These companies have been quite open with their success metrics. Plus, their campaigns were easy to track online, but you don’t need to be a huge multinational corporation to put them to work for you! Each of these gamification models is within the grasp of your company’s marketing goals.
Starbucks: Starbucks Rewards
In my opinion, Starbucks Rewards is one of the most successful gamification marketing campaigns ever produced. It was intrinsically based around the reward and loyalty programs.
Many people already buy coffee on a regular basis, often on their way to work. However, a higher price point and an ever-increasing number of competing coffee shops meant that Starbucks had to work harder to get people to keep coming back. Starbucks needed a campaign that would increase not only brand loyalty, but also repeat visits by customers.
To solve this problem, Starbucks created the Rewards app, which rewards members for coming in multiple times over a certain period of time. The brand used gamification tactics to enhance the Starbucks experience. This helped boost brand loyalty as well as sales.
For this campaign, Starbucks opted for a mobile and web app where customers would register for Starbucks Rewards. Then every time customers purchased Starbucks products, they earned rewards, which actually looked like cups that were graphically filled in.
The gamification marketing campaign didn’t stop there. Starbucks introduced levels — progression through each of the three levels depended on customer loyalty. When customers visited Starbucks stores, they earned upgraded rewards. Examples of rewards included an extra cup of coffee, a birthday present, and even customized offers.
As of March 2019, Starbucks Rewards had a staggering 16 million active members, with an 11 percent growth of its user base in the second quarter of 2018.
Chipotle: A Love Story Game
Chipotle launched a memory game based on its animated short film called A Love Story. The film, which had more than 60 million views at the time of the game’s launch, is a cautionary tale about two young entrepreneurs whose rivalry results in competing fast food empires that sacrifice quality for quantity.The gamification marketing campaign, called A Love Story Game, allowed customers to match real ingredients while avoiding the use of added colors and flavors. The game was consistent with the brand’s overall image of making natural, healthy foods.
Chipotle’s gamification marketing campaign cleverly rewarded winning audiences with a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for any food item. This is an excellent example of gamification marketing providing an opportunity for customers to interact with your brand while bringing attention to the company but also rewarding them at the same time.
As opposed to the Starbucks example (see the preceding section), where the platform was a mobile app, Chipotle went with developing the campaign with HTML5. This meant that their customers could play the game and receive rewards on all their devices, including mobile phones, tablets, and computers.
According to internal research, after Chipotle’s gamification marketing campaign, over 70 percent of users reported that they believed the brand used high-quality, whole ingredients, and 65 percent said it made them more likely to trust the company. Also, according to the Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, Chipotle was number one in customer loyalty.
Chipotle went on to create another gamification marketing campaign after A Love Story Game called Cado Crusher. The campaign, which was launched two weeks before the Super Bowl, required players to collect ingredients to create guacamole for the big game. This concept was tied into Super Bowl parties that might feature guacamole.
Nike: Nike+ FuelBand
Incredibly, since Nike launched this gamification marketing campaign, it has developed into a worldwide popular gamified sport. The idea was simple: to encourage lifestyle changes by helping Nike’s audience to keep themselves fit.The campaign centers around the Nike+ FuelBand, which is a bracelet with technology that can monitor user movements. By implementing the campaign on a mobile app, Nike was able to take advantage of the mobile device’s native features, which meant its audience could track their progress on a very personal level.
Statistics (like the number of calories burned) were displayed to provide feedback to users. The app also collected personal data from users and kept a close update on their physical activity, displaying their latest achievements and overall performance. Ultimately, the app converted the users’ performance into points, rewarding them for their efforts. These rewards came in the form of trophies and badges after completing different levels.
Nike’s gamification marketing campaign went one step further and introduced a social element to the game, which undoubtedly helped to expand awareness and demand. Audiences were given the opportunity to challenge friends, which provided a great incentive to share the campaign. Users’ points accumulated based on the distance they traveled. This was then revealed to their community, where everyone could track who was ranked at the top of the leaderboard.
Furthermore, when rewards are won, consumers are encouraged to share their results on social media, increasing the brand’s presence and visibility on all social platforms. Encouraging and engaging users to promote your campaign will boost your campaign’s momentum.
Within two years of launch, Nike had 11 million Nike+ FuelBand players. The gamification marketing campaign greatly boosted Nike’s customer loyalty. More important, the campaign allowed Nike to collect lots of data over a long period of time; Nike could then use this data to market its products and services directly.
M&M’s: Eye-Spy Pretzel
The M&M’s Eye-Spy Pretzel app is a good example of how a simple gamification marketing campaign can create a huge impact. I always recommend that you keep your games simple and not make them too difficult or include too many elements. By doing so, you ensure your audience won’t feel overwhelmed or frustrated, which means that they’re more likely to share your campaign.The idea for the campaign came when M&M’s was about to launch a pretzel-flavored version of its popular candy. In order to promote M&M’s pretzel products, the company launched this marketing campaign.
The idea was clever: The users had to find a pretzel hidden in an image full of M&M’s. This straightforward puzzle game, which ran solely on Facebook, brought in tens of thousands of new likes for the company. More important, the campaign was shared by thousands of people in a very short period of time.
This gamification marketing campaign brought real-life, tangible benefits, including creating user engagement with the brand. At its high point, the campaign resulted in 25,000 new likes on the brand’s Facebook page, as well as 6,000 shares and 10,000 comments.
Target: Wish List
Target’s gamification marketing campaign was entirely focused on children. The campaign, a mobile app called Wish List, combined gamification with Target’s registries technology to create an interactive shopping list. The campaign, which was presented as a fun way for kids to create their own wish lists, was also an easy way for parents to buy their children gifts. They could also, in turn, share these gift ideas with other relatives.Designed for the holiday season, the users had to navigate through a 3D animated game that takes place in Target’s Toy Factory. The audience would drag-and-drop the toys they wanted to build their holiday wish list and then send the completed list to Santa.
Target used a 3D animated gaming platform to create a highly successful gamification marketing campaign. The app was an instant success, with the initial launch generating approximately 75,000 downloads. Over the course of the holiday season, more than 100,000 wish lists were created, made up of 1.7 million total items, which represented a total sales potential of $92.3 million.
Target’s research found that 61 percent of its audience used the app multiple times a week, including 31 percent who used the app multiple times a day, generating over a million page visits to Target.com via the app.
Citroën: Game of Scroll
For the launch of the new World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) season, Citroën unveiled its gamification marketing campaign, called Game of Scroll. This was an adventure-type game that allowed the audience to participate in a car race. The purpose of the game was to scroll as fast as possible to keep your car ahead of the rest and set the best race time.The game, which was designed and developed using HTML5 technology, was accessible on mobile phones, tablets, and computers. The campaign rewarded the top players with one of ten VIP passes for two people to the French leg of the WTCC at the Le Castellet racetrack in France.
The campaign also included a social element, where players were encouraged to share their scores and challenge their friends by using the hashtag #GameOfScroll.
During its limited run, the campaign enjoyed much international success for Citroën, notably in Morocco, Germany, and Argentina.
Coca-Cola: Shake It
Coca-Cola is known to be at the forefront of developing creative and innovative product promotions, and it has run several gamification marketing campaigns, all successfully. Shake It was run primarily in Hong Kong, where users were encouraged to download the campaign’s app onto their mobile phones.After they had downloaded the app, they were asked to shake their phones. Although this may sound like a strange choice for a game, the campaign was aimed at teenagers. At the time, the word chok, which means “rapid motion or shake,” was a slang term used exclusively by teenagers in Hong Kong.
The campaign only worked while the TV ad aired, at which point the teens had to have the app running and then shake their phones. The players were rewarded with instant prizes and discounts, including real-life discounts at restaurants and also virtual prizes that could be redeemed on other apps.
The campaign was an instant success and proved to be hard to resist for the target audience. Coca-Cola aligned the campaign with its mission to bring happiness and optimism to the world.
Netflix: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Although Bandersnatch was not launched as a standalone marketing campaign, it was an incredibly innovative gamification campaign, hailed by many as the “gamification of television.” Due to the arrival of Apple’s and Disney’s streaming services, Netflix had to be as innovative as possible if it wanted to maintain its dominance in the market. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was the answer to Netflix’s stronghold problem.The premise of an interactive TV movie may sound wrong, because the whole idea is that viewers want to “switch off.” But Bandersnatch proved that audiences wanted to become fully immersed in the world of an engaging story. In fact, the feedback received was that a gamified movie actually helped to enhance the viewers’ experience.
This campaign, which is essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure–style game, became so ambitious that Netflix opted for a feature-length runtime as opposed to the standard length of a Black Mirror episode. Set in 1984, Bandersnatch is the story of a young video game coder named Stefan, who sets out to build a multiple-choice game based around a science-fiction book. The viewers also follow the multiple-choice formula, where they have multiple options to choose from on how the story plays out.
The worldwide success of Bandersnatch has, according to Netflix, ensured that gamified TV will continue because it looks to be a potential gateway to a higher level of audience engagement, with great potential to be an extremely lucrative medium.
Nissan: CarWings
Electric cars are exploding into the automotive market with exciting and technologically advanced features. The whole premise of electric cars provides an excellent platform for car manufacturers to initiate innovative gamification marketing campaigns — and this is precisely what Nissan has done with CarWings.Nissan released its Leaf electric car with a video game tracker, which is displayed on its 7-inch LCD screen. The campaign creates a competition with all other drivers and rewards the winner with the Platinum Leaf Cup. Based on their performance, drivers can then earn medals, from bronze to gold, and eventually reach the coveted platinum cup.
Drivers can see how many miles they’re getting per kilowatt hour of energy, and how they stack up against others drivers in their country and around the world. The competitive desire of drivers will naturally lead them to better driving habits, which is exactly the message Nissan wants to promote with the electric car.
According to Nissan, the gamification marketing campaign is a success, with half of Leaf drivers opting to participate in CarWings. From Nissan’s research, one of the top features of the campaign has been the ability of drivers to view their position in worldwide rankings of driving metrics.
Magnum: Pleasure Hunt
Magnum, an international chocolate company, wanted to create a novel campaign for the launch of its ice cream bar, Magnum Temptation. Its gamification marketing campaign was centered around an adventure game similar to Nintendo’s Super Mario. However, the campaign went one step further and integrated the playing field across pages on the Internet.The players, who can select from several playing themes (such as hand gliding), are encouraged to accumulate “bonbons” in order to build their ranks on a leaderboard.
Cleverly, Magnum raised awareness of this gamification marketing campaign through social media — so much so that the URL managed to become the most tweeted one around the world in one day.
On a final note, Magnum’s campaign team not only advertised its product, but also provided a window of exposure to its partner brands, guaranteeing them advertising.