What is Gamification

The Gamification is the use of elements from the world of games and game design techniques in contexts not related to the game itself, such as within a business strategy.

In marketing, Gamification is used to achieve a specific goal, such as entertaining, motivating, engaging the user. 

This way, it aims to build loyalty to the brand and to sell a product.

Why does Gamification have so much success in marketing strategies? Because daily life is often marked by activities that are considered boring by most; however, gaming is a voluntary action from which humans derive pleasure.

Therefore, Gamification tends to engage people through fun and games applied to actions that have little to do with gaming.  

Applications of Gamification to Business Strategy

What makes Gamification successful is its ability to create, and consequently satisfy, human desires and needs.

Through Gamification, the user has goals to achieve, levels to progress through, can compete with other users and then share their successes by turning them into rewards. 

Already in the 1700s, the first timid attempts at Gamification were introduced into the market by some American merchants.

They began to give away copper tokens to their customers so that, after having collected a large number, they could redeem them for prizes consisting of products available in the involved stores. 

According to Daniel H. Pink (2011), there are three main points that are necessary to make a marketing strategy that applies Gamification work: 

• Motivation - the process of Gamification amplifies engagement, involves the user and encourages them to continue using the service; 
• Learning - the Gamification process must have a final goal, to stimulate the user's sense of challenge;
• Freedom - the user should be encouraged to participate, not forced. Otherwise, the playful aspect of the operation is lost.

The Benefits of Gamification in Marketing

Using Gamification in business marketing strategies can help change people's behavior. 

Some obvious benefits include:

• The consolidation of active interest from users involved towards the message that has been chosen to communicate; 
• customer loyalty; 
• the acquisition of new customers.

Gamification can be applied to various fields, such as the company's website, social strategy, an online paid campaign. 

Game mechanics and dynamics are introduced that can attract the end user's interest, who over time will tend to return voluntarily to specific content, thereby strengthening brand awareness but also convincing the user to convert and proceed with a purchase. 

Examples of Gamification 

To better understand what Gamification is, we will analyze some successful examples of Gamification applied to business strategy.

Duolingo, an app for learning a foreign language, currently has over 100 million users and consistently ranks at the top in the educational sections of Apple, Android, and Windows stores. The secret? Learning a language by solving quizzes, from the simplest to the most complex, earning points and moving on to the next levels only after "unlocking" the previous one. 

The historic brand Nike, in its competitive race against other giants like Adidas, Puma, Reebok, introduced the Nike+ application to the market, which registers the user with the Nike+ Running Club, involving them in a positive competition with other runners where the benefit is personal and for their own health. For the brand, this translates into customer loyalty and increased sales.