Marketing experts and brands face the daily challenge of creating new consumer journeys that create value for their audiences. Brands are continuously seeking for tricks and strategies to engage, make a difference and gain preference and loyalty.
In the past few years, marketers have realized the potential of using game-like strategies to build brand equity; this trend has been named gamification.
During our recent New York production trip, we met up with Gabe Zichermann, the man who coined the term gamification. We asked him about the valuable lessons learnt from gaming, to what extent games can turn into profitable outcomes, and what comes next in the social gaming arena.
Gabe Zichermann is an entrepreneur, author, highly rated public speaker and gamification thought leader. He is the chair of the Gamification Summit and Workshops, and is co-author of the book “Game-Based Marketing” (Wiley, 2010) where he makes a compelling case for the use of games and game mechanics in everyday life, the web and business. Gabe is also author of Gamification by Design where he discusses implementing game mechanics in web and mobile apps to deliver a sticky, viral, and engaging experience to customers.
Gabe opened up the doors to his home office, where he greeted us with a relaxed and cheerful smile and told us to set up wherever we felt like. Mr. Gamification was a joy to interview (no wonder he´s a highly rated public speaker). He told us gamification presents an unprecedented opportunity to transform your marketing, product development and operational processes. Points, badges, challenges, leaderboards and levels are being used by organizations large and small, in industry, government, education and healthcare to create stakeholder engagement and virality.
He told us that even topics as serious as Cancer can benefit from gamification. Studies have shown that cancer patients are more willing to show up for checkups and treatment when they get something in return. Incentives can be something really small but still truly effective.
We also discussed the lessons from the gaming industry: Gabe said marketers should pay attention to examples like Foursquare, Zynga, Nike+, and Groupon who are doing a great job in using game concepts to create fun and captivating audiences.
His interview will be featured on an upcoming episode of the WOBI TV series Mark It that will discuss social media marketing, social games and game strategies for brands….
More news from our New York trip soon!
