Twenty years of research on gamified advertising: a systematic overview of theories and variables

Abstract Gamified advertising has received considerable attention from advertising scholars over the last two decades. In the literature, two main types of gamified advertising can be identified: in-game advertising (IGA) and advergames (AG). In this article, we synthesize 20 years of research into these types of advertising – and pay special attention to the role played by the International Journal of Advertising (IJA). We give a systematic overview of the most often used theories explaining the persuasive effects of advertising in games (in-game advertising) and through games (advergames) and discuss the main conclusions that can be drawn from the existing gamified advertising literature. Furthermore, we propose a framework that offers an overview of the most important ad, game, and player characteristics influencing the effectiveness of gamified advertising. Finally, we look ahead and discuss the future of research on gamified advertising.