What is Gamification?
Gamification relates to psychological and educational theory, inferring the addictiveness and attention-grabbing nature of game technology can be applied to other aspects of social and productive life.
Educators and businesses can improve levels of engagement through gamification. Immersive digital experiences draw the user in – the more interactive the content, the higher the rate of cognitive processing and information retention.
Games have constant prompts to engage: there are quests and challenges, rewards and trophies, the user gets a little hit of dopamine every time they unlock something new. The same case goes for messages and notifications on social media sites, which have been applying this knowledge for years to keep us users hooked.
Effectively, gamification stands on decades if not centuries of scholarship, which conclusively demonstrates optimal engagement and attention can be achieved through operant conditioning, especially with positive reinforcement and stimuli. How often do you check Facebook?
Gamification in Marketing
We’re now in an age of gamification being incorporated into marketing campaigns, making them more engaging and memorable, thereby yielding an even more substantial ROI than video marketing or social media alone. Achieved through the creation of interactive digital experiences, this involves prompts for the user to engage with and develop the experience at their own pace.
A great example of gamified marketing in action is Affari Media’s award-winning interactive video solution. Interactive videos produce useful data to track the efficacy of your campaign, they reportedly have a click rate 10 times higher than the traditional video (Business Insider), and encourage a significant increase in user activity. This is all down to the experience emulating the same qualities as gaming.
The interactive approach to video marketing has various functions which promote choice and increase engagement – such as engagement hotspots, 360° views, different branches and paths users can take, forms to input data, secure checkouts to make purchases, prompts, CTAs, and quizzes.
Using gamification and VR in marketing, the individual agency of users is taken into account, and consumers can make decisions with less confusion and more detailed information about products and services. Businesses can build trust by facilitating informed consent among consumers, thus raising the quality of engagement and the level of customer or user satisfaction.
Making Life Easier
Modern marketing’s use of gamification is not simply about selling products and services, although that is of course its primary aim. Designing digital experiences in this way will make the market even more accessible for consumers, with the potential to reduce the confusion and the collective sense of detachment from consumption.
Gamification can assist in forming smoother B2C relationships, and the increased engagement creates a useful feedback loop allowing for constant growth and development. Ultimately, this knowledge, used correctly, can enhance and improve our educational, productive, and consumer experiences.
Affari is a creative agency offering B2B services in branding, digital marketing, and web development. We work with cutting-edge technology and curate immersive experiences to keep your audience spellbound!
