The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/2056-4945.htm Identifying the Identifying the success factors of success factors advergames: a mixed- of advergames method approach Mona Jami Pour Business Department, Hazrat-e Masoumeh University (HMU), Qom, Iran, and Received 13 March 2020 Sahar Sadeghi and Elahe Yahyaei Revised 16 July 2020 University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran 29 August 2020 Accepted 6 September 2020 Abstract Purpose – Advergame as a new approach in advertising has recently attracted the attention of many researchers and practitioners. Despite the growing investment, managers still do not have a comprehensive understanding of the success factors of advergames. To the authors’ knowledge, there are no studies that address success factors in advergames. The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively explore the success factors of advergames to enhance the markets’ insight regarding the implementation of advergames. Design/methodology/approach – This study investigates the success factors of advergames implementation using the mixed-method approach. For this purpose, along with a literature review, some semistructured interviews with experts were conducted and the obtained data were analyzed using the thematic analysis. Then a survey was conducted to validate the extracted factors and criteria. The quantitative data were analyzed by Student t-test and factor analysis. Findings – The results indicated that the main success factors of advergames are game design factors, brand/ product-related factors, players’ personality-related factors and technical factors. The rank orders of the mentioned factors and their subcriteria were identified using their respective variance. Practical implications – In advergame initiatives, technical issues must be considered along with game design factors, brand/product-related factors and players’ personality-related factors simultaneously. The findings can assist managers to understand all aspects of advergames adaptation and assess the weaknesses and strengths of adervgame projects. Originality/value – Although the intersection between digital games and advertising has had a growing trend in both practical and academic contexts, there are few studies on what factors must be considered during advergames development and implementation. The main contribution of this study is to explore the important aspects of advergames success and their priorities. The findings provide a comprehensive insight on the interdisciplinary aspects of advergames. Keywords Gamification, Advergames, Critical success factors (CSFs), Thematic analysis Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction Although a plethora of traditional ways of advertisement still exists, yet businesses have moved toward taking advantage of modern methods and platforms of advertising (Radesky et al., 2020). Studies show that the relative inefficiency of traditional advertising methods (Choi et al., 2015), the high cost of traditional methods (Hernandez and Minor., 2011) and their limitations in terms of location and scope of users (An et al., 2014) have nowadays made the marketers look for alternative and complementary methods for effective advertising (Catalan et al., 2019; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2015). One of the newest marketing strategies that has attracted growing interest and emerged as a dynamic mass medium for marketers is advergames (Lee and Cho, 2017; Folkvord and Van’t Riet, 2018). While different forms of advertising such as newspaper ads and banners can be easily forgotten by customers, advergames can engage for a long time (Cheung et al., 2015; Catalan et al., 2019; Roettl et al., ’ 2016). Although playing computer games was formerly regarded as one of the teenagers Arts and the Market hobbies, these games nowadays have become one of the main hobbies of a wide range of © Emerald Publishing Limited 2056-4945 audiences with different demographic characteristics (Choi, 2019) to the extent that DOI 10.1108/AAM-03-2020-0006 AAM researchers believe that marketing activities will encounter new challenges to meet the needs and desires of this generation (Bellman et al., 2014). Because of their intrinsic attractiveness and interactive nature, computer games are popular among the various groups of people around the world. This has led the marketers to use these games as a promotional tool (Sung and Lee, 2020). According to eMarketer (2019), spending on advertising in all games grew by 16% in 2019 and will continue to grow by double-digit rates in the coming years. Advertising games are powerful tools for building brand loyalty and collecting vital data about potential and existing customers (Redondo, 2012). Investing in the field of advergames is the third- largest investment budget (about 12% of online advertising funds) on the Internet (Farıas, 2018). The rapid growth of interest in advergames indicates that marketers recognize their potential advantages for interaction and reaching target customers (Catalan et al., 2019; Radesky et al., 2020). Despite huge investments in this area, many commercial digital game projects have failed to reach promised outcomes (Aleem et al., 2016). According to the Gartner Institute, about 70% of the world’s largest companies have used gamification; however, just near half of them have achieved their predetermined goals (Robson et al., 2015). Many of failures in advergame and digital game strategies in businesses were due to lack of knowledge and understanding of gamification, unfamiliarity with how to implement, lack of awareness about the users’ interest and the ways of attracting them (Robson et al., 2015), poor business strategies (Aleem et al., 2016) and lack of proper understanding of the vital factors in designing and implementing these new initiatives (Heilbrunn et al., 2017). In recent years, various studies have been conducted in the advergame field. For instance, Lee and Cho (2017) explored the determinants of consumers’ intention to play an advergame and purchase a product by considering advergame personality and company attributes. Roettl et al. (2016) identified the persuasive mechanisms of advergames and analyzed how they were applied in advergames. They used 195 samples of advergames to recognize and categorize their persuasive mechanisms. Likewise, Wanick et al. (2018) examined the relationship between advergame design, advergame experience and consumer behavior across cultures. According to Cicchirillo (2019), research works in the field of advergame, while robust, have some shortcomings; hence, new research is necessary to better understand gamification approach. Digital game development is an interdisciplinary concept that requires considering the principles of software engineering, business, management and artistic disciplines (Aleem et al., 2016). The literature on advergames is fragmented and focused on isolated issues. The majority of previous studies have explored the determinants of consumers’ attitudes, engagement and intention to play. They have just analyzed consumer behavior issues quantitatively. However, no studies that identify the success factors of advergames have been reported in the literature. The main objective of this study is to explore comprehensively the critical success factors of advergames and provide an understanding of the best practices and guidelines of advergames implementation for marketers. 2. Theoretical background 2.1 Gamification Nowadays, with the development of gamification technology, the boundary between gaming and business activities has become increasingly blurred (Xi and Hamari, 2020). Gamification is a new approach that utilizes capabilities, techniques and theories of the game in areas that are, generally, unrelated to the game, including marketing, human resource, learning and so on (Morschheuser et al., 2019). The use of game elements in nongame contexts is the most commonly used definition of gamification (Deterding et al., 2011). Gamification offers the conditions (chances of winning or receiving rewards) to increase the users’ motivation to perform an activity. Comprehensive support for emotions and providing context for different experiences (Xi and Hamari, 2020), stimulating intrinsic motivation of users (Unsal et al., Identifying the 2018), enhancing user satisfaction (Morschheuser et al., 2019) and conveying a sense of success factors optimism (Makanawala et al., 2013) are the most important benefits of applying gamification. Considering all the benefits and the importance of the new approach of gamification in of advergames marketing, investment in advergames is increasing such that spending in this field is predicted to increase from $4.91bn in 2016 to nearly $12bn in 2021 (Statista, 2019). Due to the growing interest in gamification, e-marketers have been motived to apply the gamification approach in the marketing domain to enhance the effectiveness of marketing (Hofacker et al., 2016). As a new approach, gamification provides businesses and marketers with an opportunity for entertaining and engaging customers (Xu et al., 2016). 2.2 Advergames Advergame is a combination of two concepts, advertising and video games. It refers to sending advertising messages through digital games (Catalan et al., 2019). Digital games designed to promote a specific product or brand are named advertising games (Çadırcı and Gungor, 2019). Advergames include the placement of messages, logos and business figures into games (Culp et al., 2010). Advertising games are