Hispanic Attitudes Toward Advergames

Abstract

Advergames are gaining recognition around the world as a new, captivating, and persuasive environment among advertisers. Despite its growing popularity, very little is known about the formation of attitudes toward advergames in emerging economies. The objectives of our study were the refinement and empirical testing of a model of the reactions generated by exposure to advergames among Mexicans, Peruvians, and Americans. A series of experiments revealed that Hispanics exhibited positive attitudes toward advergames. Intrusiveness was found as the factor accounting for most of the negative attitude toward advergames. Lack of congruence was found to be a precursor of intrusiveness. Interestingly, although ads in games were perceived as more intrusive, they were perceived as less irritating. Implications for advertisers are discussed.