Gamification is a marketing method marketers and advertisers use to entice consumers to more effectively engage with a product or service. The Millennial and Gen Z market is ripe for gamified marketing as it caters to building loyalty and engagement and providing value back to consumers through rewards. Many marketers are saying that products and content that utilize gamification perform better because it helps consumers to have fun — and fun is incredibly marketable.
Millennials and Gen Zers are intrinsically connected to the internet and digitization, far more so than their generational predecessors. This makes it all the more important for new products and services to cater to the preferences of both generations.
The majority of Millennials and Gen Zers live their lives online or through the digital world, so making their money digitally accessible and more advantageous is a no-brainer. This is why VITAL has catered its business to the Millennial and Gen Z market.
Social gamification results in higher engagement
VITAL is tapping into the market by structuring its business model to incentivize rewards through responsible spending and community building. In addition, social gamification has become increasingly popular and is the next modality that credit card companies and banks should start investing in as Millenials and Gen Z become the more dominant spenders.
One of the strongest factors of social gamification is its ability to show and build measurable engagement within a branded mini-game. For instance, some software platforms configure the backend of a platform to capture data pertaining to the number of unique players, how each player is engaging with a campaign, what players are handing over their information, when and who is sharing the content of the platform on social media, and what players are redeeming their earned rewards.
Traditional marketing would require games to appear unexpectedly and seize a user’s attention with the hopes of enticing them to play. When marketing is designed similarly to a game, users are given the freedom to engage at their own pace with the platform and, thus, are incentivized to utilize it. On the reporting end, this means that all actions proactively occur by users, enabling them to be in control of how they interact with a company.
Users inadvertently interact with gamified businesses and provide an opportunity for businesses to position their messages and brand in more creative ways during the time the user is participating in gameplay. Games invoke higher levels of engagement than videos, too. While data shows that video marketing is one of the best ways to engage viewers, videos do not compete well against video games. Even though the TV marketplace brings in approximately $72 billion in investment, studies show how people habitually pay more attention to their phones when TV commercials are airing.
Gamification offers marketers the ability to cloak their messages, ads, and other materials under the guise of a game. In an era where consumers look to their phones for virtually everything — but most importantly in moments of relaxation — video games offer quick bursts of stimulating activity for users while creating product placement opportunities for businesses.
Campaign awareness
When paired with an appealing rewards system, gamification can enable platform engineers and marketers to form creative strategies that effectively communicate with a target audience on multiple levels. For example, Gamifying a transaction can be one way to build product rapport and incentivize referrals.
Gamification works so well in marketing because of its ability to augment products and messaging in several creative ways. By adding elements of playfulness, community building, and social interaction, a campaign can easily turn into familiar posting on social media. To successfully achieve popularity with a reward-branded mini-game campaign, one must include sharing features and educational elements in tandem with viral elements. This way, social interactions can be easily activated with a simple tap of a button.
To ensure a gamified campaign works effectively, it’s pivotal for marketers to acquire an in-depth understanding of what their target audiences will appreciate and be able to relate to. For Millennials and Gen Zers, games are what many of them grew up on and continue to invest in today.
By targeting psychographics and facets that resonate with a person’s pathos, like education on responsible spending coupled with being rewarded for it, consumers are more likely to stay hooked. This immersive experience is why social gamification is so important to VITAL.
