Effects Of Brand Placement Research Articles

Beyond Affect Transfer: Attribute Associations in Video-Game Brand Placements and Their Impact on Brand Attitudes

Brand placements are omnipresent in video games. However, when and how they influence players’ brand attitudes is still insufficiently understood. Whereas previous research argued that positive affect transfers from the game to the placed brands and elevates brand attitudes, we propose and test that players form associations of the placed brands with specific attributes depending on the specific placement context. In a 2 × 2 within-subjects experiment with a third-person adventure game (N = 76), we strategically placed brands alongside positive versus negative in-game experiences by letting players collect items, conveying either speed or healthiness as an attribute. Brand attitudes became more positive if brands were paired with positive in-game experiences, irrespective of the specific attribute. However, brands also became associated with the distinct attributes they were paired with. These associations mediated the effects of the placement valence on brand attitudes, depending on which attribute was conveyed in the in-game experience. Our findings suggest that positive brand placement effects on brand attitudes go beyond a direct affect transfer but also arise from associations with specific attributes. Our study offers important insights into brand attitude formation from in-game advertising and valuable suggestions on effective brand placement.

Examining the Influence of Endorser Credibility on Brand Placements in Reality Shows through Placement Appeal: Emotional Vs Rational Appeal

The study examines the influence of endorser credibility on brand placement effectiveness in reality shows through different placement appeals. In addition, it explores the direct and indirect effects through attitude toward brand placements and brand, brand image, and purchase likelihood in emotional and rational placement appeals. A separate stimuli-based questionnaire for emotional and rational appeals was used to collect the data. The findings revealed that endorsers’ credibility has a direct, positive, and significant impact on attitudes toward the brand placements, the brand, brand image, and purchase likelihood for emotional and rational brand placement appeals.

Thematic Congruency in the Context of Brand Placements: Tests of Memory and Attitude Measures

The role of thematic congruency has been extensively researched in traditional advertising formats. However, despite these efforts, little is known about the impact of thematic congruency on the effectiveness of brand placements. The current research reports findings of two experiments designed to compare memory and attitudinal effects of thematically congruent and incongruent brand placements. The results show that while incongruent brand placements can better enhance consumers’ brand memory, congruent placements are more conducive to creating positive brand attitudes. However, the frequency of brand placement repetition moderates these relationships in an unexpected manner. Specifically, at high level of repetitions, incongruent brand placements can have similar effects on brand attitudes as congruent brand placements. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings.

The effectiveness of brand placements: A meta-analytic synthesis

Although brand placements are commonplace in promotion strategies, the extant literature lacks a quantitative empirical synthesis of the effect of placements on cognitive, attitudinal, and conative outcomes. The authors report a meta-analysis addressing the extent to which brand placements affect consumers’ brand placement memory, brand salience, consumer attitude toward the placed brand, and purchase intentions or choice. Four hierarchical meta-regression models explore contexts and executional characteristics that contribute to relatively stronger or weaker brand placement effects. Overall, findings suggest strong, positive placement effects on brand placement memory and small or modest, positive placement effects on brand salience, attitude, and conation. Among the factors potentially moderating these effects, brand-plot connection emerges as a key executional characteristic associated with stronger (more positive) cognitive, attitudinal, and conative effects for plot-connected relative to unconnected placements. Moreover, prominent placements enhance brand placement memory effects while not evidencing any significant backlash on persuasive effects. The same pattern emerges for placement disclosure. The findings have significant implications for marketing managers and public policy makers and provide important directions for further research.

Effectiveness of brand placements in music videos on viewers’ brand memory, brand attitude and behavioral intentions

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the effects of brand placement repetition in music videos on consumers’ memory, brand attitudes and behavioral intentions, as well as, explores the effective frequency needed to achieve optimal advertising impact.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed hypotheses and research questions were tested using an experimental approach. Participants watched a block of music videos containing various levels of brand placement repetitions. Afterward, participants completed a questionnaire designed to measure memory, brand attitudes and behavioral intentions.FindingsAt low levels (below 4–5 exposures), the repetition of a brand placement has a positive effect on brand memory, brand attitudes, intentions to buy and to recommend the brand to others. However, further increases in repetition had detrimental effects on brand attitudes and purchase intentions, but not on memory measures. Additionally, the effects of brand placement repetition on brand attitudes and memory measures were moderated by respondents’ brand familiarity.Research limitations/implicationsThe effects of brand placements were measured through explicit tests that refer to the placement event. Researchers are encouraged to test suggested propositions by using implicit tests.Practical implicationsThe results of this study can serve as guidance for marketing practitioners on optimal ways to integrate their brands into the contents of mass media programming.Originality/valueDespite the increasing usage of music videos in marketing promotions, limited scholarship explores the effects of placing consumer brands in this promising medium. Current research addresses this gap and contributes both to brand placement literature and scholarship on advertising repetition.

Long-term effects of brand placement disclosure on persuasion knowledge and brand responses

Various studies have examined the short-term effects of brand placement disclosures. This study aims to (1) replicate previously identified short-term effects of brand placement disclosures on persuasion knowledge and brand responses, and, more importantly, (2) examine whether these effects persist, diminish, or grow in the long-term. We conducted an online experiment (N = 208) in which we compared the effects of including a disclosure (vs. no disclosure) in two waves (short-term, measured directly after watching the programme vs. long-term, measured two to three weeks later). Our results show that a disclosure increases ad recognition (i.e. conceptual persuasion knowledge) immediately after exposure, and that this effect persists even a few weeks after watching the programme. Moreover, a disclosure enhances brand memory via ad recognition, in both the short- and the long-term. However, resistance effects on skepticism (attitudinal persuasion knowledge), brand attitude and purchase intention are neither replicated in the short-term nor found in the long-term.

Effects of brand placement and player involvement on brand awareness: an empirical study on online game players

This paper examines the effects of brand placement and player involvement on brand awareness. The data in this study were collected from questionnaires distributed to 150 game players of online game with snowball sampling. Data analysis used multiple regression analysis. However, our prediction that there were effect of brand placement and player involvement on brand awareness was not supported. We presents the discussions in this paper.

Good for the feelings, bad for the memory: the impact of 3D versus 2D movies on persuasion knowledge and brand placement effectiveness

Brand placements have been a popular advertising strategy for several decades, yet the effects of technological factors have been largely neglected in brand placement research. Consequently, this study analyzes the impact of a popular media technology, namely stereoscopy, on brand placement effectiveness, using the limited capacity model of mediated message processing and the persuasion knowledge model to predict and explain the effects. The main study (N = 120) confirmed that compared with 3D movies, in 2D movies the participants were more likely to remember the brands placed and to critically reflect the persuasive intentions behind the placements. The additional structural elements in stereoscopic movies appear to require more cognitive resources. The consequent lack of cognitive capacity diminishes persuasion knowledge, which, in turn, positively affects brand evaluations and behavioral intentions. A post-hoc study (N = 54) validated the assumption that media users watching 3D movies experience a higher cognitive load than those watching 2D movies.

Modelling the Effects of Brand Placements in Movies: An Investigative Study of Event Type and Placement Type

Movies are getting extremely costly and product placement has become inevitable to accommodate brands to support their budgets. Moreover, brands are demanding return on investment for their placements. This article makes an attempt to evaluate the outcome of brand placements in movies. As Indian audiences are exposed to both Hollywood and Bollywood movies, product placement is rapidly turning into a colossal path for brands to achieve their objectives by placing the brand in a subtle or blatant way. It is reasonable to count on that consumer contrast of brands will genuinely get influenced based on the type of the entertainment event (Bollywood vs. Hollywood) and type of the product placement (subtle vs. blatant). A structural equation model was developed to assess the effect of entertainment event and placement type (PT) on brand attitude (AB) and consequently on purchase intentions (PIs). The study also explores the possibility of mediation and conducted multi-group analysis on event type and PT using AMOS and SPSS. The findings help us to comprehend the event type (Hollywood movie vs. Bollywood movie) and the PT (subtle vs. blatant) that has the most significant impact on AB and subsequently on PI.

Modelling the dimensionality effects on brand placement effectiveness in stereoscopic 3-D versus 2-D sports games

ABSTRACTThis current study explores how stereoscopic three-dimensional (3-D) dimensionality affects the process by which viewers’ memory of brand names embedded in a soccer game is formed compared to the memory process in traditional 2-D display. To this end, we conduct two studies: a qualitative observation using an eye tracker; and an experiment to identify the difference and similarity of the viewing process across these two display technologies. Statistical test results reveal that sports involvement enhances viewers’ attention to a sports game, which is moderated by game enjoyment and negative viewing experience generated from the media features. Most importantly, it is found that as viewers pay more attention to a sports game in stereoscopic 3-D display, they are less likely to remember the brands embedded in the stadium, while the opposite is found in 2-D display. More findings and implications are discussed in the discussion section.

How gamers process in-game brand placements under different game-involvement conditions

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to enhance the knowledge about advertising effects of brand placements in games on players’ brand recall and attitude. More specifically, this study examines the varying effects of brand prominence on gamers’ brand recall and brand attitude under varied game-involvement and need for cognition (NFC) conditions from attention and elaboration perspectives in the context of in-game advertising (IGA).Design/methodology/approachA 2 (brand prominence: prominent or subtle) × 2 (game-involvement: high or low) × 2 (NFC: high or low) between-subject measures design was used. Moreover, 240 student gamers participated in the study. A between-subjects measure multivariate analysis of variance was used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results revealed that for a game with prominent brand placement, low game-involvement resulted in greater brand recall than high game-involvement condition. Furthermore, for a game with prominent brand placement, high game-involvement condition resulted in more favorable brand attitude than low game-involvement condition. For a game with subtle brand placement, no differences in brand recall rates as well as brand attitudes were found between the high and the low game-involvement conditions. Likewise, for a game with prominent brand placement under low game-involvement condition, high NFC players reported higher brand recall rates and less favorable brand attitudes than the low NFC players. On the other hand, for a game with subtle brand placement under high-game-involvement condition, no differences in brand recall rates as well as brand attitudes were found between the high and the low NFC players.Research limitations/implicationsThe process of experimentation used in this study to collect responses was susceptible to some limitations. However, this research adds to advertising literature from a non-traditional advertising viewpoint, predominantly in the context of IGA. This study enlightens the role of brand prominence and its boundary conditions to create customers’ brand memory and brand attitude. Likewise, this investigation adds to the marketing knowledge on how to embed and position the brands effectively in digital games taking into account the specific physiognomies of each game and individual traits of gamers.Practical implicationsThis study provides a clear understanding of how marketers can design and develop effective games with a purpose to increase and improve customers’ awareness and attitudes toward the advertised brands by embedding brands in games. The experimental findings suggest the advertising practitioners and game designers to think for a right mix of game-specific factors, that is brand prominence, and individual and situational factors, that is game-involvement and NFC, while creating games to have a stoutest positive advergaming effect on players’ brand recall and brand attitude.Originality/valueThis study adds to the literature of non-traditional advertising media, specifically to the context of IGA, by investigating the impact of brand prominence, game-involvement and gamers’ NFC on their brand recall and attitude. From the attention and elaboration perspectives, this study is the first attempt to understand how brand prominence and its boundary conditions, that is game-involvement and NFC, impact players’ brand recall and brand attitude.

An investigation of brand placement effects on brand attitudes and purchase intentions: Brand placements versus TV commercials

Brand placements are gradually becoming an important part of promotional toolkit of many major companies. However, despite the increasing volume of research on brand placements during the last decade, several important questions still remain unanswered. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of brand placements in television sitcoms and contrast it with the effectiveness of 30-second commercials. The authors administer a quasi-natural experiment to a sample of research panel participants to investigate how brand placements in television sitcoms affect their attitudes and purchase intentions. Results of the study suggest that people have a more positive attitude toward brand placements than toward traditional television commercials. Moreover, placements can be more effective than 30-seconds commercials when targeting audiences with low attitude toward advertising. Finally, a combination of a brand placement and a commercial within one program doesn't significantly increase brand attitudes and purchase intentions compared with sole exposure conditions.

Brand placement disclosure effects on persuasion: The moderating role of consumer self‐control

AbstractThe inclusion of branded products in media entertainment has become a popular marketing strategy, because viewers are less likely to recognize the persuasive intent of sponsored content as compared with traditional advertising. To guarantee fair communication and protect consumers against unobtrusive persuasion attempts, European media policy has obligated broadcasters to disclose the presence of brand placement in their television shows. Recent studies demonstrate that disclosures raise viewers' persuasion knowledge; however, the circumstances under which brand placement disclosures may affect brand evaluations and resistance to the persuasive impact of brand placement are still unclear. In two experiments, we uncovered self‐control depletion as an important moderator of disclosure effects on brand evaluations and resistance to brand placement influence. Whereas disclosures increase resistance and decrease persuasion for viewers not depleted of their self‐control, disclosures do not affect resistance and even result in more favorable brand evaluations when viewers' self‐control is depleted by a previous self‐control task. Because a state of self‐control depletion can be perceived as the “couch‐potato” mindset in which people expose themselves to entertaining television content, our findings imply that instead of protecting consumers from hidden persuasion, disclosures may unintentionally increase the persuasive effects of brand placement. We discuss several possible mechanisms that could explain our findings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Modeling the Impact of Parasocial Interactions with Media Characters on Brand Placement Effects

The conceptualization in this article advocates for integrating media users' processing more strongly in brand placement research, with a focus on processes that grasp at the connections and interactions between media users and media characters. Starting from the Balance Model of Product Placement by Russell and Stern (2006), which indicates some sort of parasocial connections between viewers and characters related to the placement, recent advancements in parasocial interaction (PSI) theory and measurement are explicated to conceptualize the interactions between media users and media characters in greater detail and more adequately. This enables more in-depth hypotheses on the impact of specific PSI sub-dimensions (cognitive, affective, behavioral) on specific sub-dimensions of brand placement effects (recognition, recall, evaluation, consumer behavior).

Good guy vs. bad guy: the influence of parasocial interactions with media characters on brand placement effects

Although brand placements are frequently associated with media characters within movies or TV series, and viewers are well known to relate to such characters, previous research has scarcely dealt with media characters’ influence on brand placement effects. Addressing this, two studies investigate the influence of parasocial interactions with media characters on perceptions of brands related to media characters. The first study applied a 1 × 2 between-subjects design, assuming that positively represented characters elicit greater parasocial interaction and, subsequently, more favourable brand attitudes compared with negatively represented characters. The results confirm the assumed indirect effect. A second study was able to replicate the first study's findings in a different setting and to introduce brand familiarity as an important moderator of the mediation found in the first and second study (moderated mediation). The underlying mechanism and implications are discussed.

Children's consumption behavior in response to food product placements in movies

AbstractAlmost all research on the effects of product placements on children has focused on brand attitudes or behavioral intentions. Drawing on the important difference between attitudes or behavioral intentions on the one hand and actual behavior on the other, this paper tests the effects of brand placements on children's food consumption. Children from 6 to 14 years old were exposed to an excerpt of the popular movie Alvin and the Chipmunks, including placements for the product Cheese Balls. Three versions were created: one without placements, one with moderate placement frequency, and one with high placement frequency. Results showed that exposure to high‐frequency product placements exerted a significant effect on snack consumption, but no effect on brand or product attitudes. These effects were independent of children's ages. The findings are of great importance to consumer behavior scholars, nutrition experts, and policy regulators. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Do I know you? How brand familiarity and perceived fit affect consumers’ attitudes towards brands placed in movies

The present study uses Associative Network Theory to construct a model that explains effects of brand placement in movies. Based on a field experiment (n = 167), we investigate the effects of plot connection and prominence on brand attitude, as well as the mediating role of brand-movie fit and the moderating role of brand familiarity. Results show that more closely connecting a brand to the plot of a movie positively impacts brand attitude by increasing the perceived fit between the brand and the movie. Brand familiarity moderates the effect of the interaction between a placement’s plot connection and prominence on brand attitude. When brand familiarity is high, there is no significant effect of plot connection on brand attitude, nor is this effect moderated by the prominence of the placement. However, when brand familiarity is low, both prominently and subtly connecting the brand to the plot of the movie positively influences brand attitude. More importantly, the effect of plot connection is significantly stronger when an unfamiliar brand is prominently placed, than when it is subtly placed.

Brand-Placement Effectiveness And Competitive Interference In Entertainment Media

<h3>ABSTRACT</h3> Is brand-placement effectiveness immune to competitive interference? This study explored that question in the context of entertainment media, specifically children9s video games. Results showed that brands placed in a video game were recalled by only a minority of children and that brand choice was significantly influenced even when the placement was not recalled—suggesting that brand placement may influence children9s choice without any explicit cognitive processes. The data further demonstrated that the presence of a competing brand placement may have a negative impact on focal-brand choice. When exposed to a competing brand placement, children were less likely to choose the target brand at test than those who had not been exposed. Thus, advertisers need to negotiate for exclusiveness when placing brands in entertainment media. Furthermore, the dissociation between brand recall and brand choice suggests advertisers should use multiple methods to measure brand placement effectiveness.

The Mediating Role of Brand Recall and Brand Attitude in Influencing Purchase Intention in Advergames

Research on purchase intention had showed remarkable progress in contributing to the theory of consumer behavior. Despite the popularity of academic discussions on various issues influencing purchase intention, the mediating role of brand recall and brand attitude on purchase intention, in particular advergames, has not yet been well explored, especially in developing economies such as Malaysia. Furthermore, the influence of self-brand congruity, entertainment and brand placement acceptance as antecedents to brand recall and brand attitude are expected to add value to the brand recall, brand attitude and purchase intention relationships. This paper aims to investigate the impact of the mediating role of brand recall and brand attitude on purchase intention in advergames among Malaysian gamers. The antecedents towards brand recall and brand attitude are also examined to measure their influence on purchase intention. A total of 350 Malaysian gamers were interviewed through online survey in this study. The results showed that brand recall and brand attitude mediate the relationship between self-brand congruity, entertainment and brand placement acceptance with purchase intention. Also, entertainment and brand placement acceptance were found to have a significant relationship with brand recall. As expected, brand recall and brand attitude showed a positive relationship with consumer purchase intention in advergames. It was found that self-brand congruity has a significant influence on brand attitude and purchase intention. When users see the brand which matches with them, they tend to act positively toward the brand exposed in the game. This is consistent with Escalas and Bettman (2005) who suggested that the greater the congruity, the more positive the consumer`s attitude toward the brand in question. This leads to game usage and purchase (Davis and Lang, 2013). In the advergaming context, the entertainment value in advergames is very important to determine the level of enjoyment and pleasure experienced by gamers during game-playing. Therefore, the more entertaining the ads, the more it will be remembered and the greater the positive behavior of the consumer towards the advergames ? this ultimately stimulates their intention to purchase the brand. This study shows the effect of brand placement on brand recall and brand attitude and also purchase intention. Brand placements might not work in games due to the interactivity involved in game-playing as people could be distracted from noticing the brand placements (Yang et al., 2006). However, the significant influence of brand placements found in this study may provide major promise for advertisers. Game players may or may not explicitly remember the brands they see in the games, but these placements may influence their brand recall and brand attitude and could therefore influence later decisions (Yang et al., 2006). In this study, it was found that self-brand congruity was not significantly related with brand recall. The reason for this could be attributed to the fact that this study examined gamers who are highly involved in the interactive medium of games which force them to focus on game play rather than advertisements; the level of recognition to remember the brand exposed in the game is low and contributes to the “mismatch” between the gamers and the said brand. The present study contributes to the existing literature of the antecedents of brand recall and brand attitude in advergames. This study contributes to the role of brand recall and brand attitude as mediators in purchase behavior theory. Academically, the relationship between brand recall and brand attitude is well known in advergaming research, but their impact as important mediators on purchase intention add new understanding in the interactive communication literature. Their mediating role may provide new insights on how they facilitate the effects of self-brand congruity, entertainment and brand placement on purchase intention. Besides that, the studies on the influence of self-brand congruity on brand recall and brand attitude and also consumer intention to purchase had not well-investigated in advergames. This study contributes to fill those gaps in advergames literature. For practitioners, this study could suggest the use of illustrative or demonstrative placements of new products to help customers remember new brands, and the use of associative placements for existing products to increase consumers` purchase intention (Ho et al., 2011). To advertisers, this study may provide useful information to improve their current advertising strategies in games, for instance, by considering game players` congruity, entertainment value and brand placement factors.

Psychophysiological Responses to Background Brand Placements in Video Games

Researchers have typically employed cognitive and affective measures to study the effectiveness of brand placements in video games. A psychophysiological approach to measuring effectiveness has been sorely lacking and is necessary to help both academics and practitioners further their understanding of how brand placements work. The current study measures individuals’ orienting responses in terms of increased skin conductance and decreased heart rate upon exposure to brands in video games. Results indicate that game players register background advertisements subconsciously even though they may not be able to explicitly recall them later. There were no differences between gamers and nongamers in the recall and recognition of brands from the video game. Furthermore, brands with preexisting favorable attitudes automatically received further processing, suggesting orienting response is an indicator of initial perception rather than further elaboration.