The Gamification Tide

“Gamification” is a word that’s getting bandied about quite a lot lately, generating a lot of buzz. To define it simply, gamification is the act of taking game mechanics (usually reward structures like achievements, leaderboards, or experience points) and glomming them onto non-game applications. Some folks see it as a way to solve social problems, and I totally respect that. But gamification has also been held up by some as the new hip thing that will save advertising in the internet age.

Gamification starts with a powerful premise, that people are now more than ever engaged by gameplay, and that the language of that medium has become a common tongue. But gamification so often totally misses the point of that premise and assumes it’s the social technology powering games and not the actual act of play itself that appeals to people. It’s like assuming that people enjoy travel because they get to carry around suitcases.



When the advertising world gets into gamification it often leads to awkward, ugly, poorly implemented applications; concealing boring, mundane interactions with a thin veneer of joyful recreation.

If you want to engage your audience with a game –and I realize this may be a revolutionary idea– maybe you ought to stop going through the motions and ACTUALLY MAKE A GAME. You obviously believe your target demographics are interested in them, so why are you faking them out?

Advertising and marketing shouldn’t be trying its darnedest to interrupt our fun; be it with commercials, intrusive banner ads, or confusing us with the hope of a game and dashing our hopes with the same old lame banking application.* This isn’t an insurgency against consumers. You don’t need to install sleeper agents around every corner.

So how do we do it right? Surely there is a lesson to be learned by taking the things we know work in one medium and applying them to another. One solution is particularly elegant:

A company called Kiip (pronounced "keep") works sort of like a media buyer, placing promotional content into games (mobile and web). When a player reaches an achievement point in the game, a window pops up and offers to send them a real world reward; like a free a soft drink, or some make up, or any number of other targeted promotions (no strings attached, advertisers don't even get your email address).

See what they did there? They took the aspects of games that interest people and they made advertising a part of that experience, instead of the other way around. Reverse gamification. A new, better spin on a not very old idea. Will it save advertising in the internet age. Who cares? It's better than what you're already doing, and that's a step in the right direction.



*I’m looking at you PNC bank. A piggy bank isn’t a game, digitizing one and putting it on my iPhone isn’t going to change that fact.