On improving the engagement between viewers and TV commercials through gamification

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.