There has been a lot of talk about the benefits of gamification to businesses and to the world. Turning life into a game to create behavior change sounds like some seriously smart thinking. Especially when it comes to turning activities that are traditionally seen as difficult to get people to do for their own benefit (eating fruit, exercise, watching less of The Only Way Is Essex)
Gamification is interesting because it seems to have been a core element that behavioural economists like Thaler and Sunstein appear to have missed from their bag of tricks. It is also something people have a sense of through the huge amounts of time that men have spent playing Call of Duty, and that women have (generally) watched men doing so. Or those who have read about gamers dieing in cyber cafes due to forgetting to like, eat and stuff.
Some brands have already entered this space. VW pioneered in this area with their quirky ‘Fun Theory’ project. Nike have recently updated Nike+ to include online space to set targets, and the Kickstarter funded Zombies, Run! Application is a game which has zombies chasing you on your phone, while you run in the real world. Lots forums have successfully used badges and points systems to reward members for achievements (e.g.for helping other people out). Apple have been doing this for quite some time. Badgeville tries to transport this functionality on to websites to reward interaction. Scavngr piqued the ad worlds interest for at least 7 minutes, and who can forget the trend toward alternative reality games a few years ago? Finally dropped by brands due to the potential repercussions. Though there are different types of gaming mechanics, what is really interesting is how gamification interplays with CRM.
Advertisers have been gamifying behaviours for a long time – mainly with CRM programmes. Tesco clubcard giving people points is probably the most famous iteration of this. Though primarily used to reward customers in exchange for huge amounts of data about their buying habits, today the opportunity to sell this in as added value when they extend into other sectors (banking, mobile etc) is huge. Air miles are another good example brands (mainly credit cards and airlines) who publicly reward customers with added value.
This appears initially to be slightly different to the social world of achievements and leveling up in games, forums and so on. However having had some exposure to the clever world of direct marketing and seeing the detail that goes into communication plans it is clear that there is an direct link.
For instance, I will be classed into a particular type of consumer if I spend X amount (gold, silver, bronze). And throughout my lifecycle I’ll be attributed a LTV (lifetime value) – something which indicates whether or not I’m eligible to receive more leverage in terms of discounts (if I try and leave O2, for example, they will know how much I can be offered to stay from the calculation of how much money I will continue to spend with them if I stay). I will also be offered discounts, incentives and so on dependent on how far away I am since my last purchase or how close I am to renewing my subscription.
What brands haven’t done with all of this information is make this fun. Those that are rewarding customers with a £1 = x points type offer tend to be the most uninspiring. Rather than rewarding particular behaviours and injecting personality into the rewards, most brands focus on the financial return to the individual. Why else would people get involved with a loyalty programme? But this thinking is akin to saying ‘why do people like Facebook pages apart from winning stuff?’ Having been privy to a Facebook focus group where people said that they mostly valued free stuff and discounts (we had told the client this, but they insisted on paying for a focus group anyway) you can see why brands take the easy option.
But focus groups don’t tell you the 'why' part of human behaviour, they just demonstrate the conscious version of it to you. Just because people have been educated by other brands that incentivised them, this doesn’t mean that this is the type of consumer you want to spend money acquiring. In the same way that some agencies think that people who are reluctant to shop at a store will only do so for a financial incentive. It’s a damn good reason to, and has worked for many years, but building a programme that injects fun and competitiveness into can provide benefits to brands.
GiffGaff is an enormously powerful platform that uses people to be its ambassadors and rewards them with benefits for doing so. It awards points and puts people into leader boards. Ultimately this competitive element helps drive activity on the site. Community platforms like My Starbucks Idea and Dell Idea Storm, are halfway there too. These provide ample scope to get genuinely passionate fans of a brand to spread the good word (and give you some free ideas).
Imagine if by being a member of this community you were rewarded by the actions of others. For instance, if the community between them have answered X amount of questions between them, they receive a trophy (and some freebies). This then educates people and encourages participation in a different way – like in forums when you can receive kudos and points, by helping others you are helping yourself. What about allowing people to put themselves in teams? By being the team that refers the most people you receive a reward for the team to share between themselves.
Like with most things, this isn’t right for most brands. But building CRM platforms as well as programmes is something worth considering.
