A presentation explaining the basics of gamification and techniques that brands can use to include gamification in their digital marketing strategy.

1. Gamification – Level 1
Compiled by Ethinos Digital Marketing

2. What is Gamification?
Gamification is the use of game design techniques, game
thinking, and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts.
Typically, Gamification applies to non-game applications and
processes, in order to encourage people to adopt them, or to
influence how they are used.

3. A day in the life of an Indian consumer
Watches television for
Reads the newspaper
two-three hours before
(exposed to at least 300
heading to bed (exposed
ads)
at least 300 ads)
Watches the morning
Travels back home after
news before heading to
office (exposed again to
office (exposed to at
at least 300 billboards)
least 50 ads)
Travels by Surfs the internet for
bus/train/personal work related information
vehicle (exposed to at (exposed to at least 1000
least 300 billboards) ads)
When we take the younger audience in picture, the numbers will be higher
A typical Indian consumer is exposed to at least 3000* ads in a day
*Source: Association of Indian Magazines

4. So how does Gamification help?
• Gamification allows advertisers and
marketers to promote a certain kind of
behavior among their target audience;
and this helps them break
communication barriers.
• It allows brands to market themselves
without making the audience feel that
they are being marketed to.

5. So how does Gamificaton help?
• Gamification allows brands to
encourage a richer engagement with
their customers; often resulting into the
development of a strong brand loyalty.
• Gamification techniques in marketing
do not guarantee success; but
completely ignoring Gamification
techniques from the marketing mix is a
definite route to failure.

6. Examples of Gamification
Foursquare users can claim mayorships, Microsoft struck a chord with traditional
unlock badges, receive special offers gamers when they first rolled out
and rewards such as discounts to achievement points with X-Box Live.
specific retailers, etc. while also tracking Users playing the X-Box Live games
against friends via a leaderboard. could earn a certain amount of
‘Gamerscore’ by completing specific
tasks or actions in a game; and could
also compete with other users.
Linkedin offers a small example of
Gamification by drawing users’
attention towards a profile
completeness percentage in order to
trigger behavior that drives users
towards completing their profile.

7. Gamification techniques
• Achievement badges
• Achievement levels
• Leaderboards
• A progress bar or other visual meters to
indicate how close people are towards
completing a task that the company is
trying to encourage.

8. Gamification techniques
• Virtual currency
• Systems for awarding,
redeeming, trading, gifting, and
exchanging points.
• Challenges between users
• Embedding small casual
games within other activities.

9. How Brands Are Using Gamification

10. Microsoft PowerPoint Ribbon Hero
• Microsoft added something
called PowerPoint Ribbon Hero as a
gaming component to PowerPoint.
• The idea was that the more
functions a person used, the more
rewards he earned.
• When a person progressed beyond a
certain level in PowerPoint, he could
unlock PowerPoint animations that
were not available to the regular
user.
• This helped engage many more
users as people got very curious
about the new animations that would
be made available to them.

11. NIKEiD
• Nike came up with something called
‘NIKEiD’; a game mechanic where a person
could personalize his shoes.
• Through their ‘NIKEiD’ site, a person could
fully customize the colours, materials, sizing,
and fit to create his own exclusive pair of Nike
shoes and NIKE would ship it just for him.
• The fact that teens could customize and
design their own shoes made the whole
process of ordering shoes a lot more exciting
and engaging.
• NIKEiD was a property that went viral.

12. My Starbucks Rewards
• Starbucks has incorporated game
techniques into its popular loyalty
program called ‘My Starbucks
Rewards.’
• Starbucks incorporated multiple
levels and associated rewards and
perks per level with a progression
tracker; which gave users the
incentive to continually engage with
the brand and earn maximum
rewards.

13. American Airlines
• American Airlines uses a simple
game mechanism on their mobile
application to visually represent a
flyer’s current Elite Status
Qualification.
• The users can see how many
rewards they have and how many
more they need to achieve a goal.
• Over 40 million people globally
use this application.

14. Mint
• Mint offers a financial fitness score
based on task completion and
achievements.
• The more tasks you do with the
online financial site, the higher your
score goes; and unlocks more
opportunities.
• Mint takes an ordinary exercise
and creates a casual gaming
experience that helps the creation
of an opportunity to drive new user
acquisition.

15. Siddharth Hegde
siddharth.hegde@ethinos.com
+91 9820 2172 52
Game Over

16. Sources
blogs.imediaconnection.com
www.marketingsherpa.com
www.wikipedia.org
blairkeeley.wordpress.com