What is gamification?
The term describes the integration of game principles into a non-game experience – very often simply to make things more fun. Gamification started to gain wide popularity around 2010: think frequent flyer and customer loyalty programs. Traditionally, companies use gamification to increase sales, customer engagement and brand awareness (speaking of which having custom t-shirts made could help too!), but today, the principles are applied to not only grow the business, but also employee productivity, product development and positive behaviour.
By using motivation and engagement, gamification can work beautifully in many different areas and for a variety of purposes. A gamified strategy rewards players and recognises their achievements publicly – through points, badges, and awards as well as levels that show their advancement. Social leaderboards, interaction with others and the flow of being “in the game” keep players engaged, inspire them to perform tasks and build brand loyalty.
Examples of gamification in business
Nike
The sports brand Nike wants customers to get active and stay motivated and launched the campaign NikeFuel around its fitness technology Nike+. With sensors and apps, Nike+ users can track their activities and convert them into points to be shared with the NikeFuel community. Reaching certain levels on NikeFuel unlocks trophies and rewards to keep motivation up. Sharing results on social media is a way of competing, but also increasing brand visibility.
M&M’s pretzels
Eye-spy M&M’s – with this gamification classic of 2013, M&M’s created a huge marketing success as part of a larger campaign for their chocolate pretzel candy. In a Facebook app, users had to find the hidden pretzel in a large picture of M&M’s. The company achieved great engagement with new likes, shares and comments and a fun way to interact with their new product.
ChoreWars
The perfect tool to boost motivation! ChoreWars literally transforms any chore from bore to more, no matter if at home or in the office. We all postpone ticking off these mundane tasks that need doing, simply because they’re missing the fun factor. ChoreWars puts you back in the action, but first lets you create a character like in a role playing game, tricking you into thinking you get to procrastinate more. But then it’s XP, leaderboards and levelling up all the way. You can create a one-time contest, or an ongoing adventure with recurring stats and awards, and character badges can of course be shared on social media.
