Gamification and new technologies
First of all, what is gamification?
Gamification is a simple and popular way to encourage customers to interact with a brand. It might support employees to do more for their work or to learn something new. The aim is also to collaborate, share knowledge and interact with consumers or colleagues. All of this in order to encourage, engage and motivate the participants.
Gamification itself is nothing more than the implementation of game mechanics in the space around us. It offers active instructions and clear feedback through the dynamics and the mechanics of the game. Their implementation often serves to achieve corporate goals.
The mechanics, that are very well known from the games used in gamification, are the rules and rewards that appear in the created program. These can be levels, progress, missions, badges, points or the most common leaderboards.
When employees or consumers interact with the created gamification program, they quickly get feedback on their results. Through immersive experiences, their emotions are involved to take further action, to gain new points or achievements.
The dynamics of the game itself refers to the many emotions, behaviours and desires that can be found in games. The simplest examples are collaboration in team missions or the competition with the leaderboards. Who among us has not tried to take the lead and overtake everyone along the way? 😊
The business value of gamification.
The most important value in business thinking for gamification is the promotion of engagement, which in turn influences business results. As people take part in and engage with the gamification initiative, they automatically begin to interact with the company, products or services. The awareness of the brand among users is greatly increased by such treatment, and the values are far from ceasing. Collaboration with game mechanics supplies a large amount of data. They can significantly influence performance targets, platform usage or marketing campaigns.
Nowadays we find many browser and mobile gamification applications on the market. The number and the type of companies, whose applications we observe could be mentioned for a long time. Starting from well-known brand retailers to gas station chains. They often create mini games for consumers, with which they can obtain products or discounts. It is worth mentioning that this is a bilateral transaction, as brands receive valuable information for their customers in return. These can be, for example, shopping habits or preferences for shopping days.
New technologies in gamification.
Where the space for consumer interest arises, new technology comes into play! To encourage consumers to familiarize themselves with the brand, we can often come across augmented reality technology. Which is in many cases supported by QR code technology. Gamification through AR experiences is an interesting, interactive way to encourage consumers to engage in different forms of contact with a brand or a company. QR codes themselves can be implemented practically anywhere, from TV commercials, billboards, shop windows, labels to product packaging. What the user sees after interacting with the QR code depends on the idea of the developer. We may be redirected to information about the brand’s history, an exclusive video, a survey, a shop or a game where you can win special prizes or discount vouchers by competing against others. The following video shows an example of how a consumer can be encouraged to contact a brand via AR. By scanning the flyer, the user receives additional product information, enriched with interactive visual values.
The solution already mentioned are the mini-games, the example of which you can also see below. After the user has scanned the flyer, an augmented reality game is displayed on his screen. The score the user receives will be a discount voucher or maybe a chance to win a ticket? It all depends on ingenuity 😉