A Study On The Impact Of Gamified Interaction On Brand Equity

Gamification marketing refers to the application of game design elements in marketing activities,making targeted consumers appear to have game-like experience,to improve customer service value and to realize marketing goals.Gamification marketing is the new area of marketing research under the context of social media and provides a new direction for enterprises finding a way to satisfy the needs of "gamer generation"consumers.At the practical level,there are three well-known business "gamification"solution providers in the world,who provide gamification management and marketing consulting services to many enterprises,help them to motivate employees and improve customer engagement as well as enhance customer loyalty.On the other hand,in China,the three largest internet and e-commerce companies including Tencent,Baidu and Alibaba begin to apply many successful gamification methods to marketing and management activities.At the theoretical level,some scholars begin to combine gamification with advertising management,customer management and brand management to actively explore the concept,antecedents and consequences of gamification marketing.However,most of the researches only focus on the conceptual level of gamification marketing,and mostly on qualitative research which does not really reveal how gamification affects customer psychology and subsequent behaviors,particularly,on the complete mechanism of gamification marketing.Therefore,this dissertation focuses on the influence of gamified interaction on brand equity.Subsequently,this study further places this basic issue in the context of the online brand community by dividing it into the following sub-topics:(a)What types of gamified interactions there are in the online brand community?What specific gamification elements do they include?(b)Can the interaction between customer and gamification elements affect the relationship between the customer and the brand?And whether it can further affect the brand equity?What is the mechanism?(c)How does prior gaming experience affect gamification marketing effectiveness?What is the moderating role it plays in the above relationships?Based on the gamification-related theory,basic psychological need theory and brand relationship theory,we construct a conceptual model of the influence of gamified interaction on brand equity.The data is collected based on an online survey as the research sample in the online brand communities.In order to better measure the constructs involved in this study and test the model,we construct the partial least squares structural equation model(PLS-SEM),and set two categories of the research variables as the formative measurement model and the reflective measurement model.In this study,we mainly test formative measurement model and the reflective(first-order and second-order)measurement models,respectively,based on the Smart-PLS 3.0 data analysis software and use the partial least squares method to analyze the structural model as well as the impact of gamified interaction on brand equity by empirical research.The following important conclusions are drawn from this study:First of all,through the literature analysis,three main types of gamification elements are classified in gamification research and three types of gamification interactions in the marketing scene were further proposed:namely interaction with immersive elements,interaction with achievement elements,and interaction with social elements.In order to better understand gamification in marketing scenarios,this study examines the specific elements of the gamification community represented by the official online brand communities of Xiaomi and Huawei,After two rounds of focused group interviews,there are a total of 14 gamification elements that were applied in the online brand community.Then,we conduct in-depth studies on these elements to measure these gamification elements from the two dimensions of interaction(frequency and importance)and eventually develop three types of gamified interaction measurement scale.Secondly,after examining the relationship chain of "gamified interaction? basic psychological need satisfaction ? customer brand engagement? brand equity",this study reveals the psychological mechanism and behavioral responses of gamification to brand equity.Gamified interaction is an effective way for businesses to build and enhance brand equity.Gamified interaction shows a significant positive impact on customer brand engagement by meeting customers' basic psychological needs(autonomy need,competence need,and relatedness need),thereby affecting brand equity,such as improving brand loyalty and brand awareness.Specifically,the study confirm that(a)gamified interactions are positively associated with basic psychological need satisfactions.The interaction with achievement elements and the interaction with social elements are positively associated with three types of basic psychological need satisfactions;while the interaction with immersive elements only can satisfy the autonomy needs;(b)the basic psychological need satisfactions are positively associated with the three dimensions of customer brand engagement.Customers can obtain a higher degree of customer brand engagement when any of the basic psychological needs can be satisfied;(c)customer brand engagement is positively associated with brand equity,and there is a strong correlation between customer brand engagement and brand equity.Therefore,the higher the degree of customer-brand engagement,the greater the brand equity will be.Finally,this study further examines the moderating effects of prior gaming experience in these relationships.The more the customer's prior gaming experience,the more they contribute to the fulfillment of the three basic types of psychological needs as they interact with the social and achievement elements.However,the prior gaming experience can only play a moderating role in the relationship between customer interaction with immersive elements and autonomy need satisfaction.In addition,the prior gaming experience also positively moderated the relationship between the satisfaction of competence need and customer brand engagement,but no significant moderating effect on the relationship between the satisfaction of autonomy and relatedness needs and customer brand engagementIn summary,this study mainly focuses on the impact of gamification on brand equity in a social media environment,and explore the issue of "the influence of gamified interaction on brand equity"based on the online brand community.In addition,several innovations including research perspectives,contents and methods are realized in this study.By examining the relationship chain of "gamified interaction ? basic psychological need satisfaction ? customer brand engagement? brand equity",this study reveal the mechanism and test the theoretical model of the effect of gamified interaction on brand equity as well as the moderating effect of prior gaming experience.Therefore,this study not only enriches the existing gamification research,but also applies the gamification theories in the field of information systems to the field of marketing and achieves theoretical innovation.More importantly,the study of gamification marketing conducted in China is also a useful attempt to explore the adaption of gamification research to China.In terms of practical value,this study not only provides guidance for enterprises on how to design gamification in marketing scenarios,but also provides a new way for enterprises to build and manage brand equity.Gamification marketing as a low-cost incentives by reducing marketing costs and satisfying the needs of customers to the greatest extent.Gamification not only increases customer stickiness and value creation,but also provides new ideas for the enterprises to conduct better brand management and a good brand relationship with customers.In addition,the exploration of gamification marketing in this article also opens up a new direction for the research of social media marketing in the future.However,despite some scientific research methods and tools adopted in this study,due to the limitations of objective conditions of the research and very little available information of the current domestic gamification marketing research,there are still some limitations in this study,which need to be further explored in the future.