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Value Creation in Gamified Chatbot Interactions and Its Impact on Brand Engagement

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Chatbot Research and Design (CONVERSATIONS 2022)

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Abstract

Gamification is a powerful instrument to motivate consumers to intensify their brand relationships. Though this potential, the effects of enriching chatbot interactions with gameful experiences on brand engagement has not been studied. To fill this gap, this study tries to understand how gamification contributes to customers’ value creation in a gamified conversational context and how this value creation relates to brand engagement. Specifically, we investigate whether and to what extent the hedonic and utilitarian values provided in interactions with gamified chatbots affect cognitive, emotional, and behavioral brand engagement. Based on an empirical study involving a fully functional gamified chatbot, we show that the perceived hedonic value has a major impact on all three brand engagement dimensions, and especially the cognitive dimension. Utilitarian values, though not related to the cognitive dimension of brand engagement, significantly boost the emotional and the behavioral engagement dimensions. These findings point to the potentials of extrinsic and utilitarian motivations for boosting brand engagement also in entertainment-oriented settings like gamified chatbot interactions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal

    Susana C. Silva & Maria Levi

  2. Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy

    Roberta De Cicco

  3. CAST, Center for Advanced Studies and Technology, Chieti, Italy

    Roberta De Cicco

  4. Department of Economics, University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy

    Roberta De Cicco

  5. Faculty of Business and Economics, Smart Retail Group, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Maik Hammerschmidt

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  1. Susana C. Silva
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  2. Roberta De Cicco
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  3. Maria Levi
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  4. Maik Hammerschmidt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roberta De Cicco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. SINTEF, Oslo, Norway

    Asbjørn Følstad

  2. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Theo Araujo

  3. CERTH-ITI, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Symeon Papadopoulos

  4. Durham University, Durham, UK

    Effie L.-C. Law

  5. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Ewa Luger

  6. University of Agder, Grimstad, Norway

    Morten Goodwin

  7. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Petter Bae Brandtzaeg

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Silva, S.C., De Cicco, R., Levi, M., Hammerschmidt, M. (2023). Value Creation in Gamified Chatbot Interactions and Its Impact on Brand Engagement. In: Følstad, A., et al. Chatbot Research and Design. CONVERSATIONS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13815. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25581-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25581-6_4

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