How gamification marketing activities motivate desirable consumer behaviors: Focusing on the role of brand love

Abstract

Gamification is increasingly applied as a design strategy when improving various behavioral outcomes in the online retailing domain. Understanding the attributes of gamification marketing activities (GMAs) is critical for successful gamification, but perceived experience derived from the attributes of GMAs and its influence on desirable consumer behaviors have not been addressed so far in gamified online retailing studies. Thus, this paper aims to examine the relationships among GMAs’ experience, value, satisfaction, brand love, and desirable consumer behaviors. To test these relationships in the research model, we developed a study using a sample of 242 online bookstore customers, and found that the experience of GMAs has a significant and positive effect on hedonic value and utilitarian value. The findings also confirm that hedonic value and utilitarian value significantly affect satisfaction and brand love. Finally, our results confirm that satisfaction has a significant and positive effect on brand love, and in turn, on desirable consumer behaviors (i.e., brand loyalty, positive word-of-mouth, and resistance to negative information). The findings of this study can permit online retailing companies to predict the future behaviors of their customers more exactly and guide their management of assets and gamification marketing activities.