Jenny Verena Bittner

Motivational effects and age differences of gamification in product advertising

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study motivational effects and age differences of gamification in product advertising. Game-elements can easily be embedded within product advertisements, but little is known about the success factors of this technology. We investigated which motivational incentives of game designs influence the purchase intentions of consumers. The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) was expected to explain purchase intentions for non-gamified sports products, whereas the modified technology acceptance model (Herzig et al., 2012) was expected to predict purchase intentions of gamified sports products. Design/methodology/approach – Participants were 101 consumers who performed sports on a regular basis. Age and prior experience with digital games were assumed to influence the effectiveness of gamification. Findings – Purchase intentions of conventional products were predicted by attitudes, subjective norm and perceived control, whereas purchase intentions of gamified products were predicted by attitudes and the perceived usefulness. Enjoyment and flow were significant mediators between motivational incentives and purchase intentions. Consumers with prior gaming experience had higher purchase intentions for gamified products. Practical implications – Gamify products for younger target groups with gaming experience; use intrinsic and extrinsic motivational incentives; focus on enjoyment, flow and the perceived usefulness. Social implications – Game-elements in sports advertisements might also be suitable for public health campaigns. They may motivate people be more physically active and lead a healthier lifestyle. Originality/value – This study specifies predictors for purchase intentions of gamified products and emphasizes the importance of flow and enjoyment as mediators. Age differences indicate that young consumers had higher intentions to purchase the gamified product, judged it as more useful and perceived more flow and enjoyment than the older age group.

Competition and Achievement Goals in Work Teams

This study examined how competition within teams influences which type of achievement goals employees adopt. We studied how dispositional learning-goal and performance-goal orientation interact with team-level competition and predict whether team members adopt state learning or performance achievement goals. State achievement goals, in turn, were proximal antecedents of two outcome measures: job-related self-efficacy and supervisory ratings of job performance. The participants were 502 employees and 55 supervisors. Results confirmed that competition was positively associated with state performance goals. Trait performance-goal orientation influenced whether competition was negatively associated with state learning goals. In highly competitive teams, trait performance-goal orientation was negatively related to state learning goals, whereas in less competitive teams, a performance-goal orientation was positively related to state learning goals.

Motivating and achievement-eliciting pop-ups in online environments

Pop-up windows with motivation-eliciting contents were developed.Short pop-ups evoked an association of the website with motivational contents.Employing a congruent picture and word on a pop-up was found to be effective.These pop-ups may activate achievement motivation and a positive user experience. The aim of the present research was to develop pop-up windows that motivate users and evoke a positive user experience. Several variants of achievement eliciting pop-ups were designed and tested on a real business-website. A pre-test examined the effectiveness of 24 combinations of pictures and words in eliciting achievement motivation. The strongest effects on user experience were found for pop-ups containing a congruent achievement-related picture and word. The three pop-up variants with the most positive ratings were employed in a subsequent experiment.The main experiment tested the effects of a sequence of three pop-ups that were presented on a website. We had three conditions with different display times of the sequence of pop-ups. They were presented to 78 website-users for either 1, 2 or 3s, and compared to a control group on subsequent motivation-related ratings. The results demonstrated that the website was stronger associated with achievement motivation if pop-ups were presented for only 1 or 2s, compared with 3s or the control group. This indicates that short presentations of pop-ups could activate achievement motivation in users of learning and business websites. It could be an important design guideline to flash shorter pop-ups that make online environments more appealing to users.

Health promotion messages: The role of social presence for food choices

We investigated whether social presence cues encourage consumers to self-regulate and select healthier food products. In the first experiment, workers completed food choices in an e-commerce environment. After the activation of health-related goals, they saw a social presence cue and were asked to choose between healthy and unhealthy food options. The analyses revealed main effects of social presence and health goal activation on food choices. These effects were additive, such that the combination of social presence and health goals induced significantly healthier choices compared with the control group. The second experiment further examined social presence cues that were presented on a menu. The results showed significant effects on food choices and on the perceived self-regulatory success in dieting. These findings indicate that social presence cues could be employed to increase healthful eating and, furthermore, that it may be useful to co-activate multiple cues in health promotion messages.

Substitution behaviours after an interruption: Goal failure and goal orientations

People have rich self-regulatory systems to cope with negative emotions that may result from the failure to attain their goals. Failing to complete an achievement task can have negative consequence...