The Relationship of Persuasion Knowledge, Identification of Commercial Intent and Persuasion Outcomes in Advergames—the Role of Media Context and Presence

Across two studies, the authors investigate the extent to which children’s persuasion knowledge of an advertising tactic (advergame and TV commercial) and their level of engagement with the medium (presence) influence their identification of commercial content and persuasion outcomes. In line with theoretical predictions of the persuasion knowledge model, results showed that those children who had more knowledge about advertisers’ tactics were more likely to identify brands and commercial content in the advergame and less likely to be influenced. However, a high level of presence in the medium moderated the effect of persuasion knowledge on persuasion outcomes.