L&S Unscripted

I am not sure about anyone else, but when I heard the words ‘gaming’ and ‘online’ used together I automatically thought of World of Warcraft and Second Life type sites that consume the user’s lives. So I was very interested to attend our ninth webinar, “The Games We Play” led by Julie (@flanneryallen) and Micah (@micahaberson) to see past the stereotype and to the future of gaming, social media and marketing.

The big question that everyone wants answered is why should I invest time, money and resources into gaming and how do I measure its effectiveness?

These statics from Omma help prove that gaming is a fast growing segment:

• 57% of AT&T wireless customers play mobile games on their wireless devices
• 50% play games during work
• 15% of all mobile users have purchased games

Most importantly though, is that more time is spent on gaming than any other form of social networking. Think of how much time is spent on Facebook and Twitter- now increase that and it becomes a large period of time that a consumer is having direct interaction with your brand-what more could be worth the investment?

Julie and Micah simplified the gaming concept into three categories: Branded Applications, Game Games, and Social Networking Games.

Branded Applications occur when companies start in the digital world and from that create a new product. Nike did this with Nikeid, which allows consumers to customize their own Nike shoe online, have it manufactured with their exact specifications and then shipped to their home. A few years ago I purchased a pair of Nike tennis shoes this way- it was actually one of Oprah’s Favorite Things that Christmas season. The point is I never thought of myself as a gamer, when it turns out I was participating in the gaming world without evening realizing it! Dominos also incorporated its brand into an online game. The concept is very easy: create ‘your’ pizza, register it online, and if the pizza is ordered more than any other registered pizza, you win! This becomes a fun competition between friends when they register pizzas against each other, and turns into a great incentive to order Domino’s pizza and to spread positive word of mouth so others order ‘your’ pizza.

Game Games, simply put, takes the old favorites and reinvents them in a social media way to bring together a company’s brand and the consumer. Brick Break and Mortal Combat (or in Mento’s version Kiss Fight) can be re-used so the game will connect back to the brand. A really innovative way movie theatres used this idea was creating an interactive group brick break game while movie goers were waiting for the movie to start. That sounds much more entertaining than watching the same commercial every few minutes or the movie reals which give the same uninteresting Hollywood facts.

Social Networking Games are most common. Think of all the ‘which character are you’ quizzes that have been taken on various social networking sites- or anywhere online for that matter. When brands create a game or quiz they are essentially bringing consumers to them and creating a fun way to interact together. Volkswagen used the social networking concept in creating a ‘What Volkswagen are You’ quiz to inform users of the Volkswagen family in a fun non-traditional marketing way. A great example given of gaming during the webinar was the ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ which made Facebook users ‘sacrifice’ or de-friend 10 of their friends in order to receive a free whopper. Burger King wanted to emphasize how much America loves the whopper and what we would sacrifice to have one. Eventually Facebook kicked the whopper game offline, but not before the whopper made a lasting impact on the gaming community.

Twitter has even entered into the gaming world with celebrities like Eminem and Shaq creating games their fans and followers can play to win free tickets to their events. This could be a good place for smaller business to test out gaming by creating scavenger hunts or other fun games for customers to play.

So what are the values of gaming?

Consumers are actively engaged in making a connection to your brand, you’re able to build databases for future marketing, and it drives repeat visits to the brands website. Gaming effectiveness is fairly easy to measure by looking at how many sales can be connected back to the game and by how many consumers routinely visit the site.

So who now isn’t a gamer?