May 7, 2010: summarized from the Huffington Post -- If someone asked me what the most powerful forces in the universe were, I would answer gravity, love and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order. But according to Gabe Zichermann, author of the new book Game-Based Marketing I'm totally wrong. Games are the most powerful force in the universe. Sounds incredulous right? I mean if you put 1,000 people in front of Mario Bros. or a chocolate covered cannoli I'm guessing 90% are heading for the cannoli.
But as Zichermann explains, "Games make people act against their best interests, predictably and without force." Well when you put it like that...
The book introduces marketers to the concept of "funware," the art and science of turning your customers' everyday interactions into "games" that serve your business purposes. Many brands are already using the funware concept to market their products. Airline Frequent Flier programs are the granddaddy of game-based marketing, but companies like Chase and McDonalds have also used the concept with great success.
When I asked Zichermann how he came up with the concept I figured I would hear some jargon about university studies and psychologists. Instead I got a story about a Grande Non-Fat Latte. Zichermann was on his daily Starbucks run and instead of waiting in line to order, the baristas knew his drink and would start preparing it the second he walked in the door. Doesn't sound very impressive - until he realized that this one small move was saving him 50 hours per year. "OMG," he thought, "I just leveled up at Starbucks."
"Leveling up" and "Starbucks" shouldn't normally go together, which is precisely the point. Games are all around us, whether we realize it or not. Many of our daily decisions, whether they be which airline to choose for our next flight, or which credit card to use when paying for lunch, are fueled by the games that marketers are playing with us. These marketing tactics can be explained by the common terminology used by video game designers, which is precisely what Game-Based Marketing attempts to do.
"Game mechanics work in so many spheres, from Casinos, to sales teams," the author explains. "When you apply game mechanics such as loyalty, status and upgrades to tasks that are not normally fun, I don't know that it will always work, but I know that it can't hurt." I agree. After all, who couldn't use a little more fun in their life?
Read more at: http://huff.to/9UqOPm
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
PlayAway on Facebook Wins Place Among Casino Journal’s Top 20 Most Innovative Products
May 6, 2010: summarized from Casino Journal Magazine -- If there’s a thread that pulls together Casino Journal’s Top 20 Most Innovative Gaming Technology Products Awards for 2009, it’s that the future really is now. The products that made the grade represent forward-thinking, novel concepts designed to take casinos to the next level.
With more than 350 million users on Facebook it’s no secret that casinos have been eager to capitalize on the social media phenomenon. GameLogic’s PlayAway on Facebook is designed to get them there.
With PlayAway, for the fi rst time, casinos can directly leverage Facebook’s most popular activity, games, by running free-to-play games such as slots, poker and bingo tournaments directly inside the Facebook world.
PlayAway also is viral in its design, which helps to harness the real power of social media. GameLogic brings its Software as a Service (SaaS) approach to interactive marketing to deliver a rich social media tool set in a way that is easy to implement and cost-effective to operate. Further, PlayAway supports connectivity among all major casino management systems. And of course it also conforms to all Facebook protocols and APIs.
Judges were enthusiastic. “Can’t wait to use it,” said one.
Another called PlayAway “a great addition to a property’s marketing arsenal.”
“Social media marketing is becoming increasingly important for the casino industry,” he noted. “This product would add interactivity to a casino’s Facebook marketing in a way that would increase customer loyalty and provide additional opportunities for implementation in a SBG ‘Service Window’ application.”
Read more at: http://bit.ly/c3gWJl
With more than 350 million users on Facebook it’s no secret that casinos have been eager to capitalize on the social media phenomenon. GameLogic’s PlayAway on Facebook is designed to get them there.
With PlayAway, for the fi rst time, casinos can directly leverage Facebook’s most popular activity, games, by running free-to-play games such as slots, poker and bingo tournaments directly inside the Facebook world.
PlayAway also is viral in its design, which helps to harness the real power of social media. GameLogic brings its Software as a Service (SaaS) approach to interactive marketing to deliver a rich social media tool set in a way that is easy to implement and cost-effective to operate. Further, PlayAway supports connectivity among all major casino management systems. And of course it also conforms to all Facebook protocols and APIs.
Judges were enthusiastic. “Can’t wait to use it,” said one.
Another called PlayAway “a great addition to a property’s marketing arsenal.”
“Social media marketing is becoming increasingly important for the casino industry,” he noted. “This product would add interactivity to a casino’s Facebook marketing in a way that would increase customer loyalty and provide additional opportunities for implementation in a SBG ‘Service Window’ application.”
Read more at: http://bit.ly/c3gWJl
Why You Need to Own Your Community
April 28, 2010: summarized from Chief Marketer -- As you’ve probably seen, Ning recently upset thousands of its users by announcing that it would no longer offer a free version of its online community platform.
Understandably, many people were not happy that they would have to start paying to keep their community on Ning. This also raised another issue: If you wanted to move your community off Ning, how would you do it?
The good news is that a few smaller open-source platforms stepped up and said they’d help people migrate their community from Ning to their solution.
While this Ning situation was unfortunate for community owners, it brings to light an interesting issue: the importance of owning your community data and platform.
For companies that are serious about building a community that fits with their business goals, owning the data from that community is a must—for a variety of reasons.
First and most important, you need to have access to the data for marketing purposes so that you can measure everything that’s going on in the community. What kind of content is effective? What are community members sharing and discussing? What are they buying? Which community members are the most active? Which are the most likely to invite friends?
Owning this data so you can study them and compare the value of community members to noncommunity members is essential to measuring return on investment and determining the success of your community. Ideally you’d have a platform that integrates with your overall database so that you could learn how your community members are different from your general customers.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/cRyo3Q
Understandably, many people were not happy that they would have to start paying to keep their community on Ning. This also raised another issue: If you wanted to move your community off Ning, how would you do it?
The good news is that a few smaller open-source platforms stepped up and said they’d help people migrate their community from Ning to their solution.
While this Ning situation was unfortunate for community owners, it brings to light an interesting issue: the importance of owning your community data and platform.
For companies that are serious about building a community that fits with their business goals, owning the data from that community is a must—for a variety of reasons.
First and most important, you need to have access to the data for marketing purposes so that you can measure everything that’s going on in the community. What kind of content is effective? What are community members sharing and discussing? What are they buying? Which community members are the most active? Which are the most likely to invite friends?
Owning this data so you can study them and compare the value of community members to noncommunity members is essential to measuring return on investment and determining the success of your community. Ideally you’d have a platform that integrates with your overall database so that you could learn how your community members are different from your general customers.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/cRyo3Q
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Game-Based Marketing Takes Off From Frequent Flyer Programs to Social Media
March 30, 2010: summarized from GamesBeat -- Gabe Zichermann coined the term Funware to describe the use of video game mechanics in everyday, non-game applications. It was a big idea that has now become a rallying cry for the spread of video games beyond their traditional borders into industries that seem remotely related to games.
What Zichermann, chief executive of beamME and a 12-year game industry veteran, realized was that games motivate people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do. The book (subtitled “Inspire customer loyalty through rewards challenges and contests”) debuts this week and is a must read for marketers, including the folks who are attending the MI6 game marketing conference in San Francisco on Thursday.
Funware is an intuitive concept. If you turn work into game, people willingly do it. If you make a tedious school assignment into a game-like competition, kids will become engaged with it. If you add a rewards-based loyalty program to your product, people will choose it over rivals. The time has come to “game-ify” all of the boring industries so that users will be motivated to use products and services because they want to, not because they have to. In fact, the authors argue that just about any task can be designed so that it can be more fun.
Over the past couple of years, the idea has gained steam. Venture capitalists such as Bing Gordon, former chief creative officer at Electronic Arts and Kleiner Perkins partner, believe that Funware has the potential to change all of advertising.
Game-based marketing is one of those things that has been around forever, but is only now getting recognized for what it is. Games have grabbed a bigger share of the entertainment market because they’re sticky. They get people to come back over and over in a way that ordinary ads or marketing programs do not.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/bz8Ui5
What Zichermann, chief executive of beamME and a 12-year game industry veteran, realized was that games motivate people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do. The book (subtitled “Inspire customer loyalty through rewards challenges and contests”) debuts this week and is a must read for marketers, including the folks who are attending the MI6 game marketing conference in San Francisco on Thursday.
Funware is an intuitive concept. If you turn work into game, people willingly do it. If you make a tedious school assignment into a game-like competition, kids will become engaged with it. If you add a rewards-based loyalty program to your product, people will choose it over rivals. The time has come to “game-ify” all of the boring industries so that users will be motivated to use products and services because they want to, not because they have to. In fact, the authors argue that just about any task can be designed so that it can be more fun.
Over the past couple of years, the idea has gained steam. Venture capitalists such as Bing Gordon, former chief creative officer at Electronic Arts and Kleiner Perkins partner, believe that Funware has the potential to change all of advertising.
Game-based marketing is one of those things that has been around forever, but is only now getting recognized for what it is. Games have grabbed a bigger share of the entertainment market because they’re sticky. They get people to come back over and over in a way that ordinary ads or marketing programs do not.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/bz8Ui5
Loyalty Programs Need to Keep Evolving
March 15, 2010: summarized from Promo Magazine -- Status Quo and the Rolling Stones are two rock bands that first became popular in the 1960s. However, only the latter is really a household name today. Why? Mick, Keith and the boys created a brand and kept evolving.
That, said Rene Mizwicki , director of Hyatt Hotels' Gold Passport program, is an essential part of building a successful loyalty program in today's marketplace. The competition for consumers' attention is tougher than ever, and marketers must keep finding new ways to engage with their audience.
Mizwicki and Steven Fuld, managing director, card marketing and services, spoke at the New England Mail Order Association's spring conference in Boston last week on proven ways to improve customer loyalty.
Changing your perspective is one great way to do this, said Mizwicki. "[Marketers often] expect members to buy something before we give them anything," she said. "In the Hyatt world. We changed that. We think Hyatt members deserve our loyalty all the time."
To this end, the hotel chain launched the "Big Welcome" competition to create awareness. The company gave away 365 free nights to one winner each in three regions—North America, Asia/Pacific and Europe.
Likewise, Sony partnered with the game show Wheel of Fortune to create the Wheel Watchers club. Sony Card members can get a "spin ID" they can enter on the contest site to win prizes.
Each night, a SPIN ID number is displayed on air during Wheel of Fortune. If it is a member's SPIN ID number and they go back to the game site to verify it, they win the same prize as the on-air Wheel contestant. Club members can also get Sony Reward Points for completing a bonus round puzzle, as well as access to special offers.
Both Fuld and Mizwicki were both proponents of "surprise and delight" programs, rewarding high tier customers with perks like concert tickets or trips. "The freebies cost us little but have great value from a consumer perspective," said Fuld.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/c9L1U2
That, said Rene Mizwicki , director of Hyatt Hotels' Gold Passport program, is an essential part of building a successful loyalty program in today's marketplace. The competition for consumers' attention is tougher than ever, and marketers must keep finding new ways to engage with their audience.
Mizwicki and Steven Fuld, managing director, card marketing and services, spoke at the New England Mail Order Association's spring conference in Boston last week on proven ways to improve customer loyalty.
Changing your perspective is one great way to do this, said Mizwicki. "[Marketers often] expect members to buy something before we give them anything," she said. "In the Hyatt world. We changed that. We think Hyatt members deserve our loyalty all the time."
To this end, the hotel chain launched the "Big Welcome" competition to create awareness. The company gave away 365 free nights to one winner each in three regions—North America, Asia/Pacific and Europe.
Likewise, Sony partnered with the game show Wheel of Fortune to create the Wheel Watchers club. Sony Card members can get a "spin ID" they can enter on the contest site to win prizes.
Each night, a SPIN ID number is displayed on air during Wheel of Fortune. If it is a member's SPIN ID number and they go back to the game site to verify it, they win the same prize as the on-air Wheel contestant. Club members can also get Sony Reward Points for completing a bonus round puzzle, as well as access to special offers.
Both Fuld and Mizwicki were both proponents of "surprise and delight" programs, rewarding high tier customers with perks like concert tickets or trips. "The freebies cost us little but have great value from a consumer perspective," said Fuld.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/c9L1U2
Smartphone Adoption Shifting Dynamics of U.S. Mobile Gaming Market
Editor’s Note: Provides some great insight into the use of mobile for accessing interactive media. Be sure to click on link below to view all of the supporting facts and figures of the study.
April 14, 2010: summarized from comScore.com -- comScore, Inc. released the results of a study on mobile gaming highlighting the potential for growth in the mobile gaming market despite a 13-percent decline in the number of U.S. mobile gamers during the past year. This overall decline was driven by a 35 percent decline in mobile gaming among feature phone (i.e. non-smartphone) subscribers, who represent approximately 80 percent of the market, which contrasted with the sizeable 60 percent increase in the number of gamers via smartphone.
The inevitable ascent of the mobile gaming market depends not only on smartphone subscribers’ higher propensity to play games on their mobile devices, but also their heavier gaming activity across nearly every dimension. Smartphone subscribers (47.1 percent) are three times more likely than feature phone subscribers (15.7) to play games on their device at least once a month. They are more than five times as likely to play games almost every day and far surpass their feature phone counterparts across various methods of game play.
Smartphone subscribers also install significantly more games on their devices with 27.3 percent having installed at least one game compared to just 5.6 percent of feature phone subscribers. A third of smartphone subscribers with games have more than five games installed on their phones, while less than one percent of feature phone subscribers have that many games installed.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/aqzAwe
April 14, 2010: summarized from comScore.com -- comScore, Inc. released the results of a study on mobile gaming highlighting the potential for growth in the mobile gaming market despite a 13-percent decline in the number of U.S. mobile gamers during the past year. This overall decline was driven by a 35 percent decline in mobile gaming among feature phone (i.e. non-smartphone) subscribers, who represent approximately 80 percent of the market, which contrasted with the sizeable 60 percent increase in the number of gamers via smartphone.
The inevitable ascent of the mobile gaming market depends not only on smartphone subscribers’ higher propensity to play games on their mobile devices, but also their heavier gaming activity across nearly every dimension. Smartphone subscribers (47.1 percent) are three times more likely than feature phone subscribers (15.7) to play games on their device at least once a month. They are more than five times as likely to play games almost every day and far surpass their feature phone counterparts across various methods of game play.
Smartphone subscribers also install significantly more games on their devices with 27.3 percent having installed at least one game compared to just 5.6 percent of feature phone subscribers. A third of smartphone subscribers with games have more than five games installed on their phones, while less than one percent of feature phone subscribers have that many games installed.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/aqzAwe
Research Report: Future of the Internet IV
February 19, 2010: from Pew Internet & American Life Project -- The web-based survey gathered opinions from prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers. It is the fourth in a series of Internet expert studies conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. In this report, we cover experts' thoughts on the following issues:
• Will Google make us stupid?
• Will the internet enhance or detract from reading, writing, and rendering of knowledge?
• Is the next wave of innovation in technology, gadgets, and applications pretty clear now, or will the most interesting developments between now and 2020 come “out of the blue”?
• Will the end-to-end principle of the internet still prevail in 10 years, or will there be more control of access to information?
• Will it be possible to be anonymous online or not by the end of the decade?
Download report at: http://bit.ly/93hEZj
• Will Google make us stupid?
• Will the internet enhance or detract from reading, writing, and rendering of knowledge?
• Is the next wave of innovation in technology, gadgets, and applications pretty clear now, or will the most interesting developments between now and 2020 come “out of the blue”?
• Will the end-to-end principle of the internet still prevail in 10 years, or will there be more control of access to information?
• Will it be possible to be anonymous online or not by the end of the decade?
Download report at: http://bit.ly/93hEZj
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