The effects of playing an advergame on young children's perceptions, preferences, and requests.

Increasingly sophisticated promotions, combined with the technology available on the World Wide Web (the Web), are changing the way companies communicate with young children. The reputed effects of their exposure to Web content include a threat to their long-term health due to poor eating habits that were formed by their interaction with Web-based promotions such as "advergames" (American Psychological Association 2004). Advergames are a form of branded entertainment that feature advertising messages, logos, and trade character in a game format. Although advergames can refer to any game format, the use of electronic games is the most prevalent (Moore 2006).

The proportion of children with access to the World Wide Web is increasing, their trial age is getting younger, and the Web is becoming a bigger part of young children's lives at home and at school (Montgomery 2001). Therefore, the potential effects of Web-based interactive promotions such as advergames on children's decision making and behavior may be significant.

A variety of groups consider children to be uniquely susceptible to promotion, thus requiring protection from it (e.g., American Psychological Association 2004; John 1999). Many researchers, industry experts, parents, and government agencies appear to support the view that young children's underdeveloped cognitive abilities reduce their ability to comprehend the persuasive intentions of marketers that develop these commercial messages. Young children are said to lack the skills to correctly mediate their experience with promotion through their thoughts and ideas (Moses and Baldwin 2005; Resnik and Stern 1977), and are inferred to be unable to resist and adequately defend against the effects that a persuasive promotion intends to have on them (American Psychological Association 2004; John 1999; Livingstone 2004). The idea that using marketing promotion to influence children exploits their vulnerability is also tied with the assumption that children progress from a vulnerable state to a more sophisticated state similar to the one enjoyed by adults (Wright, Freistad, and Boush 2005; Young 1990). However, no empirical evidence appears to exist that tests the causal link between a child's knowledge about a promotion and its impact on them (Livingstone 2004).

THE WEB

The Web allows for the delivery of customized content with a high level of engagement with the content via an interactive Web site (Australian Broadcasting Authority 2004). This mixture of content and interactive experience (see Constantin and Grigorovici 2004) is viewed as cultivating Web site loyalty, developing brand equity for the brands promoted, and encouraging the brand's use now or in the future (Ilfield and Winter 2002; Kraak and Pelletier 1998).

Promotion on the Web takes many forms and includes banner ads, site sponsorships, pop-ups, e-mail, corporate Web sites, and advergames (Lindstrom 2003; Nelson 2002). By using these new technologies, branded communities, which are being created based on children's interests, are becoming popular tools for companies to connect with their target markets (Lindstrom and Seybold 2003). An example is the www .barbie.com Web site, which describes itself as an "online community for girls," and has attracted one million visitors each month (Edwards 2003). At the site, children are encouraged, through a wide selection of games (advergames), to spend time in a branded environment in which all the content directly and exclusively relates to Barbie products.

ADVERGAMES