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On improving the engagement between viewers and TV commercials through gamification

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Abstract

TV advertisements are less and less watched as most viewers turn their attention to the smartphone during commercial breaks. Therefore, broadcasters are facing a novel challenge: how to improve the engagement between viewers and TV commercials. In this paper, we investigate whether gamification can be a winning strategy. Indeed, despite some strategies that have recently been proposed (e.g., cross-media, use of specific mobile software), an effective approach to improve the engagement between viewers and TV commercials is yet to be found. We designed a game that involves the commercial break and the smartphone: during each TV advertisement, a simple question (e.g., “What was the color of the car?”) appears on-screen and the answer must be given through a special smartphone app. A player earns points if she answers exactly, otherwise she loses points. Results obtained from two different experimental assessment (within-subjects and between-subjects) revealed that a well-designed gamification strategy improves the marketing memorability (i.e., a measure of engagement) from 44% (no game elements) to 75% (with game elements). Therefore, gamification might be exploited by broadcasters and advertisers to improve the engagement between viewers and TV commercials.

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Notes

  1. http://news.shazam.com/pressreleases/shazam-announces-new-digital-engagement-sales-solution-resonate-to-support-television-industry-1037083.

  2. https://goo.gl/QX97Xy—Shazam Launches New TV Metric.

  3. http://contentmarketinginstitute.com—Content Marketing Institute.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all people who played the game and the anonymous referees who contributed in improving the quality of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Comunicazione ed Economia, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, Italy

    Marco Furini

  2. Department of Industrial Engineering, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Roberta De Michele

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  1. Marco Furini
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  2. Roberta De Michele
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Correspondence to Marco Furini.

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Communicated by T. Yao.

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Furini, M., De Michele, R. On improving the engagement between viewers and TV commercials through gamification. Multimedia Systems 26, 107–123 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00530-019-00625-9

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