Consumer Responses to Promotional Games in Social Media

Increasingly, companies are using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to distribute promotions. A particularly popular tactic involves merging promotional distributions, such as coupon giveaways, with social games. This use of game play mechanics in non-game applications has been used in a variety of situations including promotions, training programs, goal achievement programs, and others. While consumer responses to these games are generally positive, little is known about how the characteristics of games influence redemption, entertainment value, attitudes toward the firm, and future repurchase. In this research, we examine consumer responses to two types of games: games of chance (e.g., scratch tickets) and games of skill (e.g., treasure hunts). We first present results from data collected from a website that runs promotional games tied to social media. We then explore alternative explanations for these findings using a laboratory setting.