Gamification moves beyond badges
By Alex Palmer
Gamificaton allows brands to tap into consumers’ competi- tive instincts to increase engagement and drive purchases. Consequently, marketers are increasingly
focusing on making rewards relevant,
varied, and alluring enough to keep
individuals coming back to play.
Exhibit A in the changing role of
gamification is Foursquare, which
launched a redesigned version of its
mobile app at the beginning of June
that de-emphasized earning badges,
and put more focus on deals and
recommendations.
Wanda Meloni, founder and president of M2 Research, believes that
Foursquare made these changes
because the rewards it was offering
failed to encourage long-term growth
for the brand.
“Once you become a mayor, the
game is over, so what’s the deeper
engagement you’ll have with the user
or employee?” Meloni asks. “You have
to be able to create these networks and
have the value, so that people keep
coming back and it doesn’t stop at a
certain time.”
Brian Burke, an analyst for Gartner,
agrees that Foursquare’s main chal-
lenges come down to how it incentiv-
ized user behaviors.
“Unfortunately, most marketers
have continued to engage customers
with simple discounts and offers—the
kind of thing that has been around
for many decades. Forward-thinking
organizations are engaging the mar-
ket with more meaningful, intrinsic
rewards,” Burke says. “Organizations
using more sophisticated game mech-
anics and more meaningful rewards
will continue to drive higher levels of
engagement with their audience.”
He points to multichannel gamifica-
tion, particularly coming from tele-
vision programs, as an area of rapid
growth with more advanced thinking
on the behaviors they are encourag-
ing and rewards they offer.
For example, entertainment network
MuchMusic’s
Much Closer
gamification
platform allows
users to engage
across multiple
channels
MuchMusic recently launched
the platform Much Closer, first
testing it out as part of the lead-up to the MuchMusic Video
Awards, broadcast on June 17.
The marketing team weaves a
range of actions into multipart “
missions” that connect across channels.
When MuchMusic announced the
band LMFAO as its award show hosts,
users could take a series of actions re-
lated to the band, such as watching
a video or commenting on the news
through social media, in order to win a
limited-edition LMFAO badge. But in
addition to the badges, 10 of those win-
ners were selected to receive a signed
Within the first three
weeks, the program had
signed up 15,000 users,
with Bell Media approa-
ching a 40% daily return rate from
those members. The platform also
works on its mobile site, though it is
more narrow and linear than the full
Web version of Much Closer. Leverag-
ing consumers’ growing use of multi-
ple screens, Much Closer also includes
side missions that must be completed
during the live broadcast of the shows,
rather than through DVR or online.
