How Fun Can Make A Difference!

Although Gamification is quite new as a stand-along concept, the approach has been implemented a long time ago. 

According to the professor Kevin Werbach (Wharton, University of Pennsylvania - the first official lecturer on this subject) gamification is mainly listening to what games can teach us, learning from game design and appreciating fun. So, Gamification as a concept can be implemented in many areas: 

• externally (e.g. in Marketing, Sales), 
• internally (e.g. HR, Productivity enhancement), and
• for behavioral change (Sustainability, Health and wellness, etc.). 

Sweden is rich for examples of the last approach - changing the behavior in a social context. 

One example is 'Speed limiting'. In order to stimulate drivers to keep the speed within the limits, Stockholm's Police went beyond the fines. On one of the speed limit radars they installed a lottery sign, explaining the rules. Part of the fines, collected from those who exceed the speed limit, will be randomly given to a driver who kept the speed within the limits. The results were astonishing - the average speed was reduced from 32 km/h to 25 km/h. Which is a 22% reduction rate. 

Another example is 'Piano stairs'. The objective was to stimulate people to use the stairs vs. the escalator. The Odenplan metro station, (in Stockholm) had its stairs turned into a piano. So, stepping on the stair would make a piano key sound. As a result, 66% more people chose stairs over the escalator. 

So, Gamification can be used in many different cases, even in changing behavior. 

But also in Marketing. Coke Zero had presented this amazing marketing campaign for the new Bond movie, Skyfall . The objective of the video was to stimulate the discussion and engagement around the central campaign idea of ‘Coke Zero drives you to unlock the 007 in you’(1) . The buzz generated by the campaign has reached 7M views on Youtube and gained one of the highest sharing rates on-line as well as high coverage in off-line media. So, objective was achieved by far.

Although this last example is not 100% Gamfication in action, it illustrates great potential in applying the concept in engaging with consumers. 

So, be ready for more games in real life!