In the age of digital transformation, which is currently accelerating in many areas due to the COVID 19 pandemic, a typical marketing question is: How can digital experiences be made profitable for customers? The flood of information, such as the amount of videos on YouTube and TikTok, photos on Instagram, Flickr, and Pinterest, as well as snaps and tweets, makes it difficult for marketing managers to capture the attention of customers. Recent scientific literature suggests that one possible strategy for this is gamification, which refers to the use of game design elements in non-game contexts. Prominent examples of playing in apps include Runtastic (fitness app), Tinder (dating app) and Babbel (language learning app). But what is the most effective way to improve customer loyalty and increase sales by using gamification? What works with Gamification and why?
The team of authors around Prof. André Marchand, together with his colleagues Prof. Andreas B. Eisingerich (Imperial College London), Jun.-Prof. Martin P. Fritze (University of Cologne) and Lin Dong (Imperial College London) recently closed this gap with an article in the International Journal of Research in Marketing. The researchers show constitutive elements of gamification (e.g. social interaction, goals, progress control, rewards) that help managers to develop effective, playful digital apps. They empirically show that the use of gamification promotes customer loyalty to the app and increases the company's sales within the app. In addition, the team explains that gamification works by creating hope for customers and as such contradicts a general opinion that gaming elements would only make consumers addicted, i.e. cause behavior close to gaming addiction. However, this study shows that the central explanation for gamification success is not addiction but hope, e.g. to achieve a certain fitness goal. This hope can create direct value for customers by motivating them to change their behavior and achieve meaningful, long-term goals.
The researchers conclude that gamification can not only help customers get fitter, learn a language or save money with the help of digital apps, for example, but is also an efficient tool for managers to increase in-app purchases or premium account sales.
The study hast been published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing and can be downloaded here.
PS. If you are more interested in video games than in gamification, the article by Prof. Marchand on this topic, which was published four years ago, could also be of interest to you. You can download it here.