What is gamification and how can it be used to optimise your event experience?
Typically with applications in the ‘non-game’ arena, ‘gamification’ can be seen as an attempt to include various gaming elements to enhance an experience of a user or user-base. Nearly always facilitated by technology, gamification is usually applied in consumer situations that would usually be considered relatively mundane.
By doing this, brands can achieve a few standout things or ‘objectives’. Firstly, brands can exploit the innate human desire for competition and gaming and implement this into a live event or consumer experience. This can really raise the bar in terms of engagement as people feel immediately like they have an additional sense of purpose and involvement that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. Secondly, if facilitated effectively gamification can tu what would normally be considered dull tasks or ‘ordinary’ events into an experience that is much more interactive and essentially enjoyable from the user’s point of view. Simply creating leaderboards with prizes displayed through Twitter Walls can be a great way of encouraging engagement in the live setting.
With all this additional user input through technology there of course is the opportunity to collect consumer data which can then be used for multiple business-enhancing purposes. If your organisation gets it right, these kind of consumer ‘gamified’ experiences can be breeding grounds for consumer loyalty!
A top example of how this has worked in reality was back in 2010 at the ‘Coca-Cola Village’ in Israel. This experiential activity event aimed at teenagers was ran through Facebook by Coca-Cola, in which teens needed to collect 10 Coca-Cola caps each, along with 8 other friends who also needed 10 caps each. After they did this, they would register on Facebook in order to gain exclusive entry to the event. At the event itself, the attendees were given wristbands which when swiped at the start of an activity. This ‘swiping’ (via an RFID chip) automatically updated the Facebook status of participants in relation to the specific activity at the time, including pictures! This initial act of gamification created approximately 100,000 Facebook posts of the event from the 650 attendees per day!
Twitter Walls and Social Signage can provide the perfect platform to facilitate gamification at any live event or consumer experience space. Leader boards ‘Top Comment’ competitions and picture competitions are great simple ways of increasing interaction through social networks.