Are You Ahead of the Game?

admin STRATEGY

Gamification, although it sounds futuristic, is nothing new. Simply put, it is the incorporation of aspects of game design (ranging from basic gaming rules all the way up to apps, embedded games and platforms) into traditionally non-gaming environments.

For example:

  • The military – does anyone remember playing the popular arcade game Battlezone from the 1980s? If so, congratulations, you were playing a version of a US military trainer sim:http://www.safestuff.com/bradley.htm In case you’ve never seen it, here’s Battlezone itself:http://my.ign.com/atari/battlezone
  • Education – from the most basic of counting games through to languages, the sciences, engineering and other subjects.
  • The workplace – used as a means to team-build and collaborate across disparate locations, motivate staff and improve decision-making, as well as providing a new context for work-based training. Try this one:http://www.cces.ca/en/thetrackmeet
  • Medical and Healthcare research, using interaction for surveys and classification, and as a more stimulating way of processing test data.

For advertising and marketing, gamification offers the prospect of a Holy Grail, a synthesis of consumer (player) experience, achievement and peer recognition (evidenced by leaderboards, awards and game levels), social interaction, brand engagement and awareness, and meaningful data.

The interactivity of gamification offers an opportunity for consumers to not only feel connected to a brand, but to contribute to it as well. Volkswagen used this to great effect, back in 2011, by giving participants the opportunity to create their own designs and vote for them. Over 30 million site visits led to a trio of winning designs, one of which starred in a video (that, needless to say, went viral).

UK based media buying group PHD published their views in ‘Game Change’, which considers gamification as a future business template, focusing on successful adopters like Guinness and Mint.com: https://www.mint.com/education/ .

PHD has further embraced gamification by creating Source – a virtual platform that enables around 3,000 staff globally to interact, contribute and compete, using a real-time leaderboard.

US research company Gartner proposes that, by 2015, 50% of all companies managing innovation processes will have incorporated gamification to some degree. However, its vice-president of research, Brian Burke, is clear about one of the pitfalls, warning, “Poor game design is one of the key failings of many gamified applications today.”

There are other challenges too. For example, incentives need to be relevant to users – something Google recognised when they closed the door on their Google News Badges concept. However, the essential consideration for gamification, experiential media or any form of advertising has to be the age-old question: Does it meet and deliver on the business objectives?

At Site Audits, we can see the potential for gamification as part of the mix. Right now it might seem a natural fit with Generation Y – especially where mobile apps are concerned – but who’s to say that targeted retro-gamification (you heard it here first!) can’t meet the needs of other segments effectively? It has many business applications, not just to advertising and can – as VW showcased – become a catalyst in itself for other ideas and campaigns.

Gamification could be the missing piece of the puzzle, enabling companies (whether advertisers directly or agencies) to develop brand and product attributes. Creating in collaboration with users would deliver tailor-made propositions and ad campaigns to fit differing audience groups. We’ll just have to see how it all plays out.

By the way, we hope you enjoyed the games.