This is the first article of a new saga dedicated to the gamification in the point of sale that we are going to offer in the Grupo Miralles blog. And we want to start defining the gamification. The gamification revolves around the entertainment and consists in retain/loyalty-build the costumer making him or her interact through a game. It has the aim to boost the common positive values of all games as motivation, effort and loyalty, among others. Applied in the point of sale, the gamification makes the buying process not boring or forced, increasing the possibilities of lots of products, because they are being sold in a more ludic environment.
A good example of gamification was the placing of a musical staircase in a shopping mall where every step was a piano key. Next to this staircase there was an escalator. It happened that people used that day the normal staircase a 60% more than the escalator. But ¿according to what can we create this entertainment? ¿Which are the main elements that intervene?
This unavoidable elements are: to establish a goal that the costumer has to reach, to establish some rules and adding surprising events for the player.
Types of player and consumer
According to what motivates a consumer to become a player we can see that diverse tipologies exists.
The Socializing: for this type of consumers their motivation is interacting with others and creating social connections.
Free Spirits: the Free Spirits are motivated through autonomy and self-expression, they search for creative processes and exploring.
Serious Players: the ones that search to learn new things and to improve themselves through challenges to overcome.
Philanthropists: in this case the philanthropists are motivated by the purpose and the meaning. This group is altruistic, willing to give to other people and enriching the lives of others somehow without expecting any compensation.
Pure players: the ones motivated by rewards. They are willing to give all that it takes to complete the aim of the game.
Disruptives: In general, they want to disrupt the system, directly or through other users to force a positive or negative change.
Objectives
All games must have an aim, the awards are the easiest way to establish an aim, and allows to make the player feel that he or she plays and competes for something (reason why). The final aim could be an award, and through an scoring system to reach that award, we can achieve that the consumer assimilates the product. We must bear in mind that not in all cases they work better than material rewards, in most of the cases it’s more motivating a public recognition than a check.
“Timing”
It is very important having a deadline to create the sensation of urgency and need and to incentive the player for action. If we don’t set a date, the player relaxes and never enters the game dynamics.
Rules
The bases of the game and the rules itself are crucial when it comes to raise the best strategy. The consumer must have a clear idea of the values, objectives, rewards and timing, and the game has to be approached in a very easy way.
Surprises
The surprising element adds some interest to the player and gets that he or she doesn’t give up through little stimulus distributed along the game. We can achieve that a costumer creates the habit to your product during the game, with the help of little rewards and surprises.
The types of fun
As it is explained in the article The Science of Fun 4 Ways Games Make You Happier, from XeoDeisgn, leader company in the implementation of the gamification for business, the fun is the emotion on what it is based any gamification strategy. It exists different types of fun, regarding the effort that entails and to who is involved.
Easy fun: It costs nothing and it satisfies us, as for example apps to modify a photo. These are games that use the curiosity of exploration, role playing and creativity.
Hard fun: It implies a great effort and it has as an aim an epic victory.
People fun: Fun that implies the collaboration of other people and it is obtained in group. It is also obtained with processes that foster the competition with the cooperation between subgroups of players.
Serious fun: It involves an effort that contributes to something bigger (example: a game where molecules are built and sent to the researchers contributing to the science). It also can be applied with a process of a profound change of the player that he or she transforms into something.
In the next post we are going to explain how to profile our strategy of gamification combining types of costumers with types of fun that we can offer.
