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Gamification: The Crowd Sourcing Innovation to Engage Customers

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Gamification: The Crowd Sourcing Innovation to Engage Customers
21st OctoberJodie Sangster

Gamification is the newest type of loyalty marketing. It combines elements of gaming with mundane tasks and in turn creates an engaging consumer experience!
We hear a lot these days about the new buzz term “gamification” but do we really know what it means and is anyone really doing it anyway? Well the answer seems to be „yes‟ and if analysts at Gartner are to be believed it‟s time for us to sit up and take notice. According to Gartner, by 2015 a gamified service for consumer goods marketing and customer retention will become as important to companies‟ marketing departments as Facebook and Twitter. Gartner further predicts that in less than three years more than 70 percent of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application. The term “gamification” was coined by Tim Chang, principal at social game backer Norwest Venture Partners. It describes the broad trend of employing game mechanics to non-game environments. The idea is to add gaming elements in to tasks and processes that are ordinarily tedious, boring or uninspiring and thereby make them fun, compelling and engaging. By using gaming techniques you encourage a consumer to come back again and again. In many respects it can be seen as another form of loyalty marketing – the goals of gamification being to engage with consumers, stimulate interaction and change behaviours. With a traditional loyalty program participants are rewarded valuebased benefits‟ – points, discounts and special offers. In gamification reward is

often not a monetary reward but based on gaining status, access and power within the game or interaction. The most well known examples of gamification can be seen in Foursquare and Nike+ although the application has now extended way beyond the big brands and is being adopted in a variety of forms. Foursquare took the US by storm using a location-based social network, through a free mobile app, to encourage people to report in wherever they are – shops, cafes and entertainment venues. People are incentivized to do so by being rewarded „virtual badges‟ and the person that checks into a location the most becomes that spot‟s “Mayor.” To encourage traffic to their venue businesses now award those who check in with discounts and promotions. For example: the Gap retail chain held a one-day “BlackMagic Event” which gave Foursquare users a 25% discount off all clothes. Nike + “gamified” exercise by selling a pedometer that can be placed in a pair of training shoes that monitors distance, pace and calories burned and then transmitting that information to the user‟s iPod. The iPod software then “rewards” users if they reach a milestone using congratulatory messages from sporting icons such as Lance Armstrong, to date over 1.4 million individuals have purchased the Nike + unit. The opportunities for businesses are great – from having more engaged customers to crowd sourcing innovation. It‟s certainly an area that we as marketers cannot afford to ignore.

Summary Gamification is the newest type of loyalty marketing. It combines elements of gaming with mundane tasks and in turn creates an engaging consumer experience!

Description The most well known examples of gamification can be seen in Foursquare and Nike+ although the application has now extended way beyond the big brands and is being adopted in a variety of forms. The opportunities for businesses are great – from having more engaged customers to crowd sourcing innovation. It’s certainly an area that we as marketers cannot afford to ignore.

Tags: Crowdsourcing, Foursquare, gamification, Global 2000, Lance Armstrong, loyalty marketing, Nike, Norwest Venture Partners, Tim Chang

Posted by Jason Robbins

Oct 24, 2011 08:40 pm GMT Viewed 2874 times

Author: Jodie Sangster Source

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