J Consum Policy (2014) 37:257–277

DOI 10.1007/s10603-013-9227-z

ORIGINAL PAPER

The Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge, Identification

of Commercial Intent and Persuasion Outcomes
in Advergames—the Role of Media Context and Presence

Martin K. J. Waiguny & Michelle R. Nelson &

Ralf Terlutter

Received: 31 October 2012 / Accepted: 11 June 2013 /

Published online: 7 July 2013
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract Across two studies, the authors investigate the extent to which children’s persua-
sion knowledge of an advertising tactic (advergame and TV commercial) and their level of
engagement with the medium (presence) influence their identification of commercial content
and persuasion outcomes. In line with theoretical predictions of the persuasion knowledge
model, results showed that those children who had more knowledge about advertisers’
tactics were more likely to identify brands and commercial content in the advergame and
less likely to be influenced. However, a high level of presence in the medium moderated the
effect of persuasion knowledge on persuasion outcomes.

Keywords Advergames . Persuasion Knowledge . Presence . Advertising literacy

Advergames, custom-made online games designed to promote a company’s brand or product

(Youn and Lee 2005; Terlutter and Capella 2013), are increasingly used with some product
categories more prevalent than others. An analysis of websites of the top 100 companies in the
USA revealed that more than half of the games featured food products (Lee and Youn 2008).
Other content analysis studies have reported that advergames on food brand websites (Lee et al.
2009; Moore and Rideout 2007) are primarily targeting children with “less healthy” foods.
Most of these games are created with fun as the main objective to build consumer relationships

M. K. J. Waiguny (*)
Department of Marketing, Advertising, Retailing and Sales (MARS), Auckland University
of Technology, 418 WY Building, 120 Mayoral Dr, Auckland Central 1010, New Zealand
e-mail: martin.waiguny@aut.ac.nz

M. R. Nelson
Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
119 Gregory Hall, 810 S. Wright St, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
e-mail: nelsonmr@illinois.edu

R. Terlutter
Department of Marketing & International Management, Alpen-Adria-Universitaet Klagenfurt,
Universitaetsstrasse 65-67, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria
e-mail: ralf.terlutter@aau.at
258 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

with the game and the brand (Lee and Youn 2008; Santos et al. 2007). Given the worldwide
issue related to childhood obesity and the blurring lines between advertising and entertainment
in advergames (Grossman 2005; Hudson and Hudson 2006; Kretchmer 2004), critics and
regulators have placed increased attention on the use of advergaming to promote unhealthy
food products to children (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies 2006; Moore 2004;
Thomson 2010). Therefore, a main area of policy discussion relates to the use of digital
advertising forms such as advergames to target children and if and how children should be
protected (Staiano and Calvert 2012; Terlutter and Capella 2013). In turn, it is necessary to
investigate how children understand the persuasive intent of advergames and how they react to
this form of advertising.
An individual’s ability to recognize commercial content and to understand its persuasive
intent can be referred to as his/her persuasion knowledge (Friestad and Wright 1994; Friestad
and Wright 1999). According to the persuasion knowledge model (PKM), individuals hold a
general set of beliefs about how persuasion “agents” (e.g., advertisers) operate, including
perceptions of agents’ goals and tactics, evaluation of the effectiveness or appropriateness of
persuasion attempts, and self-reflections of targets’ own ability to cope with these attempts
(Friestad and Wright 1994).
However, this set of beliefs does not necessarily influence persuasive attempts. According to
the PKM (Friestad and Wright 1994), consumers may process a message in a perceived non-
persuasion setting quite differently from a setting in which they believe a persuasion attempt is
being made. More precisely, “people tend to resist persuasive attempts when they recognize them
as such” (Wei et al. 2008, p. 35). The understanding that an advergame is advertising and that
there is a persuasion attempt is important for children to actively resist any persuasion. However,
even if children have knowledge of what advertising is and does, this knowledge does not
automatically defend against persuasive effects. That is because the persuasive attempts must first
be identified in the given situation. High persuasion knowledge in general and identification of a
specific persuasion attempt in a given situation are not the same. For instance, if the persuasive
attempt is covert or children are distracted from the persuasive attempt, children—even with a
generally high level of persuasion knowledge—may simply not recognize a given tactic is trying
to persuade them. Thus, the stored persuasion knowledge may not be activated.
Furthermore, previous research has revealed that identification of the persuasive intent
does not necessarily lead to activation of defenses against the persuasion attempt. Van
Reijmersdal et al. (2012) demonstrated in their advergame study that although about 60 %
of the children identified the source of the message and about 47 % knew the persuasive
intent, this knowledge did not influence persuasive effects. Instead, game involvement and
game attitude were related to brand attitudes. Mallinkrodt and Mizerski (2007) even found
that identification of “who put the game on the Internet” related to a higher preference for the
brand. Obviously, there are other factors that impact the relationship between persuasion
knowledge, identification of commercial content and persuasion outcome.
Since digital games are known for their entertaining and immersive qualities (Thomson
2010), the role of immersion or presence (defined as the sense of being “present” in the
media environment; Lombard and Ditton 1997) in an advergame may play an important role
for persuasion knowledge, identification of persuasive attempt, and persuasive outcomes. Thus,
the purpose of the current paper is twofold. First, it compares how general persuasion knowl-
edge impacts the identification of a commercial attempt in the specific media consumption
situation, depending on whether the commercial message is embedded in a TV commercial or
in an advergame. Whereas persuasion knowledge is a fairly well-researched issue in TV
advertising (e.g., Bijmolt et al. 1998; Kunkel 2001), little is known about the extent to which
children recognize commercial content or understand its persuasive intent in advergames. TV
Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 259

commercials and advergames differ fundamentally in that advergames are engaging the player
in high levels of interactivity, whereas individuals can remain passive in TV commercials.
Advergaming is active game play while confronted with the advertising message.
Secondly, focussing on advergames, the paper analyses the role that presence plays in the
relationship of persuasion knowledge, identification of the persuasive attempt in the media
consumption situation, and persuasive outcomes. Presence has been demonstrated to lead to
more focussed attention on the environment and situation (Green and Brock 2000; Kim and
Biocca 1997; Lombard and Ditton 1997), which can influence the perception of the
commercial message (Nelson et al. 2006). The paper reports findings from two studies.
Study 1 focusses on how the media context (TV versus advergame) and general persuasion
knowledge influence the identification of commercial content. It aims at demonstrating that
advergames are a more covert form of advertising than TV advertising and that identification
of commercial content differs between the two formats.
Study 2 focusses on advergames only to analyse the role of presence in the relationships
among persuasion knowledge, children’s identification of commercial content and brand-
related beliefs, behavioral intentions, and outcomes. This research extends findings of two
studies from a larger program of research on persuasion knowledge and advergame effects
among children (Waiguny and Terlutter 2011; Waiguny et al. 2012). Compared to the
previous studies, the current study presents different variables and provides additional data.
The findings contribute to a deeper understanding about how characteristics of advergaming,
particularly presence, may mitigate defensive mechanisms against persuasion. They are rele-
vant to public policy as they can help in designing effective advertising literacy programs that
aim at improving children’s understanding of and ability to cope with persuasive attempts in
advergames. Therefore, the ability to identify commercial content in an advergame and the
understanding of its persuasive intent are crucial considerations for developing advertising
literacy programs and for defining public policy measures for advergames that target children.

Children’s Understanding of Advertising and Advergames

According to Moses and Baldwin (2005), in order to understand advertising, children need to
(1) know when they are viewing advertisements to guard against them and (2) recognize the
purpose of advertising, with the understanding that there are many purposes in mind (e.g.,
selling intent, building brand preference). While the latter is comparable to a general knowledge
or set of beliefs about what advertising does (Boush et al. 1994), the first point indicates that
persuasion knowledge needs to be activated in a given situation (Wei et al. 2008).
For children, most of the advertising literacy research is concentrated on traditional forms, in
particular TV advertising (e.g., Bijmolt et al. 1998; Hobbs 2004). Findings from that literature
suggest that children develop the awareness to differentiate between commercial and informa-
tional content at an early age (5–6 years). They then develop an understanding of the persuasive
nature of the content between 8 and 10 years of age, and adolescents can discriminate and
identify several persuasion tactics (John 1999, 2002, 2008; Kunkel 2001; Rozendaal et al.
2011). What children do once they recognize a message is an advertisement and the advertise-
ment is trying to persuade them likely depends on their experience and level of media literacy
(Eagle 2007). In her study on advergames, Wollslager (2009) demonstrated that children who
received training related to advergames also showed more ability to identify the advergames at a
later time than before the training. These results suggest that the more persuasion knowledge in
general, the more likely it will be activated in a given persuasion episode. Summarizing, results
from previous studies as well as the persuasion knowledge model predict that an increase in
260 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

individuals’ persuasion knowledge will lead to a higher probability that they will identify
persuasive intent in specific situations (Boush et al. 2009). Thus, in light of theory and previous
findings we hypothesize:
H1: The higher children’s general persuasion knowledge, the more likely they will
identify commercial content in the persuasion episode.
The identification of a specific persuasion episode is related to the form of the persuasion
attempt itself (Boush et al. 2009), and it is very likely that the children’s ability to identify
persuasive attempts differs depending on the type of media. Existing literacy training, for
instance, in schools, still focus on traditional forms of advertising. In addition, most (self-)
regulatory bodies also still consider mainly print, outdoor, and traditional broadcast media
when reviewing advertising-to-children principles and laws (Füg 2008; Grimes 2008, e.g.,
European Guidelines for TV broadcasting, and according national laws like, e.g., ORF
Gesetz in Austria, Judgendschutzgesetz in Germany).
However, with the rise in new advertising vehicles such as advergames and product
placement, it is likely that children, who may be well trained about television advertising, do
not understand the deceptive nature of these new formats (Moore 2004). Furthermore, parents
do not really understand what advergames are and how they work (Evans and Hoy 2011), and
therefore, they may not recognize that advergames are advertising and/or fail to talk to their
children about it. Advertising literacy programs that teach children how to identify and
recognize advertising content in digital and entertainment forms and that may help increase
children’s capability to recognize commercial content (as demonstrated by Wollslager 2009) are
only rarely found. Critics are also worried about advertising to children on the Internet because
the lines between advertising and content are often blurred (Thomson 2010). In addition, most
advergames are not explicitly labeled as advertising (An and Park 2011).
With regard to TV, children should be capable of identifying persuasive intent and
commercial content to a relatively large extent (Eagle 2007). For example, Bijmolt et al.
(1998) showed that children, ages 5–8, demonstrated a fairly high understanding about what
TV advertising does; in particular, there was a large increase in persuasion knowledge from
age 5 to 6 (with entering school). Similarly, 8–12 year old children showed that they were
fairly adept at identifying the intended persuasion tactics of traditional advertisements such
as celebrity endorsement (Rozendaal et al. 2011). However, as mentioned above, media
literacy education does not typically consider new media forms and still concentrates mainly
on TV advertising. Thus, we assume that the identification of a commercial attempt in
advergame will be lower than in TV. We hypothesize:
H2: The media context will influence the likelihood of identification of commercial
content. Children exposed to the TV commercial will be more likely to identify
commercial content compared to children exposed to the advergame.
As Friestad and Wright (1994) explain, persuasion knowledge is not activated or used to
the same extent in all persuasion episodes. While we hypothesized two influencing factors
(i.e., general persuasion knowledge and media context), there is also rationale that the two
factors might interact. Researchers suggest that a high state of immersion in games is related
to the perception and processing of messages (Lee and Faber 2007; Nelson and Waiguny
2012; Thomson 2010). Typically, traditional broadcast media is seen as passive and less
immersive, while video games are a lean-forward medium (Katz 2012). They are challeng-
ing, arousing, and provide a form of integrated presence, which means that they engage the
player physically through interaction with the game and mentally by following the story,
considering the rule system and solving problems (Grodal 2000; Nakatsu et al. 2005). Due to
Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 261

the less immersive and more passive nature of TV ads and the more engaging nature of
advergames, we hypothesize that the media context interacts with the level of persuasion
knowledge as follows:
H3: The media context (advergame vs. TV commercial) will moderate the influence of
general persuasion knowledge on identification of commercial content. Children in the
advergame condition, even with a high level of persuasion knowledge, will be less likely
to identify the commercial content than will children in the TV commercial condition.

Study 1

Method

Study 1 investigates our assumptions as laid out in H1, H2, and H3. In essence, if children
hold a greater knowledge about advertisers’ intentions, this should lead to a higher degree of
identification of the commercial content, especially for those in the TV media context. A two
factorial (media context: TV ad vs. advergame) quasi-experimental design was used to test
the hypotheses. The data reported here come from a larger program of study and data set
(Waiguny and Terlutter 2011). While the Waiguny and Terlutter (2011) study concentrated
on the effects of the media on brand attitude, the current investigation concentrates on the
effect of media on the identification of the commercial content.

Stimuli The stimuli were an existing advergame and a corresponding TV commercial for
Nesquik Duo. Both the advergame and the commercial used the same content and story:
First, a table with breakfast is featured in white and brown colors, and Quiky the mascot rabbit
has to collect the white and brown chocolate cereals. Finally, he jumps with the help of a spoon
into a big package of the product, gets poured out, and ends up in a swirl of milk. All of these
content elements are found in the game, too. First, the game player has to navigate through three
levels collecting the cereals on a breakfast table and finding a swirl, which is the entry to the
next level. Finally, the game player has to perform a good jump into the package. Both the
television spot and the advergame were parts of the introductory campaign of the product.

Procedure The study was conducted after approval in a primary school in Austria. The
process consisted of requesting the permission of the teachers, the principals of the schools,
the local school authority and the parents. Even when parents’ permission was given, if a
child did not want to participate, s/he was excluded from the study. The children were either
shown the TV commercial (which was consequently named “film” in the face-to-face
interviews) or were allowed to play the advergame (which we referred to as a “game” in
the interview). Given the potential difference in exposure time between media contexts, we
asked the children to try to finish the game and we measured the time the children actually
played the game to control for any differences in exposure.
After playing the game or watching the TV spot, the children were asked if they
recognized any commercial content. Followed by questions about the brand, we assessed
the general persuasion knowledge (i.e., what children generally know about advertisers’
intent and tactics) rather than context-specific persuasion knowledge (i.e., about the specific
tactic—TV ad or advergames). The measure was taken at the end to avoid an artificial
activation of persuasion knowledge before media exposure. All questions were assessed in a
face-to-face interview where children indicated their responses on a 6-point scale. We rotated
262 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

the interviewers between the TV and the advergame groups to reduce interviewer bias. The
interviewers were only told that we were studying the differences between advergames and
TV commercials; the purpose of investigating persuasion knowledge was not disclosed to
avoid any potential bias on the part of the interviewers.

Measures To measure general persuasion knowledge (PK), we adapted items from Boush et
al. (1994) related to the knowledge of intentions and tactics of advertisers. Because the
children in our study are younger compared to the Boush et al. (1994) study, we simplified
the questions and pretested them with four children. The final measurement consisted of five
items (Advertisers want to: Grab my attention; Make me buy the product; Help me to learn
about the product; Make me like the product better; and Make me think that the product is
good for me.). All measures used 6-point rating scales using a supporting visual indication
technique (Tinson 2009). To measure identification of commercial content (ID-CC), children
were asked if they recognized any brands, products, or advertisements. Children could state
yes or no. If they stated yes, we asked if they could recall the brand (unaided recall). If they
named Nesquik, it was coded 1; all other responses were coded 0.

Samples Fifty-one children between the ages 8 and 10 were randomly assigned to the two
groups. Twenty-two children watched the TV commercial and 29 played the advergame. There
were no effects of age or gender on the measures of PK and the amount of commercial content
identification. Obviously, there was a difference in the exposure time between the media context
groups. While children watching the TV commercial were exposed for about 30 s, children
playing the advergame were exposed on average 7:24 min.1 Because exposure time might
influence the results in so far as children with a longer exposure time have more opportunity to
see branded content, we added the exposure time as a covariate to control for this effect.

Results

We calculated an index of the five PK items. However, similar to the original study of Boush
et al. (1994), the item “Advertisers want me to learn about the product” did not relate to the
other items; therefore, to improve reliability, we discarded this item from further analyses.
The final index showed a rather high general knowledge about advertisers’ intent (M=4.92,
SD=1.193, alpha=.60). In total, 84.3 % of the children were able to identify commercial
content. We conducted a median split of PK to create two groups, which we named, in
respect to the rather high general knowledge levels, a moderate and a high PK group.
The ANCOVA with media context (TV vs. advergame) and General PK (moderate vs. high) as
independent variables, the exposure time as covariate and the identification of any commercial
content (ID-CC) as the dependent variable revealed neither a significant main effect for PK
[F(1,46)=1.422, p=0.239], nor for the media context [F(1,46)=.095, p=.759] nor for exposure
time [F(1,46)=2.099, p=.154]. However, we found a significant interaction effect of media
context and general persuasion knowledge [F(1,46)=4.191, p=.046]. Contrast analyses of the
estimated marginal means of the ANCOVA showed that the level of PK does not affect the
identification of commercial content in the TV condition [estimated marginal means: ID-
CCPKmoderate=.82 (92 %), ID-CCPKhigh=.90 (100 %)]. In the advergame condition, the number

1
Two children could not end the game within 15 min; therefore, we interrupted them and continued with the
interview.
Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 263

of children who identified the commercial content with a higher degree of knowledge about
advertisers’ intent was significantly lower compared to those with a moderate knowledge
[F(1,46)=5.981, p=.018]. Only 58 % of the children with high PK identified commercial
content, while 88 % of children with moderate general PK could identify the commercial
content in the advergame (estimated marginal means: ID-CCPKmoderate=.97, ID-CCPKhigh=.65).
Additional t tests of the four groups revealed that only children playing the advergame and with
a high PK scored significantly lower in the identification of commercial content. Our data do
not support H1 and H2; however, some support is offered for H3. There is an interaction effect
of media context and general persuasion knowledge. Interestingly, children in the advergame
situation with a moderate PK did not differ from those watching the TV commercial with regard
to their identification of commercial content, whereas significantly fewer children in the
advergame situation with high PK identified commercial content. This finding warrants further
investigation and discussion.

Discussion

As our data suggest, the effects of general persuasion knowledge on identification of

commercial content in the advergame were not as expected according to the PKM frame-
work (Friestad and Wright 1994). Specifically, those with high general persuasion knowl-
edge were less likely than those with moderate persuasion knowledge to identify the
commercial content in the advergame situation. It could be that the general nature of the
advertising literacy questions did not capture the medium-specific nature of the advergame
(Kunkel 2010). It could also be due to the fact that games offer different levels of immersion
and entertainment as compared to television (Nelson and Waiguny 2012), which might be a
possible explanation for the unexpected results. Immersion in entertainment media in the
current paper is understood as presence (Lombard and Ditton 1997), which is a feeling of
“being there” (Minsky 1980). In essence, presence explains a state where the receiver of the
entertainment feels like being in the situation (Lombard and Ditton 1997). A sense of
presence can lead to more focussed attention on the environment and situation (Green and
Brock 2000; Kim and Biocca 1997; Lombard and Ditton 1997).
Thus, we might expect that presence may moderate the effects of persuasion knowledge
when children play an advergame. The rationale is the limited cognitive capacity of individuals.
Lang (2000, 2006, 2009) explains a limitation of message processing with the fact that the
receiver of entertainment media is strongly focussed on the narrative and the story, such as the
case of games where the player is focussed on the game play (Grodal 2000). Thus, recognizing
and remembering any ads in the game might be diminished by this limitation (Lee and Faber
2007). A greater sense of presence was also demonstrated to lead to diminished recall of
branded content (e.g., Nelson et al. 2006). Although past research has shown that game players
experience a higher level of presence than do people watching a medium (Nelson et al. 2006),
we did not measure for presence in Study 1. Thus, Study 2 examines how presence in a specific
medium (games) may impact identification of the persuasion episode and persuasive outcomes.

Examining the Level of Presence and Persuasion Knowledge in an Advergame

on their impact Persuasion Outcomes

According to the persuasion knowledge model (Friestad and Wright 1994), if children show
high persuasion knowledge and if it is activated in a given persuasion episode (i.e., they are
264 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

able to identify the commercial content), they will likely become more suspicious towards
the promoted brand. Study 1 revealed that children who played an advergame and had a
rather high level of general persuasion knowledge showed a lower level of identification of
commercial content than children who were exposed to a TV commercial. Another recent
study demonstrated that even a clear “ad-break” similar to TV did not increase recognition of
commercial content for children playing advergames (An and Stern 2011). These findings
suggest that some game-related variables, such as presence, may mask the persuasion intent.
Further, a review of the advergaming literature shows similar low scores for persuasion
knowledge and mixed findings with regard to how persuasion knowledge might mitigate
persuasive effects. For example, one of the earliest advergame studies showed that, after
children ages 5–8 played an advergame, only 54 % perceived that the game wanted them to
ask someone to buy the featured brand and 25 % of children identified the correct persuasion
agent (Mallinckrodt and Mizerski 2007). The older children (ages 7–8) were significantly
more likely to select the correct source than were the younger children (ages 5–6). However,
opposite to the study’s expectations, there were no negative effects of persuasion knowledge
on brand preferences or intention to request the brand. In fact, more of the older children
preferred the featured brand when they actually identified the game’s intent compared with
the children who did not identify the intent (Mallinckrodt and Mizerski 2007).
Similarly, Van Reijmersdal et al. (2010) tested the influence of game involvement, brand
prominence, and persuasion knowledge on memory (brand recognition, recall) and persua-
sion (game attitude, brand attitude) among children ages 7–12 years old. The researchers
show that about 40 % of the children in the sample knew that the brand created the game and
57 % understood the persuasive intent, but none of these measures of persuasion knowledge
influenced memory or persuasion. Only Waiguny et al. (2012) report a negative influence of
identification of commercial content on persuasion in their study of advergame effects. The
effects were found only among the children (ages 7–10) who identified commercial content
in the game and were underchallenged (bored) in the game. Since an optimal level of
challenge should be present for presence to occur, this finding suggests that one reason for
low persuasion knowledge effects could be the engagement or level of presence in the game.
We build on the latter study and further investigate the negative influence of identification by
researching the role of presence as well as by adding a control group, to check if persuasive
effects might be fully mitigated. We expect that there are not only differences between the
media context as shown in Study 1, but when playing the game, children might experience
different levels of presence and therefore show varying abilities to identify commercial content.
We also assume that the level of presence may mitigate the effect of persuasion knowledge on
the identification of commercial content.
H4: Presence will moderate the influence of persuasion knowledge on identification of
commercial content. Children with higher levels of presence will have a lower
likelihood of identification of commercial content.
If or how entertainment might limit children’s cognitive defenses and finally influence
persuasive effects is open to debate (Ambler 2008; Moore 2004; Nairn and Fine 2008;
Thomson 2010). Critics argue that the more engaged children are with the entertainment
media and the more they are entertained by the media, the less likely they will have the
capacity or interest in cognitive defense activity (Nairn and Fine 2008). As Moore and
colleagues (Moore 2004; Moore and Rideout 2007) pointed out, the positive (gaming)
experience might overlap the skepticism towards advertising even if children know what
advertising is about (i.e., have high persuasion knowledge). Green and Brock (2000)
showed that readers who are deeply immersed in a story believe more of the story’s
Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 265

elements because the readers greatly enjoy the media consumption. In this situation,
instead of counterarguing against the ad, the respondents may allocate resources to the
pleasing stimuli (i.e., the game) instead and process the provided information rather less
critically (Nairn and Fine 2008). As An and Stern (2011) showed, even if children are told
that the advergame is some form of commercial, that information does not necessarily
mitigate the persuasive effects.
In summary, we predict that presence has a moderating influence on the relationship
between identification of commercial content (i.e., if children identify the persuasive intent
of the advergame) and persuasive outcomes. Children with a high level of presence should
be more vulnerable to persuasive effects, whereas children with a low level of presence
should be more skeptical and less vulnerable to persuasive effects. This should be especially
true for those children who do not identify the commercial intent. Children with lower levels
of presence will show some resistance against the persuasive intent, i.e., will show lower
persuasive effects, especially those children who identify the commercial content. Hence, we
analyse four groups (ID-CCyes/PRhigh,ID-CCno/PRhigh, ID-CCyes/PRmoderate, and ID-
CCno/PRmoderate). In addition, results are compared to a control group of children who do
not play the advergame at all.
Besides brand preference, pester intention as well as actual pester behavior (during a 2-
week period following game play) were taken into account as variables of persuasive
outcome. Children are the most important influencers of parents’ buying behavior, which
is referred to as pester-power (McNeal 1992). Pestering describes when children actively ask
for the brand, sometimes accompanied by begging, crying or insistent behavior (e.g.,
McNeal 1992; Shoham and Dalakas 2006).
Advergames often have a clear rhetoric behind the game in order to convey information
about the brand in addition to entertaining the players (Thomson 2010), and it is of interest to
see what kind of information about the brand is presented to the audience by the placement.
Hence, we include brand beliefs conveyed by the advergame as persuasive outcomes in our
study. We hypothesize:

H5: Children who play an advergame will show (a) more favorable beliefs about the
brand, (b) a higher preference for the brand, as well as (c) higher pester intentions and
(d) pester behavior compared to children who do not play the advergame.
H6: Presence will moderate the influence of identification of commercial content on
persuasive outcomes ((a) brand beliefs, (b) preference for the brand, (c) pester in-
tentions, and (d) pester behavior). More specifically: Children who identify the
commercial character of an advergame and show a lower level of presence will not
differ from the control group at all with regard to persuasive outcomes.

Summarizing, Study 2 explores a double moderating effect of presence. We expect that

the level of presence impacts: (1) the relationship between advergame-related persuasion
knowledge and identification of commercial content in a playing situation as well as (2) the
relationship between identification of commercial content and persuasive outcomes.
Figure 1 shows the assumed double moderation effect of presence.

Method

Study 2 investigates how media-specific (e.g., advergame) persuasion knowledge influences

identification of commercial content. Furthermore, the research explores how different levels
266 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

of presence and persuasion knowledge relate to persuasion outcomes. Thus, we conducted a

study in four Austrian elementary schools. Children (ages 7–10) were asked to play an
advergame and then respond to questions in a one-on-one interview. Additionally, data of a
control group of children the same age, who did not play the advergame, but responded to
the brand-related questions in the same interview procedure, were collected especially for
this study. The data of the advergame groups were taken from a larger study (Waiguny et al.
2012) but were significantly extended by the control group data to allow a comparison
between children who played the game and totally unaffected children to gauge defensive
effects by identification-activated persuasion knowledge. Furthermore, while the prior
research investigated solely attitudinal measures, this study looks into intentional and
behavioral variables.

Stimuli

To test the hypotheses, an advergame was needed as a treatment that immerses children
while playing as well as presents information about a brand’s features. To maintain external
validity, we decided to use an existing advergame from Nesquik. The advergame was
“Garden Quest,” a jump’n run style game.

Procedure and Measures

In each of the participating schools, a computer lab was installed. The children were
introduced to the procedure and told that they should answer the questions directly to the
interviewers. Demographic data and children’s computer and gaming experience were
collected during a pre-game interview. Next, children were instructed to play the advergame
for 10 min (in contrast to Study 1, we controlled for exposure time), followed by a face-to-
face interview by trained interviewers. Two weeks later, we collected information about the
children’s reported pester behavior by follow-up interviews.
The schools were recruited from a city in Austria. We followed the same permis-
sion procedure as in Study 1. To reduce interviewer biases, the pre- and post-game
interviews were conducted by different persons (Bryman 2008). The pairing of the
interviewers was rotated, too. The interviewers only knew that the experiment was
about children and advergames, but they were not aware of the specific research
questions. Children in the control group (CG) were not exposed to any advergame,
but were only questioned about brand beliefs and pester intentions and behavior.

Fig. 1 The dual moderation effect of presence on the effects of persuasion knowledge on persuasion
Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 267

Obviously, the control group could not be interviewed about game-related variables
like presence or identification of the commercial content. We used already tested
scales for children where applicable and pretested the whole procedure with four
children (aged 8–9). If not otherwise described, the measures were taken with a 6-
point Likert scale.
Presence (PR) was measured by the presence measures adapted from Novak et al. (2000)
and simplified for children. Questions consisted of: “I felt good during playing the game, I
want to play through all levels, and I felt like I am in the game.” Contrary to Study 1 where
we measured a more general knowledge about advertisers’ intent, in Study 2 we concen-
trated on a context-related PK measure.
Knowledge about the persuasive intent of advergames (PK) was measured at the end of
the interview, to ensure not to activate persuasion knowledge prior to the other measures.
Measuring context-specific PK is not an easy task with children, as Van Reijmersdal et al.
(2012) point out in their limitations and discussion. We gauged if children understood what
these games are for. In particular, the selling intent is important (Bijmolt et al. 1998) as well
as the biased (overemphasizing of positive attributes) character (Boush et al. 1994). Thus,
children should relate this intent to advergames. First, the interviewer stated that an
advergame is a game that has brands or products in it, and children were asked how much
they agree with the statements: “These games make me want to buy the products. These
games should demonstrate how superior these products are.” These measures address
advergame-related knowledge and were reduced measures from Boush et al. (1994).
Identification of the commercial content (ID-CC) of the game was again measured by an
unassisted dichotomous measure (“Did you recognize any brands, products or ads in the
game?”) directly after the game play.
As Brand beliefs are context-specific, we adapted the brand beliefs scale from Barnard
and Ehrenberg (1990). We stated the question “Nesquik….” and completed with “tastes
good,” “fills you up,” “tastes natural,” “is healthy,” “makes you fit,” “makes you chubby,”
“is good for your teeth,” and “is chocolatey.” Each item was assessed on the 6-point scale.
Preference (PREF) was measured by showing the children a table full of cereal products
of different brands including the promoted brand. If children picked the promoted brand, it
was coded as a 1; if any other product was selected or no choice was made, it was coded 0.
Pester Intention (PI) was measured with an open-ended question: “If you go grocery
shopping with your parents, which cereals would you be asking for?” If the children named
Nesquik, this was coded 1. Any other cereal or non-response was coded 0.
Pester behavior (PB) was measured after a 2-week delay. Children were asked, “Did you
ask your parents for Nesquik cereals during the last two weeks?” Children could either state
yes or no.

Participants

The total sample consisted of 149 children (advergame group, N=101; control, N=48;
76 were male and 73 were female). Children were aged between 7 and 10. To
minimize the influence of different developmental stages of the understanding of
advertising on measures of interest (Boush, et al. 1994; John 2002, 2008), we
concentrated on early elementary school children mainly aged 8–9 (Valkenburg and
Cantor 2001). The age of our sample was similar to that of Study 1 and to other
recent studies of advergames with children (An and Stern 2011; Dias and Agante
2011). Nearly 90 % of the children had access to a computer and they used it heavily
for gaming (79.9 %) as well as for other online purposes. After 2 weeks, we visited
268 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

the schools again and collected follow-up data related to self-reported pestering
behavior from 139 children.

Results

Preliminary Analyses

For Presence (PRm=4.80, SD=1.375, alpha=.69) and Persuasion Knowledge (PKm=4.78,

SD=1.472, alpha=.60), we calculated indices. Generally, PR and PK are on the high
level; both show mean scores above 4.5 on a 6-point scale. Thus, we found that the
Nesquik advergame at least engages a moderate level of presence and that the knowl-
edge, if directly asked, about advergames is also at least at a moderate level (similar to
findings of Bijmolt et al. 1998). Sixty-six of 149 children (44.3 %) intended to ask for
the brand (pester intention); after a 2-week delay, 45 (30.2 %) actually did, as reported
by the children themselves.

Hypothesis Testing

Identification of Commercial Content in the Advergame Overall, 39 (38.6 %) children

were able to identify commercial content; thus, these children were aware that the
game contained some form of branded content. To test H4 for the moderating effect
of presence, we calculated a moderated regression model (Hayes 2005) using, as the
dependent variable is binominal, the probit procedure: with Presence (PR) and
Children’s knowledge about the advertisers’ intent (PK) and an interaction term of
these two variables as predictors and the identification of commercial content as the
dependent variable. The Probit model suggests that PK had a significantly positive
influence (b=.739, Z=2.046, p=.041), while the sole influence of PR was not signif-
icant (b=.295, Z=.765, p=.444). However, the interaction term shows a marginally
significant influence (b=−.122, Z=−1.693, p=.09). The results of the probit regression
suggest that, generally, the higher the knowledge about the advergame’s intent, the
higher the rate of identification of commercial content. However, there is some
evidence, too, that this effect is reduced by the level of presence. Thus, even if
children have a rather high level of persuasion knowledge (PK), if their sense of
presence in the game (PR) is also high, the tendency of the children to identify the
commercial content is significantly reduced (see Fig. 2).
To crosscheck and test for contrast effects, we performed a median split for the PK
(moderate and high) and PR (moderate and high) measures and entered them in an
ANOVA as independent variables with identification of the commercial content (ID-CC)
as the dependent variable. The overall results of the between-subjects analysis showed
significant main and interaction effects of PK and PR. According to the ANOVA, the lower
the level of presence in the game, the higher was the likelihood that commercial content
was identified [ID-CC PRmoderate =.51, ID-CC PRhigh =.28, F(1,97)=6.442, p=.013].
Furthermore, if children know more about the advergames’ selling intent, this leads to a
greater likelihood of identification of commercial-content [ID-CCPKmoderate=.28, ID-
CCPKhigh=.51, F(1,97)=6.149, p=.015]. The interaction effect was, again, marginally sig-
nificant [F(1,97)=3.023, p=.085] and revealed that children with moderate PK do not differ
in terms of identification of commercial content whether they are moderately or highly
present in the advergame [ID-CCPRmoderate=.32, IC-CCPRhigh=.24, F(1,97)=.300, p=.585].
Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 269

0.8
0.6
0.4 Moderate PR
0.2 High PR

ID-CC
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
Moderate PK High PK
Note: as result of the Probit-Model the ID-CC variable was transformed, resulting in a negative constant.

Fig. 2 Identification of commercial content as a function of presence and persuasion knowledge

In the high PK group, the likelihood that children identify commercial content is higher if
children are only in a moderate state of presence [ID-CCPRmoderate=.71, IC-CCPRhigh=.31,
F(1,97)=.9.804, p=.002]. Thus, our results support H4: Knowledge about the advergame’s
intent as well as presence influence the likelihood that children can identify commercial
content in the advergames and therefore activate persuasion knowledge.

Persuasive Effects of Advergames Next, we compared the control group of children who
did not play the game with the group who played the game to address our H5. We
generally assume that children who played the advergame will show higher degrees of
preference (PREF), brand beliefs, pester intentions (PI), and reported pester behavior
(PB) compared with those children who did not play the game. To test H5, we
calculated a set of one-way ANOVAs by comparing the control vs. the advergame
group. These analyses showed the assumed significant influence of the advergame for
most variables reported by the children (see Table 1). Thus, our general assumption
from H5 is largely confirmed that advergames positively influence children’s beliefs and
behavior about a brand.

Dual Moderation of Presence We already found the first moderating effect of immersion
in Study 1 (H3) and more specifically in Study 2 with the effect of presence on the
identification of commercial content (H4). The interesting research question now, as
addressed in H6, is if children in the advergame group react differently according to
their level of presence and identification of commercial content (thus, activation of
persuasion knowledge)? Will they (in line with the assumptions from the persuasion
knowledge model) show a certain resistance towards persuasion? In other words, we
assume that children in this group (who show moderate presence and have identified
commercial content) do not differ from the control group with respect to persuasion
outcomes because they have the cognitive capacity and activated persuasion knowledge.
However, the other three groups should show higher scores on the brand-related vari-
ables. Because children in the control group had no identification of commercial content
or presence variable to make a statistical comparison, we split the entire sample into five
groups (control group+four test groups). To create the four test groups, we used whether
they identified commercial content or not and the level of presence (moderate, high) as
grouping variables. Table 2 shows the distribution of these groups. In particular, groups 2
and 3 are interesting to compare because these two groups were opposite on identification
of commercial content and varying in levels of presence. In effect, children in group 2
270 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

Table 1 Study 2: comparison of the control group with the advergame group

Advergame group Control group Total F p value

(n=101) (n=48)

“Tastes good” 5.34 5.10 5.26 1.068 .303

“Fills you up” 4.12 3.64 3.96 1.974 .162
“Tastes natural” 4.34 3.37 4.03 9.465 .002
“Is healthy” 3.17 2.19 2.85 9.223 .003
“Makes you fit” 3.73 2.37 3.29 17.861 .000
“Makes you chubby” 3.11 3.52 3.24 1.413 .236
“Is good for your teeth” 2.47 1.56 2.17 2.188 .141
“Is chocolatey” 5.32 5.10 5.25 .696 .406
PREF .53 .27 .44 8.895 .003
PI .55 .08 .40 35.431 .000
PB .41 .15 .32 10.518 .001

(identified commercial content, moderate levels of presence) should show the lowest
levels of brand-related beliefs, preference, and pester intentions/behavior, while children
in group 3 (did not identify commercial content, high level of presence) should show the
most favorable ones. To investigate the group differences we performed an ANOVA with
this new grouping variable and the different DVs, and calculated pairwise comparisons
(Table 3), to test our hypotheses.

Examining brand beliefs In line with our expectations, the group of children who did
identify the commercial content and were less present in the game did not differ from the
control group for the brand beliefs “tastes good,” “tastes natural,” “is healthy,” and “makes
me fit.” This means that these children, although they played the game that conveyed those
brand beliefs, did not significantly differ from children who did not play the game on
beliefs about the brand. However, the other groups (in particular the groups with high
presence), showed differences in brand beliefs from the control group. In these cases, the
children who played the game indicated more favorable brand beliefs. This finding un-
derscores the importance of persuasion knowledge: If children are able to identify the
commercial content, this activates at least some protection against persuasive intent.
Consequently, for most brand beliefs (and in particular those that were addressed in the
game), the children who identified the commercial content and were only moderately

Table 2 Study 2: classifying children into groups after identification of content and presence

Group N ID-CC yes (%) Mean PR (SD)

(1) ID-CC no—PR moderate 20 0 3.83 (.848)

(2) ID-CC yes—PR moderate 23 100 3.20 (1.340)
(3) ID-CC no—PR high 42 0 5.75 (.304)
(4) ID-CC yes—PR high 16 100 5.79 (.239)
(5) CG 48 n.a. n.a.

ID identification of commercial content, PR presence, CG control group

Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 271

Table 3 Study 2: comparison of group differences on persuasion outcomes

ID no PR ID yes PR ID no ID yes CG (e) Total F p value

moderate moderate PR high PR high
(a) (b) (c) (d)

“Tastes good” 5.10 4.87 5.65 5.51 5.10 5.26 1.774 .137
“Fills you up” 2.90c,d 3.87 4.71a,e 4.45a 3.64c 3.96 3.928 .005
“Tastes natural” 3.95c 3.43c 5.07a,b,e 4.21 3.37c 4.03 6.269 .000
“Is healthy” 3.40b,e 2.17a,c 3.66b,e 3.00 2.19a,c 2.85 5.111 .001
“Makes you fit” 3.70e 3.09c 4.19b,e 3.50e 2.37a,c,d 3.29 6.002 .000
“Makes you chubby” 3.13 3.74 2.96 2.56 3.52 3.24 1.325 .263
“Is good for your teeth” 1.80 3.22 2.43 2.31 1.56 2.17 .998 .411
“Is chocolatey” 5.35 5.04 5.46 5.30 5.10 5.25 .464 .762
PREF 0.40 0.57e 0.57e 0.50 0.27b,c 0.44 2.681 .034
PI 0.45e 0.39c,e 0.64b,e 0.63e 0.08a,b,c,d 0.40 10.674 .000
c c a,b,e e
PB 0.26 0.20 0.59 0.43 0.15c,d 0.32 6.158 .000

Italicized variables and scores indicate differences at a significant level (p<.005). The letters in superscript
indicate significant differences between the groups according to pairwise comparisons (LSD)
PREF preference, PI pester intention, PB pester behavior after a 2-week delay

“present” in the game showed the lowest values of the four groups. Thus, our assumptions
in H6a are mostly supported.
The behavioral measures mainly were related to the fact that the children played an
advergame. Interestingly, the Preference (PREF) of children who did identify the brand and
showed only moderate levels of presence in the game is the same as for those who did not
identify the brand and showed high levels of presence. Thus, H6b was not supported. More
in line with our predictions are the results for Pester Intentions (PI). Although even here
children who identified commercial content and had a moderate presence showed a higher
number of intentions to pester for the brand, this number was nevertheless significantly
lower compared with those children who did not identify the brand and felt a high level of
presence in the game. Thus, H6c is partially supported.
Similarly, the results for pester behavior (PB) showed the interaction effect of presence
(PR) and identification of commercial content (ID-CC) quite clearly. If children could
identify commercial content and indicated lower levels of presence, the number of reported
pester behaviors was significantly lower compared with those who could not identify the
commercial content and showed a high level of presence. Thus, our results provide some
support that the identification of the commercial content in the game at least influences to a
certain extent the children’s behavior, thus supporting H6d.

Discussion

In summary, Study 2 revealed some important facts by comparing a control group with
children who played an advergame but with varying levels of presence in the game and
identification of commercial content. In particular, we demonstrated a dual moderation effect
of the feeling of presence on the defending role of persuasion knowledge. This contributes to
prior literature, which only investigated a single moderating effect with context-specific PK
and on attitudinal variables only (An and Stern 2011; Mallinckrodt and Mizerski 2007; Van
272 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

Reijmersdal et al. 2012; Waiguny et al. 2012). Firstly, the more children encountered a
presence-like feeling, the less likely they were to identify the commercial content in the
game. Secondly, even if children identify commercial content, that identification does
not necessarily lead to a more critical evaluation of the brand. In fact, for children who
were in a high state of presence, in particular, brand beliefs were significantly higher,
whereas children with activated persuasion knowledge (identification of commercial
content) and a lower level of presence remained somewhat unaffected. Furthermore, we
demonstrated, contrary to Study 1, that a more context-specific persuasion knowledge
leads to a higher degree of identification of commercial content especially if the level
of presence is lower.
As a sidenote, we observed an interesting result with respect to brand beliefs, which is
also important from a policy viewpoint. As explained earlier, the game narrative offers a
rabbit mascot that jumps high, the environment is a green, park-like area, and the mascot’s
task is collecting wholegrain symbols. Correspondingly, these same brand beliefs were the
ones that changed significantly for those that played the game as compared to those who did
not play the game, whereas the other beliefs (i.e., that the product “makes you chubby,” “fills
you up,” “is chocolately,” or “good for the teeth”) did not change. These findings imply that
it is not only the presence in the game, but the content or narrative of the game that
influences brand beliefs. Future studies should investigate how the game narrative is
interpreted and to what extent that content should be regulated or reviewed. In other words,
is it deceptive advertising if the rabbit jumps higher in the game after eating a sugar-filled
cereal grain?

General Discussion

Summary of Findings

This paper further develops our understanding of how the experience during game play
affects the persuasive and behavioral outcome and cognitive defense of children. We
demonstrated in two studies how children react to new forms of advertising vehicles
(advergames) with varying levels of general knowledge of advertising intent and particular
knowledge of the tactic. First, Study 1 showed that the media context moderates the
influence of children’s understanding of advertising. While children in the TV ad context
showed a rather high ability to identify the commercial nature of the advertising vehicle,
when playing an advergame, this ability was diminished, even though children of this age
generally know a lot about advertisers’ intent. These findings were confirmed in Study 2.
That is, those children who had more context-specific persuasion knowledge of advergames
were more likely to identify the commercial content in the game. Taken together, these
results provide good news for the power of persuasion knowledge and advertising literacy.
As data from Study 2 suggest, it appears that if children show a higher context-specific
knowledge about the intent of what advergames are made for, it seems to increase the
children’s identification of the commercial content in the game, thus triggering persuasion
knowledge during the persuasion episode. In addition, we showed that this identification of
commercial content can lead to a certain reduction in persuasion: reduced pestering in-
tentions. In this way, our findings are different from what other studies related to children’s
persuasion knowledge and advergames have shown (e.g., Mallinckrodt and Mizerski 2007).
This may be because the children in our sample were older than in the above-referenced
study or because of different levels of measurement of persuasion knowledge.
Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 273

However, our main contribution relates to the moderating role of presence. We found
that the general effect of persuasion knowledge on identification of commercial content
was moderated by the child’s level of presence (immersion) in the game. Furthermore,
our results suggest that presence mitigates the effects of persuasion knowledge on
persuasion outcomes in two ways. Firstly, if children are highly engaged in the game,
they likely have limited capacity to critically process the advergame. they likely have
limited capacity to critically process the advergame. Secondly, presence reduces the
children’s ability to identify advergames as what they actually are – commercial infor-
mation. Here, our data show that even when the commercial content is identified, only
children who indicated lower levels of presence in the game showed some form of
resistance to persuasion, namely for pester intentions and the children’s reported pester
behavior. For brand beliefs, however, the results for presence and identification of
commercial content are not so clear. Out of 101 kids who played the game (Study 2),
77.3 % showed that the advergame positively influenced their brand beliefs (irrespective
of persuasion knowledge or presence), only 22.7 % of the children’s brand beliefs were
fairly unaffected by the game. Future research might investigate more closely the effects
of presence by manipulating presence or by assessing cognitive capacity in other ways.
In light of these findings, we discuss some suggestions and implications for ethics
and advertising codes using advergames. It seems that traditional assumptions for
advertising guidelines, which route back largely to research undertaken in the 1970s
and 1980s (Kunkel 2010; Moore 2004), do not reflect new media developments.
Changes are necessary to raise advertising literacy, enact new policy codes and protect
children.

Implications for Ethics and Policy

Media Regulations and Disclosure

As we showed in Study 1, the commercial natures of traditional television advertising and

advergames are clearly different, and children have a higher rate of identification of
commercial content in TV ads. However, after a cursory review of current advertising
regulations, most do not consider these new forms of persuasive and highly immersive
digital media (Füg 2008; Grimes 2008). Therefore, an extension and enforcement of existing
regulations towards these new forms should be considered. There is some promise for future
developments, however. In May 2012, the British Committee for Advertising Practices
(CAP) reminded companies that develop advergames that they must conform to the rules
in the CAP code related to online advertising. As new forms of digital advertising are
developed, it is important that industry regulators include them in the existing codes.
Given that most of the advergames are for less healthy foods (Lee et al. 2009), the
scrutiny of this advertising method for children should be even more pronounced. In several
countries, self-regulatory advertising groups, governmental bodies and even food companies
are discussing ways to combat the childhood obesity issue with reduced advertising for less-
healthy foods targeted to children. However, the ways that these various bodies regulate are
not consistent (Grimes 2008). Furthermore, there is some question regarding the effective-
ness of self-regulatory codes on enacting change in the companies’ practices regarding, for
example, disclosure of advertising on game sites or on targeting children (see Quilliam et al.
2011). Given that children playing advergames are even more likely to be persuaded, a
coverage of this new media form should be considered. Because advergames are rarely
274 M.K.J. Waiguny et al.

identified as advertising in a clear and conspicuous manner (An and Stern 2011), children
may not understand the commercial intent of the game and may not scrutinize any implicit
claims (Thomson 2010). Our research offers some insight into the matter. Children who
showed a higher knowledge about the persuasive intent of TV ads and advergames in general
were more likely to identify the commercial content in the commercial or game (Study 1).
Furthermore, children who showed a higher level of context-specific knowledge about
advergames’ intentions were also likely to identify commercial content. This identification,
in some ways, led to less favorable persuasion outcomes.
However, based on recent child development research (e.g., John 2008; Valkenburg and
Cantor 2001), children ages 7–10 should be able to distinguish between non-commercial and
commercial content. While this was to a large extent true for TV advertising in Study 1
where 90 % of the children identified commercial content, for advergames only 72 % of the
children could identify commercial content even though Nesquik was the only brand in the
game. The rate in Study 2 was even lower; only 38.6 % of the children could identify
commercial content. The results found here are similar to those reported by Mallinckrodt and
Mizerski (2007) where they showed that only 25 % of their sample (31 % and 40 % for 7-
and 8-year-olds, respectively) could circle the source of the game. Similarly, in the study by
Van Reijmersdal et al. (2012), only 40 % of the children understood that brands made the
game. Interestingly, in these studies, children were not provided with an advertising disclo-
sure or break (e.g., “hey kids, this is an advertisement”). Such disclosure is advocated by
critics (Thomson 2010) and was used by An and Stern (2011) in their study of children ages
8–11. Unfortunately, the ad break in the latter study did not seem to increase children’s
active persuasion knowledge. This leads to an important finding, from a policy and regula-
tion viewpoint, as it seems that even a disclosure does not automatically mitigate persuasive
effects of advergames nor contribute to the understanding of advergames as ads. Thus,
disclosure of advertising without increased advertising literacy or persuasion knowledge
may not be the answer to protecting children.

Training Children’s Advertising Literacy

First, advertising literacy in general and specific to the media context are important. We
show how a fairly new, digital entertainment medium of advergames largely differs from
classic advertising vehicles like TV commercials. While children (ages 8–10), as also
demonstrated in other research (Bijmolt et al. 1998; Boush et al. 1994; John 1999), appear
to understand the purpose of TV advertising, the literacy effects were less observable for
advergames. Moreover, across the two studies our results suggest the more the advergame is
fully immersing the children in the game (i.e., increasing their level of presence in the game),
the less likely they are to recognize commercial information in the game. Thus, we showed
that the immersion in the game is a significant moderator of a possible defense against
deceptive and persuasive advertising attempts. Perhaps policy makers should consider, in
addition to ad break disclosures, that media literacy about advergames is needed for parents,
teachers, and children, to explain that advergames are more than just “a fun game.”

The Advergame Content

The content of the game is an important consideration when it comes to public policy
initiatives. Results of Study 2 support the idea that the narrative of the game influences
children’s beliefs about the brand. For example, in Nesquik’s Garden Quest, tested here, the
game features images and actions that may imply “healthy, natural, fit” such as running in a
Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames 275

park-like environment, collecting whole grain symbols as the winning condition, and fast
running and jumping. Yet, despite the widespread use of powerful narratives to convey
character and/or brand information (Thomson 2010), the present study is one of the first to
consider the influence of game play on brand beliefs (but see Ahn 2008; Waiguny et al.
2013). Namely, it is thought that the images and actions of game play contributed to players’
beliefs that the Nesquik product was healthy or keeps you fit. Furthermore, the study
provides some support for the claim that advergames have the potential to influence in a
very specific way, as the only beliefs that were influenced were those that were conveyed by
the game. That is, players’ ratings that the product was healthy were significantly greater
than those of people in a control group that did not play the game, but ratings on whether the
product was tasty or chocolately did not vary between the two groups. More research is
needed to understand how these mechanisms work.

Limitations

Despite the interesting results reported here, some limitations must be addressed. For instance,
generalization of our results is limited as only one brand was tested. Furthermore, we used a
quasi-experimental design in Study 1 and a survey design in Study 2 to draw on external
validity using an existing game, so a non-artificial treatment was tested. We modified existing
scales of persuasion knowledge (e.g., Boush et al. 1994), but there is also some discussion about
the appropriate measurement of advertising literacy and persuasion knowledge among children
(e.g., Kunkel 2010; Rozendaal et al. 2011). Future studies might explore more expansive
measures of general and context-specific measures of advertising literacy. Given that some
studies have shown that persuasion knowledge only influences brand perceptions of respon-
dents that feel the particular persuasion tactic is inappropriate (e.g., Wei et al. 2008), research
could also test if children feel that advergames are appropriate ways to advertise. Studies could
also manipulate the different levels of persuasion knowledge or identification of commercial
content and see whether the associated persuasion effects are produced. Despite the limitations,
we hope that our studies spur additional research in this important area.

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