User:Majewstic/Questvertising

Questvertising (a combination of the words quest and advertising) – the concept of digital advertising based on simple tasks connected with ads. Performing the desired action usually requires conscious reading an advertising message, which is the main goal of questvertising. The tasks can have the form of questions, puzzles or other activities that require involvement, such as mini-games or quizzes. Solving the quest is rewarded by for example getting free access to the rest of the article (when used in a paywall) or premium features and bonuses (when used in apps or games).

The concept of questvertising is partially similar to the concept of gamification. In gamification, involvement in a product or service is a far-reaching goal, achieved by introducing elements known from role-playing and computer games. On the other hand, in questvertising, the involvement of the recipient is immediate and focused on achieving the smaller goal but relatively quickly. A quiz or a simple computer game may used in questvertising campaigns, but the ultimate intention is to make people get know the advertising content.

By forcing a conscious understanding of the advertising message, questvertising uses the central path of persuasion, as opposed to classic ads that use the peripheral path of persuasion, according to elaboration likelihood model developed by Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo. Hence, campaigns using questvertising should focus on communicating the most important facts about the promoted products or services without strong manipulations and referring to emotions.

The research conducted by prof. Dariusz Doliński from SWPS University shows that the effectiveness of the same advertising reaching the recipient through questvertising is several times higher than with the use of ordinary display ads. Recognition of unknown brands created for the experiment was on average 3.6 times higher with the use of questvertising and was 28.7% after solving the adquest once. The advantage over traditional advertising continued after a week - 11.6% against 4.5%. At the same time, a slightly higher level of liking of the brands advertised with the use of questvertising was observed, which may be due to the effect of stronger exposure (we like what we know more).

Questvertising may be used in paywalls, where it becomes a form of a moneyless payment for access to content. In this role, solving the ad quest is a form of reward for the publisher, alternative to money transfer.