Mashable has featured a case study of SCVNGR’s campaign with Buffalo Wild Wings, which goes into some detail on how gamification can benefit restaurant locations. Buffalo Wild Wings is a national chain with over 700 locations around the country, and in January they partnered with SCVNGR to apply the game layer in order make every restaurant more engaging, just like putting hot sauce on wings to make them more delicious.
There is an ongoing debate on applying extrinsic motivators (i.e. a game layer) versus tapping into intrinsic motivations in order to drive engagement. SCVNGR’s SVP of Marketing Chris Mahl stepped into the ring by saying SCVNGR is “not a checkin-based service, [but something] that goes further into brand goals [and] consumer goals.” Mahl identifies the Wing chain as a “socially progressive, community-based place,” which lends itself to the SCVNGR model. “People come ready to play, with their game faces on” Mashable says.
Questions on motivation aside, SCVNGR’s campaign has made headway in demonstrating the power of play to bring in more customers. The campaign took place during March Madness and benefited from the environment of the playoffs. Players competed amongst light challenges to gain points which were then redeemed for discounts. The end-results were impressive: over the three weeks, there were 184,000 unique players, 1 in 3 players returned to play again, and players created 20,000+ of their own challenges based off of the framework of the campaign.
Be sure to check out Mashable’s article for full coverage.
