Game mechanics work, even in the most unlikely places.  I’ve written about using game mechanics in software to incent participation and encourage and align positive behaviors. I was reminded of this fact at my son’s school Science Fair last week. The school wisely gave us a “Science Fair” Passport as we walked in.  The passport listed all the science projects next to the student’s name and symbol, with a blank space for us to collect a matching stamp from each. Instead of randomly wandering around the different project displays, I was amazingly motivated to get all those stamps on my passport, double checking before moving from room to room to be sure I had collected all the stamps in that room.

Contrast this experience with the “Art to Wear” fair I went to a few days later. Much like the science fair, there were many rooms with many exhibitors, talented artists showing their wares. We were given a list of the exhibitors at the entrance but that didn’t motivate me the same way. I worked my way through the various rooms and the crowds, but it was tiring, and I am sure I missed seeing many of the exhibitors.

I am not a gamer. I don’t play board games, facebook games or console games, unless I am talked into it by my kids. So why did the Science Fair Passport work? Perhaps a simple incentive like stamps on a paper provides some low-overhead organizing principle – one less thing to think about. But I did not feel I had to go in order, I was just motivated to collect them all. I should note too that there was no prize, nothing to “win” – it was just to collect the stamps. But it made it easier and more fun for me to perform the desired behavior – visit all the science fair posters.

Game developers know how to create an immersive, engaging game experience. Why  not use these same game mechanics to create an immersive and engaging customer experience?

Juho Hamari and  Vili Lehdonvirta of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology studied game mechanics in virtual economies in “Game design as marketing: How game mechanics create demand for virtual goods.” They looked at the the rules and mechanics that developers build into Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) to encourage virtual purchases. What they discovered is that traditional marketing and game design already have shared design principles: progressions, levels, prizes, collectibles, memberships and points, among others. But traditional marketing is too simplistic, and thus fails to engage the customer.  “The game fails to engage for more than a short period of time, the game is too easy to provide excitement or too difficult to be rewarding, or the marketer’s commercial motive is blatantly obvious, preventing immersion in the game.”

They recommend marketing managers approach marketing “as a serious game design challenge: to hire professional game designers, to consult the large body of literature on game design, and to strive to create engaging games around their products and services. The whole customer relationship, from acquisition through retention to monetization, could be modeled as an interactive game.”

Gabe Zichermann calls this Funware. In The Engaging Web Gabe writes, “Funware is differentiated from games primarily in its objective. While games’ primary purpose is fun, Funware applications serve two masters: business objectives and enjoyment. Funware is also differentiated from Serious Games in that Funware applications need to be enjoyable for users, whereas serious games – such as military simulations – care much less about how participants’ feel about the game’s amusement level.”

It’s about using all the behavioral science that’s packed into compelling game design to engage and motivate your customers and create customer loyalty. “Promotions are a cold start each time,” observed Bunchball‘s Rajat Prahari at the recent Engage!Expo. Promotions create loyalty to the promotion. A better offer and the customer is gone. Game mechanics create loyalty to your brand. So get serious about marketing and have a little fun.

There was a great series of blog posts this month about Cisco’s first ever virtual sales conference by Carlos Dominguez, Cisco’s Senior Vice President, US Service Providers Sales. The scale of the meeting was enormous, with over 19,000 virtual attendees. The list of technologies was as I would expect from Cisco, the stalwart WebEx, the immersive  Telepresence, and IPTV. What caught my attention is that they also used an Alternative Reality Game (ARG) called “Threshold” to build teamwork and conduct training.

This is a big deal to move away from the traditional annual sales meeting. Even when looking at a 90% cost savings, the bar to change the traditional FTF meeting is very high. It’s a significant part of a sales force culture, a highlight of the year. Carlos shared in his blog post, “I almost had a brain hemorrhage” when the idea was first floated. Cisco figured out that it needed to offer something engaging in a new way in a virtual meeting format. It turned to Games.

“In addressing one of the key challenges of keeping the sales organization engaged, they came up with a concept of doing a game. I remember the pitch: ‘Everyone loves a game and we’ll make it competitive with prizes and leader boards. You know the sales teams love to compete and win.’” The logistical challenges of a 19,000 strong virtual meeting are daunting, but being Cisco, were overcome.

With much nervous anticipation, the event went off with flying colors, with the ARG “The Threshold” being the highlight of the experience. The game worked because Cisco applied the Funware model:  start with the goal of making an engaging game and experience, and then weave into the game the salesforce training and team building aspects. Game designs that start with the training and add some bells and whistles usually fall far short of expectations.

There was almost twice the number of active game players than expected (13,000 active players versus the 7,000 expected). Carlos reported that “The combination of presentations and technical sessions via video, chat, discussion forums—and especially the games — really reinforced learning in a much more interactive way”. “The games, especially “The Threshold”, were over the top cool and forced you to learn and collaborate in a fun and exciting way.”

If you want to try “The Threshold”, Carlos has posted a first clue. How Fun Cisco!

Cisco Global Sales Meeting Uses Gaming for Engagement

Gaming and Virtual Reality at Cisco’s Annual Sales Meeting

Cisco Gets Real with Alternate Reality Games

VW has launched a wonderful initiative called The Fun Theory demonstrating how “fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better”. Their video “The Piano Stairs – The Fun Theory” has gone viral with over 3M views on You Tube.

Us business execution folks call this Putting Games to Work. As I wrote in “Playing Around with Customer Loyalty”, integrating proven game mechanics into normal content motivates desired behavior. Game mechanics can help companies fulfill their promise to their customers, and in doing so, drive customer loyalty, retention and revenues.

Bunchball, a leading game mechanics platform, calls this the “Science of Engagement”.  “Promotions are a cold start each time,” said Rajat Paharia, BunchBall’s Founder and Chief Product Officer at Enage!Expo last month. Like other traditional loyalty programs, they only engender loyalty to the program, not the brand. Customers are gone as soon as they find a better offer.

“If we understand what actions on your site impact customer value, then what tools and techniques can be used to increase it? Behavioral incentive and rewards programs, game dynamics and social media tools are all part of the mix,” writes BunchBall CEO Peter Daboll in his Forbes commentary, “A Web of Engagement”.

BunchBall’s customers have some remarkable results to show for building a web of engagement:

• 55% increase in desired behaviors
• Time on site up 20%
• 400%+ increase in page views
• Revenue generating sponsorships
• Users being incented to create the core site content, so that sites “run themselves”
• Increase in visit frequency

These metrics reflect the changing relationship that is possible between company and customer. Warner Brothers, for instance, never had a direct relationship with their customers before. Now they are starting a global loyalty program where website users can build virtual movie sets with virtual goods using WB virtual money, explained Rajat. Another BunchBall customer, NBC, launched a social networking site Dunder Mifflin Infinity, based on the hit series The Office. The DMI site has an “incentive economy – powering a virtual currency, leaderboards, behavior tracking, and virtual goods.” Website visitors are incented to become employees and generate core site content. By motivating users, NBC is able to meet its goal of having the site “run itself” with user-generated content. Comcast is another Bunchball customer and Jean-Claire Fitschen, Director, Games for Comcast, shared the Comcast experience with game mechanics at Engage!Expo. Comcast has achieved higher member conversion and more page views per unique visitor since launching the program. “Status and reputation are highly motivating for some users.”

Rajat also touched on how the science of engagement works internally, too. LiveOps, a virtual contact center solution provider, is using game mechanics to incent employees to complete training programs.

Games are fun, and fun is powerful. Put the science of games to work to help you build and motivate your customers and your team. Gamification is not only the new marketing, but together with the web of engagement of social media tools, it is a platform on which to build out your promise to your customers.

Business Execution is about delivering on a promise to your customers. Many companies, for example, have a lowest price promise to their customers. They offer to match any price a customer finds elsewhere. But most customers don’t take advantage of this offer. Customers just buy the item somewhere else. Why? Because most companies don’t engage their customers in fulfilling that promise.

Most of you, either first hand or by watching your kids and teens, know the power of engagement that computer and online games have. Smart game developers are taking this engagement know-how and moving it onto social networks like Facebook and converting whole new demographics into online game players. Game companies like Zynga are making serious money doing so while smart marketers, like Gabe Zichermann, are using this engagement know-how to drive customer loyalty and retention.

The best customer loyalty program of all time is the Frequent Flyer program, as Gabe pointed out at his talk “Playing the Loyalty Game” at EngageExpo! in September.  Think of all the hoops most of us jump through to stick with our favorite frequent flyer program. Interestingly, Frequent Flyer programs have the five characteristics of any hugely successful Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG):

• Points
• Leader boards
• Challenges
• Badges and levels
• Rewards

Points, leader boards, challenges, badges and levels and rewards are motivating. “People have fundamental needs and desires – for reward, status, achievement, self-expression, competition, and altruism among others. These needs are universal, and cross generations, demographics, cultures and genders. The big secret is that game mechanics address these needs, and in the process incent, motivate and engage your users.” writes Gabe in “The Engaging Web – How Fun and Games Improve Your Site”. Gabe advises all marketers to use the MMOG basic design philosophy to drive user behavior and create customer loyalty that is “passionately irrational with predictability”.

Smart companies engage their customers. They reward you for returning to the store and allowing them to match the lower price you found somewhere else. They want you to help them fulfill their promise to you.  Southwest Airline’s promise is “the low cost airline.” One of the ways they keep this promise is fast turn-arounds – less time on the ground keeps overall costs down. Southwest airlines could create a game with rewarding points, challenges and badges for getting to the gate early. This would encourage you to help them do a fast turnaround and so keep costs down. Would leaderboards of on-time passengers be more effective than the punishment of last to board? I think so.

What game dynamics would make your customers “passionately irrational with predictability” – think about it. And think about getting Gabe’s new book – Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges, and Contests.