appeal to mobile consumers. Our sense from both personal experience and the literature is that the gamified mobile apps currently offered by firms mostly miss the mark. We provide a systematic overview of game design and note how principles derived from that field are highly applicable to gamification in mobile marketing settings. We are aided by the work of Schell (2008), whose Elemental Game Tetrad Model allows us to offer a coherent look at how gamification should affect mobile marketing outcomes

Essays on Consumers' Attitudes toward Digital Communication

This cumulative dissertation consists of three research paper. They all aim to give a detailed overview and analysis of the effectiveness of different forms of digital advertising, namely, online touchpoints, mobile advertising, and social media advertising. The construct attitudes toward advertising serves as the central measure of effectiveness

Advertising business model strategy to increase consumers' brand recognition : an exploratory study testing the benefits of a quiz structure, applying incentives and targeting ads

Atualmente, existe uma saturação do mercado publicitário devido aos novos meios de baixo custo. A sociedade tem acesso a ferramentas para ignorar ou evitar publicidade, nomeadamente, bloquear anúncios na internet, e passar à frente anúncios na TV. O principal objetivo deste projeto é a criação de estratégias publicitárias com o intuito de aumentar a atenção dos consumidores e, consequentemente, o reconhecimento da marca. Este modelo foi construído de forma a testar, os benefícios de uma estrutura quiz, incentivos e anúncios com targeting, de acordo com género, idade e ocupação. O presente trabalho é, de natureza descritiva e, quanto à profundidade, exploratório. Procura-se um primeiro conhecimento empírico da aceitação do modelo imaginado, através dos dados recolhidos que identificam caraterísticas e dimensões da problemática, oferecendo, no final, uma visão mais completa e clara. O desenho metodológico incluiu um simulador de quiz, associado a um inquérito por questionário, capaz de mostrar anúncios publicitários para testar a atenção de 160 participantes, e um inquérito, fundamentado na Teoria de Comportamento Planeado, para recolher a sua opinião. Após um mês, um novo questionário foi aplicado com o objetivo de avaliar o reconhecimento da marca pelos consumidores. Através do desempenho dos participantes, este estudo concluiu que a estrutura de quiz tem influência positiva na atenção e no reconhecimento da marca. Os participantes demostraram uma atitude positiva face à experiência, o que é promissor para a criação de um modelo de negócio com base nesta estratégia de publicidade. Efetivamente destacaram que seria mais fácil a sua aceitação, caso se implementasse em smartphones e se se usasse incentivos.Advertising has now cheap methods to promote products which are leading to market saturation. Nowadays, society has tools to ignore or avoid advertising, giving consumers the ability to block ads from the internet, and fast-forwarding commercials in TV. The main goal for this project was to create a business model strategy to increase consumers’ attention and consequently, brand recognition. This model was constructed to test the benefits of strategies such the implementation of a quiz structure, incentives and targeting ads, according to gender, age and occupation This research has a descriptive nature and follows and presents an exploratory study, using quantitative instruments to collect data. These instruments consisted in a quiz simulator, associated to a questionnaire, showing commercial videos, in order to test users’ attention, along with a survey, grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior, to assess participants’ opinion. After one month, another questionnaire tested participants’ memory, with the goal of assessing consumers’ brand recognition. Results evaluated participants’ performances, influenced by each strategy, individually and combined. From participants’ performances, this research concluded that a quiz structure helps users focus on the ad and improves their brand recognition. Furthermore, incentives and targeted ads have different influence over each demographic variable, and behave different when combined with each other. From feedback, participants demonstrated a positive attitude towards the business model and highlighted that this model would be more easily accepted, implementing it in smartphones and using a reward system along with targeted ads

The Evolving Brand-Consumer Relationship - The Impact of Business Cycles, Digital Platforms, and New Advertising Technologies

Unprecedented technological progress and pronounced business cycles were the defining factors of the past two decades and disrupted consumers’ everyday lives as well as brands’ established modus operandi. For example, the severe global financial crisis and the subsequent European debt crisis forced many consumers to tighten their belts and change what, where, and how they shop. As a consequence, long established relationships with brands were put to the test as consumers adopted and habituated new shopping behaviors that not only shaped their purchases during the recessions but even beyond (Lamey 2014; Lamey et al. 2007). On the technological side, digital platforms such as AirBnb and Uber unhinged entire industries (Eckhardt et al. 2019; Parker, Van Alstyne, and Choudary 2016). At the same time, digital platforms have allowed brands to be consumers’ constant companions in various areas of their life such as money management, personal health, exercising, nutrition, and more (Ramaswamy and Ozcan 2016, 2018). Technological progress has also produced ever more sophisticated advertising tools that allow brands to target consumers with pinpoint accuracy and allow any brand irrespective of its advertising budget to address their specific (niche) target consumers using highly engaging ad formats such as online video advertising (Anderson 2006; Bergemann and Bonatti 2011; Van Laer et al. 2014). Evidently, these fundamental forces—business cycles, digital platforms, and new advertising technologies—have substantially affected consumers, brands, and their relationship. In three essays, my co-authors and I show empirically, experimentally, and conceptually how brands and consumers have reacted and adjusted to these changes and how their relationship thus evolved. In the first essay, we find that while business cycles put established consumer-brand relationships to the test, brands remain important to consumers even in recessions. They adjust their shopping strategies to allow themselves to keep consuming branded products, for example by switching to cheaper outlets or buying on promotion. The second essay shows that digital platforms are a powerful tool that allows brands to create and orchestrate superior value for consumers and thus become increasingly influential in their daily lives. We discuss how this development profoundly elevates the brand-consumer relationship. The third essay, presents insights into skippable ads, an advertising format specific to digital channels. It transforms consumers’ traditional role in the advertising context from a captive audience to an empowered one that is granted the option to skip ads. My results show that, counter-intuitively, this is not only perceived positively by consumers but may disrupt their advertising viewing experience. Thus, I present strategies for advertisers that mitigate the adverse effects of skippable ads and improve branding

The Role of Self-congruity in Consumer Preferences: Perspectives from Transaction Records

Personalised marketing is more persuasive than traditional techniques aimed at the masses, however marketers do not always have access to consumers’ private attributes in order to apply these insights. The effect of personalisation is based on an established theory in consumer psychology – self-congruity theory – which posits that individuals prefer products, brands and advertisements that embody characteristics that match with their self-concepts. Self-congruence not only enhances marketing effectiveness, it can also be used to improve consumer well-being. While it has been established that consumers who spend in a way that is more congruent with their personality are happier, clarifications around the types of individuals who are more or less likely to engage in self-congruent spending, as well as the moderating effects on the benefit in happiness from such consumption could inform policy for improving happiness at a collective level. This thesis contributes to a growing body of research which attempts to understand how consumption patterns are related to consumers’ characteristics, its applications in advertising, as well as consumer well-being. By using a dataset containing more than 1 million transactions recorded over a period of 12-months, the thesis demonstrates the value of the digital footprint in the form of bank transactions for enriching our understanding of key questions in consumer research, underpinned by the theory of self-congruity. This thesis combines methods from computational social science with personality psychology to test research questions on consumer preferences. Two components of the thesis focused on the predictive utility of transaction records in inferring consumer attributes with which to personalise advertising, as well as the use of transaction records in examining self-congruence in overall consumption patterns and its relationship with happiness. Through five empirical studies, this work suggests that consumer attributes such as age and financial distress can be reliably inferred from consumption patterns reflected in transaction records (Chapter 3 and 5). The inferred age can be used to personalise advertisements in order to increase their appeal (Chapter 4). Using an objective measure of self-congruence in overall consumption pattern computed from transaction records and panel ratings, the thesis shows that individuals differ in their tendency to spend in a way that is congruent with their personality based on their levels of materialism and financial distress (Chapter 6). As the most important predictor of self-congruent spending, financial distress moderates the relationship between self-congruent spending and happiness (Chapter 7). These findings contribute insights into how consumption patterns are related to consumer attributes and usefulness for personalisation in marketing, as well as policy recommendations for improving well-being by targeting consumption patterns in financially distressed individuals. In addition, this thesis also showcases the value of machine learning and large-scale behavioural field data in the study of consumer psychology. Privacy and ethical concerns surrounding automated profiling and microtargeting are also cautioned

Lookalike Targeting on Others\u27 Journeys: Brand Versus Performance Marketing

Lookalike Targeting is a widely used model-based ad targeting approach that uses a seed database of individuals to identify matching “lookalikes” for targeted customer acquisition. An advertiser has to make two key choices: (1) who to seed on and (2) seed-match rank range. First, we assess if and how seeding by others’ journey stages impact clickthrough (upstream behavior desirable for brand marketing) and donation (downstream behavior desirable in performance marketing). Overall, we find that lookalike targeting using other’s journeys can be effective-third parties can indeed identify factors unobserved to the advertiser merely from others’ journey stage to improve targeting. Further, while it is sufficient to seed on upstream journey stages for brand marketing, seeding on more downstream stages improves performance marketing outcomes. Second, we assess the effectiveness of expanding the target audience with lower match ranks between seed and lookalikes. The drop in effectiveness with lower match rank range is much greater for performance marketing (donation) than for brand marketing (click-through). However, performance marketers can alleviate the reduction in ad effectiveness for low match ranks by making targeting more salient; but increasing salience has little impact for high match rank. Overall, by increasing salience, performance marketers can make acquisition cost comparable for high and low match ranks

Social Media and Public Health: Opportunities and Challenges

Social media has the potential to provide rapid insights into unfolding public health emergencies such as infectious disease outbreaks. They can also be drawn upon for rapid, survey-based insights into various health topics. Social media has also been utilised by medical professionals for the purposes of sharing scholarly works, international collaboration, and engaging in policy debates. One benefit of using social media platforms to gain insight into health is that they have the ability to capture unfiltered public opinion in large volumes, avoiding the potential biases introduced by surveys or interviews. Social media platforms can also be utilised to pilot surveys, for instance, though the use of Twitter polls. Social media data have also been drawn upon in medical emergencies and crisis situations as a public health surveillance tool. A number of software and online tools also exist, developed specifically to aide public health research utilising social media data. In recent years, ethical issues regarding the retrieval and analysis of data have also arisen