1. 
Using games as Brand Utilities
Nathan, Rory, Carolina, Jon, Alex L, Dan W

2. 
What is Gamification?
There are numerous definitions of this marketing ‘buzzword’ circulated around
the net – a common feature of all is the perception of using gaming mechanics in
your site, service or campaign in order to drive brand participation. It works by
making technology more engaging and by encouraging desired behaviors from
the curator.
Why?
In overcrowded marketplaces there is a need for companies to reach their
audiences in new and alternative ways which is less intruding and more engaging
than advertising alone

3. 
How it works
Game based marketing allows brands to form new relationship’s with the
audience, content delivered through mechanism’s such as leaderboards, point
systems and badges (to name a few) allow people to generate individual
connections with the brand through virtual interaction.
The gamification movement seeks to take the kind of common elements seen in
video games and apply them to the real world, in the hope of building brand loyalty
through introducing some fun into otherwise mundane activities such as
exercising, shopping or parking.

4. 
What it’s about
Listening to your current audience
Creating experiences to meet their needs
Satisfied consumers then become evangelists and brand ambassador's
Through word of mouth etc this will generate a new, extensive audience
base

5. 
Badges
A recent trend in Gamification currently being explored is that of check in
‘Badges’. With roots in the popular social media platform ‘foursquare’, many start
ups have attempted to recreate a similar mechanism using the badge scheme.
Location based services such as ‘Campus food’ who award you badges for
ordering with their restaurants. Entertainment network ‘GetGlue’ have adopted a
similar concept but they offer badges in return for consumer reviews on the site
after a check in.
Further examples include;
Google – Gave users badges for being energy efficient with search data
Virgin Healthmile – Offered customers badges for staying fit and using their
facilities

6. 
4 Game utility principles
1. Clear Benchmarks — e.g Score the most points, beat previous time etc.
2. Clear Scorekeeping — Must be no doubt about how to keep score. Everyone
understands the benchmarks and what constitutes as a win or loss.
3. Frequent Feedback — Scores are public, visible, always known, or displayed in
real-time. Allow for improvement during the game and opportunity to
restart/improve on your previous attempt.
4. Choice — Players have the opportunity to return to the game when they like and
whilst in in can discover pathways for themselves than than being dictated as to a
specific course of action. Rules include effective short and long term goals which
support personal satisfaction for players.

7. 
Example 1
The idea is pretty simple, a pair of
Jimmy Choo’s new shoe range will
check into some of the most exclusive
and fashionable places in London, if
you can track them down and catch
them while still checked in at a venue,
then they are yours.

8. 
Nike GRID used the iconic London telephone
box to track a runner's progress at designated
Nike branded locations. After registering
online, players run between two phoneboxes
and entered in their unique user id number at
each, logging their run and earning them
points online.
The more runs, the more points earned for
that postcode. The person with the most
points in each area claims the crown of that
postcode, badges were also awarded for
speed, stamina and knowledge of the streets.
Example 2

9. 
Current thinking
Two great informative examples of how Gameification is expanding are the TED
talks by Seth Priebatsch and Tom Chatfield where they present a small list of
game dynamics which can make a users be more engaged when using the
applications.
The elements are insightful and, whenever possible, should be taken into account
by when developing applications which aim to be engaging for users.
Some of the best dynamics mentioned during the above talks I have listed in the
following slide…

10. 
TED talk dynamics
Communal discovery: A dynamic where an entire community is rallied to work together to
solve a challenge. Everyone (in a given community) has to work together to achieve something.
Leverages the network which is society to solve hard problems (crowd-sourcing)
Multiple long and short-term aims: this makes it interesting and less monotone and considers
the fact that sometimes people are more focused and concentrated; therefore simple tasks can
be achieved when concentration is low, and more difficult tasks when concentration is higher.
Rapid, frequent, clear feedback: it is very very hard for people to learn, if they cannot link
actions to consequences.
An element of uncertainty: known rewards excite people, but unknown rewards are even
more interesting, because if there is a certain level of uncertainty that I might
get something even better, then this attracts people interest and keeps them
doing things over and over again.

11. 
Conclusion
More and more brands are seeing the benefits of building game based utilities to
engage with their audiences, encouraging two way conversations through
providing useful interaction which is relevant to them. If done well, Gamification
can be a great way to build customer loyalty, deepen brand interaction and
generate great buzz through PR.
If done wrong however, it can be boring, lacking customer involvement and
become potentially damaging to the brand’s reputation. It is important to only
produce a utility for a purpose rather than doing so primarily to jump on the trend
wagon which is when they could become detrimental to the brand’s audience
retention.