Marketing
Gamification Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
Gamification marketing is a content marketing strategy that has yielded great results for some of the biggest brands in the world as well as smaller businesses and newcomers across various sectors.
World-wide successful brands have used gamification marketing as a tactic to generate interest in campaigns, get eyes on the launch of a new product or service, raise brand awareness, increase website traffic, create interactive experiences that drive customer engagement, boost conversion rates and much more.
This comprehensive guide provides ambitious brands with a roadmap to build their own gamification marketing strategy, including an in-depth overview of the 20 best examples of gamification marketing.
Table of contents:
Gamification definition
So, what is gamification exactly?
Gamification can be defined as the strategy of applying gameplay elements, gaming mechanics, gaming functionality and gaming principles to non-gaming contexts such as websites and mobile apps.
Gamification “gamifies” traditionally non-gaming content, tapping into the natural human impulse to achieve, socialise, be engaged and be rewarded.
Gamification encourages certain emotional elements that enhance traditional marketing efforts and business processes to achieve marketing goals and objectives.
An example of gamification marketing is the touchpads on tables available in certain McDonald’s branches, which allow children to play games while they wait for their meals to be served.
What this gamification of a dining out experience does is enhance user engagement with the brand so that going to McDonald’s becomes more than just a trip out to eat.
Parents see their children enjoying themselves and are encouraged to bring them back again.
In both cases of parent and child, the fast-food brand is influencing desirable customer behaviour, whilst creating a fun experience for the entire family.
What is gamification marketing?
It’s best to start this off by defining what gamification means.
In essence, gamification is the process of applying gaming mechanics and functionality to traditionally non-gaming contexts, activities and platforms.
Therefore, gamification in marketing can be defined as the process of incorporating these gamified mechanics and functionalities into and as part of a digital marketing strategy in order to achieve specific goals like those mentioned above, with user engagement being the primary one.
Apps, websites, microsites and digital adverts are all platforms that can be gamified and used as part of marketing campaigns.
Benefits of using gamification in marketing
Digital marketing is an extremely competitive space.
Users are constantly being bombarded with communication from brands so it’s easy to become a needle in a haystack.
There is also the fact that the average user has come to expect more than simple “We are the best company in the world!” and “Buy our new product now!” messages from brands.
How can your brand navigate and stand out in a highly competitive field while delivering something different and engaging that highlights your brand’s uniqueness and leads to, well, leads, conversions and increased brand awareness?
Implementing gamification in marketing is a viable option used by some of the biggest brands in the world, but the beauty of it is that it can be used by brands of all sizes across various industries and sectors as part of a digital marketing campaign.
If a piece of content can exist in the digital space, it can be turned into gamified content.
Let’s look at the specific benefits of gamification in marketing.
Stand out from the crowd
Those who spend the majority of their time on some sort of digital device are constantly inundated with ads and messages and outreach from numerous businesses, all vying for their attention and engagement.
However, the communications that get people’s interest the most are those that offer a feature, such as gamification, hence setting them apart from the crowd.
This is especially the case when it’s coming from unexpected brands.
I can’t afford to shop at Harrods (yet) and I know as much about high heels as an eel does about high hills, but a few years back I found myself downloading the Harrods app and spending a huge chunk of the day playing a game called Stiletto Wars that consisted of matching three shoes vertically or horizontally so they can disappear to allow the tiles to shift down – sort of like Tetris with high heels instead of bricks.
My customer journey started with a Harrods branded digital advert that showed Stiletto Wars’ gameplay, a feature that made it stand out from every other marketing message I’d consumed that day.
This example reveals two further benefits of using gamification in marketing:
(1) If this marketing effort led to the engagement of a person Harrods likely didn’t have in mind when gamifying its app, imagine the sort of engagement this gamified content could achieve from those who it was targeting and
(2) there is no gender or sex barrier when it comes to the new customers your brand can target with a gamified marketing strategy.
Drive specific behaviour
Want your customers to perform specific actions such as downloading an app, providing contact details, subscribing, sharing, revealing their products or services of interest?
Then applying gamification in your marketing strategy is a great way to achieve this.
The very nature of digital gaming is interactive, so users are more inclined to perform specific behaviours that will either get them started with the game (e.g. downloading the app and registering) or help them reap the rewards of playing the game (e.g. claiming rewards, points, or vouchers by submitting contact details).
Build customer base and profiles
Raising brand awareness by standing out from the crowd (the first benefit), and collecting data provided by driving specific customer behaviour (the second benefit), allows you to really expand your customer base and segment them by specific demographics such as age, sex, device or location.
This is excellent for CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and marketing outreach purposes.
Hit multiple points on the sales funnel
From display adverts to remarketing and retargeting, digital marketing offers various entry points for users, taking them down the path of a customer journey that eventually leads to conversion and brand advocacy.
But while many of these entry points are limited to only contributing towards awareness, gamified marketing is unique as a start-off point because it can contribute to each stage of a sales funnel.
Adding engaging gaming functionality and techniques to a marketing campaign raises awareness, so that when the user is considering a product or service in the sector in which you operate, your brand will be on their mind.
Because you’ve taken the extra step to make your brand fun and captivating, the user may prefer to do business with you which leads to a purchase.
The data you are able to gather right at the start of the journey means you can directly target the customer with marketing materials through CRM and reward schemes that lead to brand loyalty.
And because brands can become more than just logos and even products to the average consumer (think Apple), by showing how much you value them via reward programmes (think Starbucks rewards) and other useful marketing content, you’ll achieve brand advocacy.
Gamification in marketing offers a high level of audience engagement, a KPI that is vital in measuring the success of any sort of digital marketing campaign.
The 20 best examples of gamification marketing
Gamification marketing example #20 – Nike, Run Club App
If there’s one thing this big sports brand is good at, it’s extending their customer’s experience beyond products.
Nike are great at creating an ecosystem that incorporates product, customer personas and lifestyle.
The Nike+ Run Club app is a perfect example of how to use gamification to increase engagement and interactivity while maintaining top-of-mind awareness.
The app allows the user to set training objectives, measure activity that has been personalised to them and connect with a community of like-minded people.
Statistics like run time and distance covered can be shared on social networks.
One of the main gamification features in the app is the ability to win trophies and badges by taking part in challenges.
All of this contributes towards a more engaged customer experience. There’s plenty to be learned from Nike’s gamification example.
Gamification marketing example #19 – eBay
Oh, you thought you were just “bidding for an item”, just “requesting star ratings from your buyers”, or simply “improving the percentage you get as a seller”, huh? Nope.
What you’ve actually been doing is taking part in one of the early game mechanics integrations in the eCommerce sector.
With its bidding, feedback scores and badges system, eBay is one of the earliest adopters of gamification as a way of providing a user experience that goes beyond the core of what a brand does.
Afterall, any eCommerce website can offer user buying and selling functionality, but it’s how this is executed that makes this a gamification example worth a mention.
Think about it: winning bids for products as a buyer, getting ratings, stars, a “trusted seller” badge and better percentages as an eBay seller.
These are the elements at the core of gaming. It’s about risk and reward, brand engagement and creating brand loyalty.
Whether you’re a buyer deciding to bid very high for an item now and possibly overpaying for it but at least blowing all other bidders away, or you’re a seller who’s decided to undercut competitors and provide in-depth product descriptions to boost sales and gain trustworthiness badges respectively, you are activating and using parts of your brain used for traditional gaming.
It’s these engaging, interactive gamification elements that have people still turning to eBay when they could simply buy or sell the same items on Amazon.
Gamification marketing example #18 – The US Army, Providing Grounds
With army-centred games Call of Duty and Medal of Honour being two of the most popular computer games in the RPG (role-playing games) genre, it makes sense for the armed forces to integrate gamification into their websites as a way of increasing traffic and gaining more recruits.
The US Army in particular has gone all in on gamification.
Visit the main website and you will be greeted with a video that looks straight out of a cutscene from a video game.
However, its main gamification incorporation takes place on its sister site, AmericasArmy.com where Proving Grounds sits – a game it calls “The official game of the US Army”.
Proving Grounds is a first-person RPG that allows you to walk in the shoes of US army personnel, shooting enemies, throwing grenades and saving the day. You know, the usual stuff of soldiers.
The use of gamification on the website as a whole is extremely effective in engaging users who can edit their own missions, view a breakdown of weapons used in the game, join forums, gain access to the US army’s official comic book (no stone is left unturned without the US army’s boot print), navigate possible army career paths and more.
This is a gamification example that really shows the huge potential of adding game mechanics to a website.
Gamification marketing example #17 – L’Occitane en Provence, Seeds of dreams
Let’s be honest: being environmentally friendly is big business and is a popular marketing tool in modern day branding.
‘Sustainability’, ‘going green’, ‘recycling’ are all buzzwords slapped on marketing paraphernalia.
It is easy to be cynical about what brands are trying to achieve with environmental “wokeness”, but there are companies out there really doing great work and who have sustainability at the very core of their values and products.
One such company doing stellar work in this area is L’Occitane en Provence, a natural beauty brand.
To take things beyond simply writing blurbs on its website and rambling on about sustainability, the brand built a truly beautiful game website to further drive home its principles while also engagingly educating the user on being environmentally friendly.
The game involves picking a seed out of three choices (I’m a nut nut, so I went for an almond seed), planting it and taking care of it.
You do this by pressing down on water and sun buttons at the bottom of the screen.
As you do so rain falls and the sun shines on your seed respectively.
You have a limited amount of each to use, however.
This is where a further gaming element comes in. Between the water and sun buttons is a control pad button.
Click on this and you are given the opportunity to gain some more water and sun for your little baby (that’s not me being cute either, you literally have to show the seed some love by clicking on its face now and again).
As you nurture your seed, it begins to grow (and it will start to tell you when it needs water, love, or sunlight).
Facts such as the number of trees from your chosen seed L’Occitane has helped to plant, as well as fun facts about your seed, pop up after each round of games you play too.
The more you engage with the game, the more rewards you get, such as more seeds to plant and new games unlocked.
The game also encourages the user to register via email to get the most out of the experience.
This is a truly effective example of gamification because, aside from being beautiful to look at and fun to play, it taps into the nurturing side of humans, therefore leading to a high level of engagement.
I guarantee that you will walk away from this game with the simple things we can all do to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly in your mind, and L’Occitane as a brand you will remember whenever you want to purchase natural beauty products.
Gamification marketing example #16 – Todoist
We’ve become a more demanding society when it comes to tech. It’s not enough that our fridges store food; they have to be able to play music too.
A watch that only tells the time? What the hell is that? I need my heartrate info right now!
The apps we use for our everyday lives are not exempt.
A productivity app that simply allows you to list and tick off tasks will not suffice.
You see, we need to feel rewarded for doing our own dishes.
Cynicism and jokes aside, gaming mechanics have allowed app developers to add gamification elements to what can be mundane applications, making them fun while motivating us to get stuff done.
Todoist is a productivity app that has incorporated gamification to meet the demands of the modern day consumer.
What the app does very well is keep the user engaged by including a levels element: the more points you collect, the more levels (‘Beginner’ to ‘Enlightened’) you unlock.
Points – referred to as karma – are awarded by completing tasks you’ve set.
Negative karma is given when a deadline is not met and a task is not completed.
You can also let the world know how much good karma you’ve stacked up by sharing on social media.
And it is all delivered in an intuitive, well designed way that’s reminiscent of the design of most email platforms.
This is a gamification example that highlights how adding just a bit of gaming mechanics can transform the ordinary into the awesome.
Gamification marketing example #15 – Memrise
I’ve been toying with the idea of learning a new language for some time now, and with Memrise’s gamified language learning app providing a playful way to learn, I might just be persuaded to make the leap.
What Memrise has done exceptionally well is make learning fun via gamification techniques that tap into the reward, practical and experience elements of learning.
The app takes you on your chosen journey (language) as an astronaut, gaining new levels and evolving as you make progress.
You earn points for completing each lesson and can evolve and increase the level of a pet alien you are given at the start of your journey.
Add the interactive feature that allows you to use your phone camera to take pictures of objects that are then translated in real-time, plus thousands of videos of country natives speaking your chosen language, and you have gamification that is creative, engaging and covers another great use of the technique: learning and education.
That’s my search for the right platform to learn a new language sorted then.
(No, I was not sponsored by Memrise, but I am happy to try the service for free if they want more feedback. Just putting it out there.)
Gamification marketing example #14 – M&M’s
As part of a major campaign in 2010, M&M’s launched a game that became a certified hit for the candy brand.
The game tapped into the familiar eye-spy game concept.
Users had to find a small pretzel hidden in a large graphic design of a single M&M’s piece.
As simple as this implementation of gaming mechanics was, the game proved very popular and led to incredible engagement and interaction from users with the brand.
This included over 25,000 new user likes for the brand’s Facebook page, 6000 shares and 10,000 comments.
What makes this a great gamification example is how gaming can be used as a small part of a larger marketing campaign, yet still deliver fantastic results.
The cost of creating the game was likely small in comparison with the other components of the campaign because of its simplicity; a simplicity that was still fun and engaging enough to capture the attention of the audience.
A brand planning a huge campaign could do much worse than including the building of a game as part of its marketing budget.
Gamification marketing example #13 – KFC, Shrimp Attack
A recent estimation listed Japan as the third biggest market – behind China and the US, two nations with much larger populations – when it comes to gaming revenue.
This is worth mentioning for this example because gamification as a general concept can be a great marketing tool for capturing the attention of a market that is already very interested in gaming.
Gamification in marketing allows brands to tap into the culture or zeitgeist of the market being targeted.
On to the gamified campaign itself.
When KFC added shrimp to its menu in its Japanese restaurants, the fast-food brand wanted to generate excitement.
The brand went for a marketing strategy that not only involved increasing awareness but also included incentivising users to try the product by rewarding them with discount vouchers.
The solution was Shrimp Attack, a game that involved protecting KFC’s chicken kingdom’s castle from ebi shrimps by slashing at them when they popped up from the bottom of the screen.
The more shrimps you slashed, the more points you got, the more discount vouchers you were rewarded with.
Gamification in marketing that hit several culture points is what made KFC’s Shrimp Attack campaign so impactful.
This gamified marketing campaign was so successful, the product eventually sold out due to high demand from loyal customers, to the point where the campaign had to be stopped halfway through its original planned duration.
Gamification marketing example #12 – Ted Baker, Hook Your SoleMate
As part of the brand’s wider Valentine’s Day campaign, Ted Baker tasked us at SMACK with creating a piece of marketing that would engage both new and existing customers.
With years of experience in gamified marketing and a deep understanding of how the audience views the brand, we decided that gamifying a landing page on the official Ted Baker website was the best route to take.
If executed right, it would not only pull in users but also get picked up by the press, further widening the reach of the campaign.
We created Hook Your SoleMate, a multi-award nominated, multi-device psychedelic fishing game that involved users casting a hook and fishing for a mate for a given sea creature or item.
Users who successfully caught a soulmate had a chance of winning a prize: a £1,000 shopping spree at Ted Baker.
The result was 50,000 additional visits to the Ted Baker website (10,000 of these being in the first 24 hours of the game’s launch) with 36% of users returning to the site, and a very low bounce rate (users leaving the website completely after playing the game) of only 21%.
Learn more about this gamified marketing strategy and see the Hook Your SoleMate game in action here.
If your brand objectives include engaging new and existing audiences, driving traffic to your website that leads to repeat visits, taking advantage of seasonal holidays/ celebrations and rewarding customers, you should seriously consider utilising gamification in marketing as a tool to achieve these goals.
Gamification marketing example #11 – Dior, Plaza 66 Store Opening, China
China is estimated to be the top market for gaming in the world.
It is also one of the fastest-growing economies with an increasing demographic of people who can afford luxury goods.
Many of these people are active on the world’s biggest standalone mobile app, WeChat.
It made perfect sense then for Dior to consider these three factors and implement them in its marketing strategy to raise awareness of the opening of its new store in Shanghai.
What Dior did was go for gamified marketing as a strategy.
The brand created an interactive treasure hunt style game that involved participants collecting six items from the brand’s latest collection within the game world.
Successful participants could then launch a virtual hot air balloon for a chance to win tickets to the real-life opening of the new store.
By using gamification in marketing, Dior was able to take advantage of technology (WeChat as the gamified platform), consumer/market norms (gaming culture in China), market segmentation (targeting the affluent market) and the leveraging of its brand reputation to create a successful campaign to penetrate an emerging market interested in its products.
Gamification marketing is a tool that can help brands achieve their marketing objectives in a fun, engaging, captivating and memorable way by tapping into the historical human interest in playing games and satisfying the marketing communication demands of the modern tech-savvy consumer.
Gamification marketing example #10 – Tesco, Tesco Clubcard
Gamification doesn’t necessarily have to involve traditional gameplay mechanics.
Gamification can focus more strictly on the reward aspect of gaming.
In fact, enhancing customer experiences to achieve desirable customer behaviour is fundamental to gamification.
This makes perfect sense because achieving rewards – be it for your own achievement (knowing you helped your team top the league in FIFA), social status (being the best poker player in your circle) or earning kudos (topping a leader board) – is why we love playing games.
When participation in experiences incorporating gaming mechanics leads to actual rewards that can be consumed – as is the case with retailer loyalty cards – it is possible for businesses to drive customer behaviour that leads to ROI such as repeat business.
Oh, yeah, Tesco.
For decades now, many retailers have utilised the reward aspect of gamification to win customer loyalty, but Tesco has been particularly good at gamifying its Clubcard scheme.
As a decade long customer, I have witnessed the grocery retailer add gaming mechanics to its loyalty programme, which in turn has markedly increased my usage of my Clubcard.
From creating an app version of the Clubcard where you can track your point-gain in real time, to expanding how you can use your rewards when you’ve racked up enough points (and having Easter egg-type hunts in-store for items discounted for Clubcard holders only), Tesco has utilised retail gamification in very effective ways for its loyalty scheme platform.
Gamification marketing example #9 – Louis Vuitton, Endless Runner
To bring attention to its artistic designer Virgil Abloh’s 2019 Men’s Fall-Winter show, luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton created a retro-looking 16-bit pixelated game that was reminiscent of console and arcade games of the eighties.
Endless Runner involves users controlling a pixelated figure that runs against a parallax scrolling background (very old school indeed) made up of the New York City setting of the artistic designer’s fashion show.
Players have to leap over typical New York sidewalk obstacles like fire hydrants, traffic cones, bins and telephone boxes while collecting Louis Vuitton tokens.
This retro game is simple yet incredibly engaging with replay value. Its design is actually not too dissimilar to Meter Maze, a retro game the team at SMACK built for energy supplier British Gas.
Gamification marketing example #8 – PeopleHawk, Personality Quiz
PeopleHawk is a company focused on helping candidates find the right jobs for their careers, and helping businesses fill vacancies with the right employees.
Its website facilitates employment opportunities and communication between employers and potential employees.
Looking to help candidates be more assured in their career choices and understand which jobs fit their personality, PeopleHawk decided to create a personality test that would be free to use on its website.
SMACK was tasked with assisting with the development, design and building of this quiz as well as helping with copywriting.
Aside from being incredibly interactive, informative and shareable, what makes this online branded quiz really stand out is how well integrated it is with the USP of PeopleHawk’s services.
The personality test provides detailed answers that have a direct impact on how a candidate goes on to utilise the special features of the website, how they search for jobs, the positions they apply for and their engagement with the site as a whole.
Why not take the personality quiz yourself, and experience a science-backed personality test?
See if you’re a Broker who is highly open to experiences, or a Pioneer with a high level of conscientiousness.
Along with your initial persona results, you will also receive a six-page individual personality guide covering the 12 personality traits.
Gamification marketing example #7 – The Ben Kinsella Trust, Knife-Wise
Any organisation involved with educating the youth knows how challenging it can be to engage them and get them to open up about certain topics, especially one as serious as knife crime.
The Ben Kinsella Trust exists to do just that: educate young people on the dangers of knife crime while also helping them make positive choices to stay safe.
SMACK was lucky enough to play a part in this important cause, building three touchscreen apps – one of which was Knife-Wise, a quiz app about knife crime.
While the initial app was only available in workshops the charity provided to young people, The Ben Kinsella Trust tasked the agency with updating its availability to users anywhere and also across multiple devices.
The quiz incorporated UX design and a user interface young people would find engaging and intuitive.
With multiple choice and true or false questions, iPad adaptability and the capacity to view and share results, the quiz helped The Ben Kinsella Trust engage more youth across the country, not just those who took part in their workshops.
Quizzes offer a unique approach to market to younger people, engaging them in a way that leaves a long-lasting impact.
Gamification marketing example #6 – KARL LAGERFELD, Karl Lagerfeld Pac Man
For their marketing campaign to launch the Pixel Capsule collection, the KARL LAGERFELD marketing team approached SMACK to come up with a digital innovation to support the launch in a way that was engaging while being a conduit for customer data acquisition.
It was important that this multi touchpoint experience was playful and displayed the creative essence of the brand and its willingness to embrace digital innovation.
With SMACK having prior successes in gamification and with our creative team being very much aware of the current consumer desire for nostalgia in general and retro games specifically, we came up with a twist on the arcade 8-bit game Pac-Man, a solution that brought together both aspects.
We built a progressive HTML5 web game that worked across desktop, tablet and mobile devices, and was also available to play in-store. It involved using Karl Lagerfeld’s beloved cat Choupette to collect items while dodging pesky dogs.
Choupette could also collect KARL Coins which allowed her to move faster around the Pac-Man-style maze.
To really make the game stand out and have that nostalgic retro feel, SMACK incorporated eighties style gaming animation and sound design.
Data acquisition was made possible by players providing their details in order to be entered into a prize draw.
Users were also able to share their scores to challenge friends, making the game one that encouraged multiple experiences. And of course, users were encouraged to explore the brand’s new Pixel Capsule collection.
The result of this marriage of gamification and nostalgia marketing was over 21,000 visits of the game in the first week of release and 18,000 emails captured.
This subsequently raised awareness of KARL LAGERFELD’s new collection and helped the brand be seen as innovative in the luxury sector.
Gamification marketing example #5 – Weightwatchers, What is Your Food Personality
Some people know they have a sweet tooth (guilty, Your Honour) and have a decent understanding of how that impacts their eating habits. Others might be less conscious about how and what they eat, never really giving it much thought.
In either case, having an educated understanding of how and what we eat is powerful information that can have a huge influence on our lifestyles.
Being a brand that is about helping its target audience eat better and healthier, Weightwatchers wanted a digital innovation that would help customers understand their eating habits better while simultaneously showcasing the new Weightwatchers rebrand.
SMACK was approached to develop a digital experience in the form of a quiz.
The result was What is Your Food Personality, a ‘brain boost quiz’ that went beyond the usual expectations.
The overall digital experience incorporated questions, results, tips as well as a brain training game. It was an all-encompassing food personality quiz designed to help users truly identify their approach to food.
This online bespoke quiz is the kind of marketing experience that makes consumers see a brand as more than just a commercial entity purely out to make money, and it helps build that all important brand loyalty and brand advocacy.
If you want a digital solution that can serve as a CRM strategy that also shows off your new rebrand, a fun and engaging quiz is definitely worth considering.
Gamification marketing example #4 – KARL LAGERFELD, Katch Karl
Katch Karl was the second gamified retail marketing work that SMACK created for fashion retailer Karl Lagerfeld.
We were tasked with creating a digital marketing campaign to launch the brand’s new KARL X YOU collection.
What we built was Katch Karl, a digital game that showcased the new collection.
The gamified digital experience involved players having three chances to click on a correct accessory or clothing item as the items rotated on screen.
The longer it took the participant to “Katch” the item, the quicker the products rotated.
The item users had to catch changed week on week and could be won, with successful players entered into a draw, leading to a lucky player taking that week’s prize home.
To tap into the social element and leader board aspect of gamification, SMACK included functionalities within the game that allowed users to share their results on social media and challenge their friends respectively.
The result was over 30,000 game plays and over 20,000 emails captured.
This example of gamification in retail shows how the digital marketing solution of gamification can help put a retailer’s products front and centre, therefore increasing brand awareness in a unique way.
Gamification marketing example #3 – Adobe Creative Magazine, Creative Types Test
One of the greatest strengths of a digital solution such as an online quiz is how it can tap into the essence of what draws an audience to your business, your industry, or your community.
In today’s business world, the choice of buying an iPhone over a Samsung Note (or vice versa) is a choice of buying into one community or “tribe” over another.
Customers who go out of their way to shop at The Body Shop aren’t just buying products; they are making a statement about sustainability, fair trade and natural/clean beauty. In fact, SMACK worked with this brand to showcase their sustainability efforts.
In both cases, these brands are selling ideas as much as items.
Operating in the creative field – an industry that is about community, tribes and ideas more than most – Adobe Creative Magazine devised a quiz that didn’t focus on product, but rather tapped into what makes their audience who they are, within the wider creative community.
It’s similar to a sports company creating an online quiz that explores the kind of athlete or fitness enthusiast a customer is, with the results being a better understanding of where they sit in the fitness community and subsequent advice on how to become better athletes or better at physical activities.
The Creative Types test allows people to explore the various aspects of the creative personality.
Based on psychological research, the test helps participants understand who they are as creatives by looking at how they think, act and see the world – basically, an assessment of their tendencies and habits.
By answering just 15 questions, the user’s creative type (I’m an Artist, apparently – anyone got a digital paintbrush lying around?) is revealed along with advice on how to get the best out of their natural gifts and navigate challenges that might come with them.
It’s worth taking the Creative Types quiz yourself, if for nothing else but to experience its beautifully designed presentation, execution, use of animation and captivating visuals – reasons alone to be lauded as a great example of an online quiz.
Gamification marketing example #2 – KARL LAGERFELD, BREAKOUT WITH KARL
The KARL LAGERFELD team partnered with us for a third time to work on a fresh gamification marketing campaign for the release of the brand’s new 2021 Summer collection.
Inspired by Biarritz, one of Karl’s favourite holiday destinations, the collection consisted of bright, exciting pops of colour and nautical stripe prints.
The team wanted a digital solution that was not only in line with this fun, bright feel, but that was also engaging and further extended the brand’s reputation as a digital innovator in the luxury goods industry.
As before, aware of the rise in the popularity of gaming but wanting to tap into the current desire for nostalgia, SMACK sought to find a sweet spot with a solution that would bring both factors together.
The solution was a gamified digital experience called BREAKOUT WITH KARL.
Available to play on the brand’s website and in select KARL LAGERFELD stores, this retro game required the player to slide a paddle to hit a ball to break patterned blocks.
Underneath the blocks was an item from the new Summer collection.
The participant was allowed three attempts to smash all the bricks to reveal this item, which could then be won as a prize if the player registered their details.
To encourage players to return and to make the experience dynamic, this retro, old school call back to an arcade classic was updated with new imagery, patterns and a new prize on a weekly basis.
The particular design and gaming mechanics of this game are also a throwback to the first games available on the cable television boxes of the early nineties – a great source of nostalgic inspiration to drawn from.
Gamification marketing example #1 – Molton Brown, Albin’s Adventure
For their Christmas marketing campaign, fragrance and personal care retail brand Molton Brown approached SMACK with the objective of expanding their email database through a creative digital solution.
We came up with a gamification solution – Albin’s Adventure – a Scandi-themed online game that tapped into both the Christmas spirit and the natural human need to participate in play and reward.
This gamified experience involved users helping the titular Albin retrieve presents from the branches of Christmas trees surrounding him by throwing snowballs at them. Successfully doing this gave the user the chance to discover Molton Brown’s products and win prizes.
Even when unsuccessful, participants were entered into another prize draw and were given the opportunity to win more chances to play by simply sharing the campaign on social media.
This gamification in retail example highlights how a retail company can leverage digital technology and the emotional and immersive qualities of gameplay to market its goods while providing a memorable digital experience for customers.
The 75,500 unique players, 134,000 visits to the website and over 46,200 total emails captured are testament to the success of this retail gamification example.
Gamification marketing is an effective tool that can help brands achieve their marketing objectives in a fun, engaging, captivating and memorable way.
Contact SMACK creative digital agency today to discover how our gamification agency services can help your brand gamify its marketing strategy to achieve measurable and long-lasting results.