The effects of gamified customer benefits and characteristics on behavioral engagement and purchase: Evidence from mobile exercise application uses

This study investigates how gamified customer benefits (epistemic, social integrative, and personal integrative) and customer characteristics (age and experience) influence marketing outcomes, behavioral engagement and purchase, in exercise context. Using a unique data set of exercise and purchase history created by 5072 smartphone users over three years in South Korea, this study finds that although all three customer benefits are positively associated with marketing outcomes, personal and social integrative benefits are the best predictors for engagement and purchase, respectively. Furthermore, the effects of gamified customer benefits on marketing outcomes vary by age and experience, showing the importance of epistemic and personal integrative benefits to older and less experienced customers and social integrative benefits to younger and experienced customers. This study not only explores the long-term effects of gamification on behavioral outcomes but also examines the feasibility of successfully implementing the gamification benefit proposition strategy for superior marketing outcomes.