Understanding Gamification And Its Importance for Brand Campaigns

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you come across the word ‘Gamification’? If you think it is related to games, badgification or pointsification then you're only 10% correct.

What is Gamification, then?

Gamification is the process of game thinking and mechanics to entice participation in real world situations (non-Game contexts). Gamification has become a way of motivating a set of behaviors within consumers with elements varying from a simple progress bar (like a Linkedin Profile) to badges/rewards (cityville,farmville).

So, why Gamification?

To Increase Engagement

Engagement is by far the most crucial metric used to measure the success of Gamification. Engagement consists of elements like visits on websites, sharing rewards/content et al via social media channels, the time spent on the microsite, engaging customers to spend immediately or to spend in the future and encouraging them to engage others to spend.

Customers get a chance to connect with the brand on a personal level, thus helping in brand visibility via behaviour-based engagement approach.

To Increase Motivation

Gamification helps in motivating the customers as well as the employees in organizations. The motivation aspect in Gamification can be classified into two forms: Intrinsic and Extrinsic.

Intrinsic: Wherein one is motivated from within to perform a particular activity/task. You do it just for your sake and for no one else’s. (eg: you go to work just because you like doing so)

Extrinsic: Wherein you are supposed to do something but you really don’t want to do it. You go to work, not because you like going to work but because you need money to run a household.

In Gamification both the aspects of motivation are important. Organizations motivate/encourage the customers and employees to perform certain activities and thus get rewarded with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. These awards can be tangible ones like freebies and increment et al or intangible ones like manager's/peers' appreciation.

Habits

At times we all do things we don’t want to! Like going to the gym everyday, calling that irritating aunt of yours with whom you don’t get along at all. But what if I say that you would get points to keep doing these stuffs? When I say points obviously those would be accrued points against which one gets rewards!

Hell yeah! Why not! Right? Hence, all these activities turn into a habit eventually, without you even realizing it in order to pursue certain benchmark goals. Intrinsic motivation is important here to develop a habit.

As you can see, Gamificiation finds its application in a lot of aspects and can attain a lot of traction for your brand in more ways than just creating a Facebook game. So think beyond the regular games and you will understand how Gamification can boost your brand.