The gamification industry is expected to grow from 2015 to over 11 billion in 2020 which explains the keen interest of marketers and retailers. Some established as well as emerging brands actively employ gamification as a marketing tool to engage customers and garner a strong relationship with them.
Technically, if you have gaming spirit, you must be a kid from the 90’s. So, you can understand a gamified user-experience better than everyone else. Much like in video games, players earn rewards for leveling up which motivates them to keep playing. The customers can be motivated in a similar way when they are offered lucrative rewards for achieving a certain milestone. This technique is known as gamification. It has become a revolutionary part for a wide range of reputable brands.
In fact, Gamification strategies have become a standard practice. Let’s recount some of the most effective strategies executed by brands.
An organized system of points collection is an incredible way to impress regular customers. If a customer values a brand over its competitors, they will keep coming back but might also consider alternatives. Reward wars is an excellent model of gamification that keeps them hooked for points collection as well. Here’s an example of how Starbucks achieved brand loyalty to remain undefeated.
Starbucks made use of gamification through the loyalty program called ‘My Starbucks Rewards’ – a strategy that proved to be an ace for customer engagement and better ROI. The regular customers at StarBucks were offered incentives like free food, and drinks by collecting stars on each purchase and then redeeming them for prizes. Apart from that, free birthday beverage and refills were also offered to the customers who earned more stars. All in all, this was a simple reward system to keep the customers engaged. Gamification via digital kiosk
Digital kiosks have superseded their traditional function and now they are actively used for consumer engagement. Brands are experimenting with this new found tool to make people talk about their them. A fail safe idea is to engage people through games and digital kiosks provide just the right platform for that. Samsumg demonstrates the perfect use of outdoor space for engaging audience.
Samsung started a campaign with the name of “All eyes on S4” where the participants were given a chance to win the new generation mobile phone. All they had to do was keep their eye on the screen for a specific period of time where they had to avoid all the outrageous distractions such as birds chattering, horns of motor bikes, barking dogs and even the people who were gathered around the player. This unique exercise attracted multiple spectators on the scene. It was a fascinating campaign that resulted in an entertaining social experience.
No childhood is complete without a game of treasure hunt. The idea of hunting for reward used to add thrill to reward seeking. So, creating an online game affiliated to your brand’s campaign can be a great idea for marketing since no one is too old to play games.
Magnum initiated the ‘Pleasure Hunt’, an extremely addictive game inspired by old school Mario and Frogger. A sweet young lady who was associated with the brand, was controlled by the users. The lady had to collect as many chocolate balls as she can. The score of the game can be shared to challenge a friend. It is known to be one of the most successful and referred to as one of the top most creative digital campaign. It was so well organized and was linked to social media too, which took the success of this campaign to a great height but we all know this campaign did not come cheap.
With social media chanting on every corner of the street, social media gaming can prove to be a milestone when comes to marketing. You just need to create an eye catchy graphic game, to give a boom to your brand online.
On the launch of M&M’s pretzel-flavored candy, this brand gamified it’s marketing to the next level. They designed a very interesting graphic game called Eye-Spy Pretzel on Facebook in which the users simply had to find the pretzel candy which was hidden among lots of M&M candies.
This game in such a short span became so viral and popular creating a loud noise on social media. This strategy became a strong stone for bringing huge conversion to the brand.
This is the age of smartphones and tablets and downloading apps to solve every problem, is the new cool. Whether it be keeping a track of your data or your health records. You have the access to use applications anywhere and everywhere. So, designing apps with a smart marketing strategy can really affect huge number of masses and can bring gigantic conversions to businesses.
Nike launched an application in the year 2012 but in order for the app to work you must first need to buy Nike accessory. The personalized Nike+Fuel accessory, is a bracelet with a special technology. It can monitor its user’s movements. With this band and application, people can track their workout stats like the number of calories they have burned and others. Apart from that, this app can also be linked with social media which helps users to share their achievements with each other. Also, trophies and badges are rewarded to people who achieve athletic accomplishments. This social media element undoubtedly increased the Nike+Fuel band demand. It motivated consumers to make more use of their products and get more rewards which resulted in huge conversions.