The dirty secret of gamification – which chairperson of our Game Developers Association Stephen Knightly defines as using game thinking and mechanics to engage customers and users – is that the psychology is nothing new. The good news is it still works.
If you’ve had dreams of managing The Beatles but haven’t quite figured out where to begin your management career (or how to build a time machine), Indie Music Manager is the game for you.
Marcomms folk are a competitive bunch. Always fighting over clients/awards/staff. And, in many cases, that competition is often a good thing for the quality of ideas, which is why PHD and its local outpost Spark Group are set to launch a new global operating system that taps into elements of gamification and crowd-sourcing to “encourage participation and collaboration” among the 2,500 staff across the Omnicom-owned group.
The gamification of marketing and branding is here to stay. According to M2 Research, corporations spent USD$100 million on gamification in 2010, with that figure expected to rise to $2.8 billion by 2016. That’s a serious amount of cash—and a serious amount of fun and entertainment. So if you feel the time is ripe for you and your brand to jump in and explore this new marketing trend, Gamedojo (in partnership with Idealog and NZ Marketing) is putting on The Gamification Lab, which is to be held on two consecutive half-days, 26 June and 3 July.
Mitch Olson is founder of game design studio, Gamedojo, which, in partnership with NZ Marketing and our sister title Idealog, is hosting the Gamification Lab in Auckland next month. He is also co-founder of the hugely successful social game world SmallWorlds and knows how to go beyond buzzwords and hype to create a business case for gamification for your brand.
Gamification, the use of game concepts to engage users, may be the new buzzword in digital marketing, but if you’re hoping to ride the merry wave to the top, marketers need to do their homework first.
Snapr, a Kiwi-conceived free photo sharing and geo-tagging app has made a bit of name for itself after being given some cash by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, endorsed by Microsoft and used to show the glamour shots during New Zealand Fashion Week. Now it’s added a dose of the digital marketing term du jour—gamification—to the recipe with a photo sharing game called Capture the Flag that’s captured the attention of some major Kiwi brands.
Throughout the history of marketing, various maxims have rung true: sex sells, ‘magic’ sells and giving away free stuff sells. The incredible success of gaming, particularly online gaming, proves a new maxim: fun sells.
If you’re confused as to what exactly gamification is, the term refers to an industry that brings together game mechanics and marketing to create engagement and solve problems.
But don’t take it from us. Thanks to CAANZ Digital Leadership Group, world-leading authority on gamification, Gabe zicherman, is heading to New Zealand where he will discuss how game mechanics and funware can transform marketing, product development and operational processes.