Touch, Swipe, and Tilt: Exploring the Impact of Mobile In-App Advertising Content on Consumer Brand Choice Intention
(A2025-125859)

AUTHORS

Yusuf Oc, Bayes Business School, City St George University of London; Kirk Plangger, King's College London; Stefan Bernritter, King's Business School; Francesca Sotgiu, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, School of Business and Economics

ABSTRACT

The mobile advertising industry reached $90 billion in 2023, engaging over 3 billion consumers in mobile gaming ads alone. This study examines the effectiveness of interactive, rewarded in-app mobile advertising on consumer brand choice, leveraging data from 268,209 consumers across 250 global advertising field experiments. It focuses on two elements: engagement objectives (explore, interact, play) and embodied engagement (tap, tilt, swipe, shake). Using a random-effects regression model, the findings reveal that gamified ads with play objectives significantly enhance brand choice, while tapping and tilting are more effective than swiping or shaking. Product type moderates these effects, while regional and industry differences underscore the need of contextual alignment. Using grounded cognition theory, this research contributes to marketing literature by introducing engagement goals with embodied engagement and emphasizing the need for tailoring ad features to product and context.