Gamification is winning over the corporate sector as a toolkit for motivating the next generation of consumers and users. But it’s the potential of gamification and big data together that is getting industry pundits increasingly excited.
Gamification’s ascent from hype to mainstream adoption is not surprising. With the push towards real-time marketing, and the need for more interactive and innovative ways of engaging customers, gamification techniques offer an engaging answer by tapping into a user’s innate human traits and driving their behaviour.
And since its emergence a few years ago as a methodology, gamification is rapidly gaining new uses.
A survey released in August by Monash University’s Australian Centre for Retail Studies (ACRS), found national retailers are incorporating gamification and smartphone applications to their loyalty programs to make them more appealing to an increasingly savvy and fickle consumer with multiple digital and offline channels at their disposal. The survey was undertaken in May and based on responses from 1000 Australian consumers.
Of those surveyed, 53 per cent reported unlocking achievements and badges based on the frequency of their interactions with a retailer to be appealing, while the ability to compare their points balance with others was also attractive to 41 per cent.
“Not only does gamification drive customer loyalty via such brand outcomes, it can also encourage, and more importantly measure established consumer behaviours,” lead researcher Dr Sean Sands, commented. “Gamification is still an emerging area of brand interaction, however, Australian consumers are open to interacting with brands in this manner.”
What’s also increasingly becoming apparent is that gamification offers a way of deriving further end-user insights for long-term benefit. In a recent report exploring gamification, analyst group, Ovum, recommended enterprises and public sector agencies begin exploring gamification for both customer or employee facing uses, claiming it can enhance customer engagement and drive productivity levels.
