Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how healthy eating involvement (HEI) impacts the evaluations of branded food advergames. Design/methodology/approach – This paper invokes the elaboration likelihood model and reactance theory to explain the effects of different levels of brand integration within a food advergame on individuals with different reported levels of HEI. Undergraduate students were assigned (non-random) to play one of three different advergames with varying levels of brand integration. Furthermore, participant’s health involvement was measured and incorporated as a moderating variable on brand and advergame attitudes. Regression analyses were used to analyze the data. Findings – The results showed significant interaction effects between HEI levels and level of brand advergame integration. Individuals with higher levels of HEI showed more negative attitudes toward the brand and game when integration was high. However, lower levels of brand advergame integration resulted in pos...
['Vincent Cicchirillo', 'Amanda Mabry']
Advergaming and healthy eating involvement: How healthy eating inclinations impact processing of advergame content