Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges, and Contests

Acknowledgments xiii

Foreword Robin Kent xv

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The Argument for Loyalty 9

‘‘Stickiness’’ Is Loyalty 13

Playing with Loyalty 14

The Future of Loyalty—Frequent Flyer Games 16

Communities of Influence: Flyertalk 18

Funware: Putting Fun into Everything 19

Chase ‘‘Goes Dutch’’ 20

The Value of Prizes 23

Game Mechanics 25

Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game 28

Chapter 2 Passive Play 31

The Incidental Games We Play 33

Latte Leaders: Status and Levels 34

Black Cards and Red Carpets 36

Keeping Score 38

The Subway Scrum: Rules of Play 39

The Bar Brawl: Demonstrable Status 41

The Components of Funware 43

Chapter 3 Social Networks and Leaderboards 45

Social Network Clutter 47

Marketing with Social Networks 48

Orkut: A Case Study in Leaderboard Effectiveness 48

Funware at Work: Facebook Friend Games 50

No News Isn’t Good News 51

Leaderboards in Business 52

The Jigsaw Example 53

Correctly Using Leaderboards 55

Points Proxy: Masking and Directing Behaviors 57

Wal-Mart and the Theory of Relativism 59

Leaderboard Levels 61

Leaderboards: The Top 10 62

Chapter 4 Funware Mechanics: Points and Beyond 65

Making Points the Point 68

Point Mechanics and Branding 69

Virtual Economics 70

Virtual Currency 71

Real-World Value versus Virtual Value 72

Creating an Easy and Effective Virtual Economy 73

Badging Players 74

Newbie Badges 77

Building Levels 77

America’s Army 80

Defining and Meeting Goals 81

Bringing Players into the Game 85

Tracking Behavior 87

Meaningful Status Displays 88

Chapter 5 Prizes and Games of Chance 91

The Ansari X PRIZE: The Power of Games to Change the World 93

Can’t Buy Me Love: Choosing Prizes 95

Games of Chance 97

Games of Chance and the Law 98

McDonald’s Monopoly Game: A Case Study 99

The Value of a Prize 102

Long-Term Motivation and Customer Loyalty 104

Gaming the System 105

Amazon Reviews: Community Policing at Its Finest 106

Using Sweepstakes to Fight Gaming 107

Virtual Points and Prizes 108

Chapter 6 The Ultimate Funware: Frequent Flyer Programs 111

Frequent Flyer Programs Take Off 114

What Business Are Airlines In? 114

Designing the Frequent Flyer Massive Multiplayer Online Game 117

The Power of Points 119

Getting There without Points 122

Real-World Redemptions: Do They Matter? 122

The Solution Is Virtual Goods 123

But Does Redemption Matter? 125

Levels and Badges in FFPs 126

Throwing Your Weight Around 127

Benefits of Status 129

The Level Error of FFPs 132

Going Above and Beyond: The Boss Level 133

Challenges and Contests 135

United’s Team Challenge 137

Making It Work for You 138

Chapter 7 Know Thy Player 141

Bartle’s Player Types 144

Achievers (^) 145

Socializers (˘) 146

Explorers (¯) 147

Killers (¨) 147

The Naı¨ve Player 148

Competitiveness: The Most Important Motivation? 150

Closing the Gender Gap 153

Nike+: Early Adopter Advantage 154

Fahrvergn€ugen’s Failure 156

The Wrap-Up 158

Chapter 8 The Future of Gamers: Generation G 161

A Generation Gap 163

What Makes Generation G Special? 164

The Trends 165

Smith & Tinker 166

The Gulf Is Real 171

The Effect of Games: Tetris, Team Building, and Tug of War 173

The Character of a Generation of Gamers 174

Conclusion: Successfully Marketing to Generation G 177

Chapter 9 Motivating Sales with Funware: Getting Employees into the Game 181

Front Line and Top of Mind 183

Bitten by the Achievement Bug 185

Mary Kay: Generating Loyalty 187

Trust and Motivational Funware 188

Sales Teams and Customer Trust: Pep Boys 190

Making the Corporate Personal through Games 191

Funware at Work: Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Island 192

Playing Together 194

Chapter 10 Everyone Wins: Games in Your Business 197

Product Power 199

Advergames and In-Game Advertising 200

Pursuing, Engaging, and Rewarding Customers: The Business of Lifestyles 202

Arming Your Business 202

First Steps Are the Hardest 203

Do It for the Children 204

Funware on the Rise 205

References 207

Index 211