Gamification – Level 1

Compiled by Ethinos Digital Marketing

What is Gamification?

Gamification is the use of game design techniques, game thinking, and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts. Typically, Gamification applies to non-game applications and processes, in order to encourage people to adopt them, or to influence how they are used.

A day in the life of an Indian consumer

Reads the newspaper (exposed to at least 300

ads)

Watches the morning news before heading to

office (exposed to at least 50 ads)

Travels by bus/train/personal

vehicle (exposed to at least 300 billboards)

Surfs the internet for work related information (exposed to at least 1000

ads)

Travels back home after office (exposed again to at least 300 billboards)

Watches television for two-three hours before

heading to bed (exposed at least 300 ads)

A typical Indian consumer is exposed to at least 3000* ads in a dayWhen we take the younger audience in picture, the numbers will be higher

*Source: Association of Indian Magazines

So how does Gamification help?

• Gamification allows advertisers and marketers to promote a certain kind of behavior among their target audience; and this helps them break communication barriers.

• It allows brands to market themselves without making the audience feel that they are being marketed to.

So how does Gamificaton help?

• Gamification allows brands to encourage a richer engagement with their customers; often resulting into the development of a strong brand loyalty.

• Gamification techniques in marketing do not guarantee success; but completely ignoring Gamificationtechniques from the marketing mix is a definite route to failure.

Examples of Gamification

Foursquare users can claim mayorships, unlock badges, receive special offers and rewards such as discounts to specific retailers, etc. while also tracking against friends via a leaderboard.

Microsoft struck a chord with traditional gamers when they first rolled out achievement points with X-Box Live. Users playing the X-Box Live games could earn a certain amount of ‘Gamerscore’ by completing specific tasks or actions in a game; and could also compete with other users.

Linkedin offers a small example of Gamification by drawing users’ attention towards a profile completeness percentage in order to trigger behavior that drives users towards completing their profile.

Gamification techniques

• Achievement badges

• Achievement levels

• Leaderboards

• A progress bar or other visual meters to indicate how close people are towards completing a task that the company is trying to encourage.

• Virtual currency

• Systems for awarding, redeeming, trading, gifting, and exchanging points.

• Challenges between users

• Embedding small casual games within other activities.

Gamification techniques

How Brands Are Using Gamification

Microsoft PowerPoint Ribbon Hero

• Microsoft added something called PowerPoint Ribbon Hero as a gaming component to PowerPoint.

• The idea was that the more functions a person used, the more rewards he earned.

• When a person progressed beyond a certain level in PowerPoint, he could unlock PowerPoint animations that were not available to the regular user.

• This helped engage many more users as people got very curious about the new animations that would be made available to them.

NIKEiD

• Nike came up with something called ‘NIKEiD’; a game mechanic where a person could personalize his shoes.

• Through their ‘NIKEiD’ site, a person could fully customize the colours, materials, sizing, and fit to create his own exclusive pair of Nike shoes and NIKE would ship it just for him.

• The fact that teens could customize and design their own shoes made the whole process of ordering shoes a lot more exciting and engaging.

• NIKEiD was a property that went viral.

My Starbucks Rewards

• Starbucks has incorporated game techniques into its popular loyalty program called ‘My Starbucks Rewards.’

• Starbucks incorporated multiple levels and associated rewards and perks per level with a progression tracker; which gave users the incentive to continually engage with the brand and earn maximum rewards.

American Airlines

• American Airlines uses a simple game mechanism on their mobile application to visually represent a flyer’s current Elite Status Qualification.

• The users can see how many rewards they have and how many more they need to achieve a goal.

• Over 40 million people globally use this application.

Mint

• Mint offers a financial fitness score based on task completion and achievements.

• The more tasks you do with the online financial site, the higher your score goes; and unlocks more opportunities.

• Mint takes an ordinary exercise and creates a casual gaming experience that helps the creation of an opportunity to drive new user acquisition.

Game Over

Siddharth Hegdesiddharth.hegde@ethinos.com

+91 9820 2172 52

Sources

blogs.imediaconnection.comwww.marketingsherpa.com

www.wikipedia.orgblairkeeley.wordpress.com