Tesco: An Opinion on the disaster from afar! (and with limited resources)

GAMIFICATION PRESS RELEASE

Gamification is more than games and some people don’t get it.

Recently there seems to have been a spate of people commenting and postulating about gamification. Suddenly it seems as though we have a lot of new experts proffering opinions. “Gamification will work for brand X but not brand Y!” or “Gamification can only be used in these types of instances” are some of the comments I have read.

But what, you may ask, is gamification? And here the answers are equally diverse. “It’s about rewards”,  “It’s about fun”, “It’s about getting people to talk to each other” and so the opinions flow. Is this correct? What is gamification actually about?

These comments probably do relate to gamification but they miss the broader empirical theory of gamification, relating more to specific instances of gamification.

Gamification is defined as “the use of game elements in non-game environments”. So, gamification may or may not involve games, but it always involves elements of games, such as fun, challenges, sharing and rewards.

So, you may ask, what does gamification do? At the broadest level gamification is about Behaviour Change and it achieves this through building Engagement and driving Motivation.

There are many successes to validate the claim on behaviour change, so I'll offer an example, a clear demonstration, on how gamification can lead to predictable and positive behaviour change. If you put an electronic sign on a road that shows motorists the speed at which they travel, the proven, predictable result is that motorists slow down. It’s as simple as that. The electronic sign is, in fact, an element of gamification in that it creates a feedback loop. In gamification this particular loop is known as an “engagement loop”. The sign gives feedback which is creates motivation on the part of the motorist to amend their action.  This kind of loop builds engagement which is very desirable in many different fields of human endeavour. Besides Engagement Loops, Gamification also makes use of Progression Loops which develop skills.

As far as Engagement is concerned, think about the worlds most played game .... solitaire. Microsoft claims that people spend 9 billion hours a year playing solitaire. And they do this at work! Even though solitaire is not a very good came, simply look at how it draws and engages people. Just imagine if brands or employers could tap into a little of this type of engagement that games can build.

Gamification can be used in many different fields and already has a solid reputation in human resources, social action, sustainability, education and even government policy. And while certain types of gamification have been used in marketing and advertising for some time, it is only lately that they are being referred to as “gamification”.  

Examples that spring to mind include Nike with its Tag game, Procter and Gamble’s Olay and even Coca Cola Rewards.

The uses of gamification are potentially so widespread that it is difficult to ringfence appropriate applications. We can’t speculate “which brands” or “which consumers” are more suitable for gamification. The correct way to evaluate the possibilities is to ask the questions …  “what change in behaviour, if any, is desired?” or "where do we need to build engagement?"

Behaviour change is also a function of Motivation. Traditionally we have believed that motivation and ability are good enough to inspire behaviour, but recent research work proves that a Trigger is needed. And the important point here is that gamification acts as a the Trigger.

As a technique, gamification is particularly relevant in areas where we deal with low interest or low motivation. One of the early successes of gamification that comes to mind involves Microsoft who had struggled to clean up a particularly tricky piece of computer coding. It had to do with translating languages and was completely resistant to de-bugging. Coders and programmers couldn’t get it right until Microsoft “gamified” the task and presented it to several thousand of their programming staff worldwide. At no cost to the company they managed to get their programmers so fired up about cracking this code, that they all wanted to work over-time, not only to prove their superiority to colleagues, but also to impress their superiors. It turned into a massive internal race and the work was completed within a few days … completely bug free and at no additional cost to Microsoft.

So gamification is about engagement, motivation and behaviour change.  It draws on rewards, fun, meaningful choices, immersive experiences and so on. Gamification is new and developing extremely rapidly and because of this we learn of new applications every day. It is likely that gamification, as a tool or technique, can still develop much further as our knowledge grows and is thus likely to become integral to the marketing and business landscape.