Project Details
Projekt
Gamified market research in digital social media for brand management decisions; first funding period: Valuation of branding options for hedonic media products using virtual prediction markets
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Franziska Völckner
Subject Area
Accounting and Finance
Term
from 2014 to 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 163849297
In the first funding period, we developed and validated a new approach to the valuation of brand extensions by combining real-options analysis with virtual stock markets (VSM). The project contributes to the branding literature by providing the first approach to the monetary valuation of brand extensions that explicitly considers the option value inherent in such investment decisions. Moreover, it contributes to real-options analysis by developing an approach to derive the value of an option’s underlying asset and its volatility (the two parameters that are most difficult to derive when using real options analysis in practice) using a VSM. In addition, the project analyzed forward and backward spillover effects as important drivers of the value of brand extensions using an extensive secondary dataset from the entertainment industry. Finally, we addressed an important consumer-based driver of brand extension value by analyzing the relevance of different types of word of mouth in digital social media (DSM) for purchase decisions. An important insight of the project work was that complex or monotonous data collection or analysis tasks pose special requirements to the motivation of participants. One promising means of enhancing an individual’s motivation is the use of game elements, i.e., points, rankings, or levels. The use of gamification techniques seems to be especially promising in the context of DSM because of the large amounts of (unstructured) data available in DSM; a characteristic of DSM already emphasized in the application for the first funding period that has become even more important in recent years. The digitalization involves all areas of everyday life and produces large amounts of data (“datafication”). Thus, the use of gamification techniques in corresponding data analysis tasks seems to be promising, e.g., to enhance coder motivation. Furthermore, gamification techniques can support data collection tasks by motivating individuals to participate in a survey or by motivating users – within DSM – to contribute shares, likes, or own posts. It is the objective of the second funding period to complement our analyses of a specific market research problem (i.e., valuation of brand extensions) by investigating the use of gamification techniques in market research in DSM. Thereby, the second funding period aims at providing an in-depth analysis of a vital feature of VSMs used in the first funding period: by acting in a virtual market and by competition with other participants VSMs use game-like elements to motivate participants. We will examine (1) how game elements influence user behavior within a (mobile) market research app (e.g., willingness to participate in a survey), (2) how different types of game elements influence user behavior, (3) the underlying (psychological) process that explains these effects, and (4) whether gamification leads to a higher willingness to disclose personal data and thus to a less careful handling of own data.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Co-Investigators
Professor Dr. Thorsten Hennig-Thurau; Professor Dr. Henrik Sattler
