Gamification marketing or when communication is a game

The historian Johan Huizinga had already theorized that human beings like to "play" at all ages in 1939, tracing almost all human actions and cultural phenomena to recreational activity (forgive me for the extreme and brutal synthesis), from sport to religion. But the fact that gaming, understood in the strict sense, can also become a key to communication and sales is a discovery that many of us have only made recently, with the spread of so-called gamification marketing , that is, of all those mechanisms that allow people to interact with each other or with the product, in a fun and light-hearted way. Objective? Improve user experience! On or offline it doesn't matter, gamification promises and allows you to entertain the target audience in a different and often very participatory way, precisely because it is not always linked to an explicit commercial intent. Here's what it is, when it works and some examples of famous brands that have adopted this technique. What does “gamification” mean? We have already anticipated it in the introduction: "gamification" means "gamification" and consists in the insertion of game elements and functions, gaming in fact, within the purchasing process, the choice of the product or its use, both outside and inside the network.

These can in fact concern the packaging (do you remember the game of the goose Middle East Phone India Part Time Job Seekers Phone Number List Number List printed on cereal packages?) but also the apps or quizzes on the site, and even the supermarket points collection. From these few examples (but we will see some more specific ones shortly), it is already possible to realize one thing: gamification marketing is not a new story and is strictly connected to the involvement and gratification of the user . In fact, if the quality of user experience is now increasingly central to effective communication strategies, so much so that even Google has made it one of the fundamental parameters for the SEO positioning of sites , being able to entertain buyers, visitors and prospects with moments of leisure it can be a winning move, especially if these also include the prospect of a final "prize" or remuneration dedicated to them. gamification-marketing-social-media Social networks, Facebook in the lead, and the numerous online games and challenges that have crossed them, immediately accustomed us to this approach, which is increasingly active, shared and playful.



This is a still evolving phenomenon in which social media dominates, but in which actual video games also appear, even in innovative or new forms: in the "New territories" section of its Observatory on upcoming trends , the web marketing and trend analysis expert Vincenzo Cosenza (aka Vincos) is very clear in defining social media as "the new shopping centers" and video games as "places of meeting and socialization. which are developing new marketing opportunities and they are becoming the home of a very particular audience, those aged from 9 to 24". It is no coincidence that, according to a recent report , “ the global gamification market was valued at $6.8 billion in 2018 and is estimated to grow by 32% annually to reach $40 billion by 2024 , based on of the growing demand for an enrichment of the customer experience and for greater employee engagement". Yes, the employees: because among the various applications that this system can have there is also one within the company. Gamification: why use games, even in the company Proposing a game to the user, whether through an app or a brochure, means making them the protagonist, making them go from passive visitor to active agent, capable of influencing the outcome of their own choices.