Advergames: Exploring the New Landscape in Marketing

Abstract

Online space is now getting cluttered with same and similar ventures providing similar solutions. It’s the same set of ads on the sidebar of websites which repeatedly flash in an attempt to gain customers attention but are unable to. For digital ventures and start-ups which have to compete with big and established brands, it is essential that they go out and look for more than one ways to reach out to their target audience and build an emotional connect with them. One of the many tools which are not being heavily used by digi-preneurs is Advergames. These are online games which are used for the purpose of advertising and these are one of the upcoming tools which are used for building brand awareness. These tools have been used in the past but were focused on the younger age groups and used cartoon type characters. With changing lifestyles and preferences for leisure activities, there has been a steady trend of adults which are involved in game play. This paper explores the possibility of creating an emotional engagement and hence loyalty towards the brand using simple advergames which are focussed on age groups above 18 years. The data is collected from 352 respondents and analysed using various statistical tools to establish if the games can lead to engagement and hence loyalty.