It’s not just the US dollar that’s feeling the pinch of inflation – loyalty programs too have been increasingly caught in a spiral of “less for more”. Though it’s a lot more frustrating to see your cash balance erode at the gas pump or supermarket, it’s also problematic when something you’ve been saving up for…
Gamification has been used by schools and private business as a way to make learning more fun. Now, insurance companies are using the technique to change people’s behavior toward maintaining their health, according to Healthcare Dive. The idea is that the more individuals who pursue healthier lifestyles, the less burden they place on health insurance…
At this year’s Games for Change, Jesse Schell of Schell Games showed off his company’s newest idea for making chemistry more approachable for middle and high school students — Happy Atoms, a mixed reality, lego-like experience that asks people to explore atom formation through play. G.Co was fortunate enough to speak with Jesse last week…
Highlights From This Year’s Games For Change Last week, Games For Change had their 13th annual festival at the New School’s Parsons School of Design. New to the festival this year were three featured tracks participants could focus on: the Games for Learning Summit; health and neuroscience; and civics and social change. Gamification.Co was lucky enough to attend,…
McDonald’s will use a new meal prep training system for its staff this fall McDonald’s customers in the United Kingdom will soon notice subtle changes in how their meals are prepared. To carry out these seemingly small changes, corporate leaders are making some big changes in how they train their managers. In order to bring all…
When summer temperatures spike and air conditioners run full throttle, the demand for electricity strains the power grid. Utilities try to manage these peak times of power demand with an approach called demand response: industrial users and residential customers are encouraged to cut back on their power use to ease the load on the grid. But it’s not enough to ask people to curtail their electricity use. Customers need incentives. That’s where energy analytics company Bidgely enters the picture.
For those unfamiliar with the term”MOBA”, it may be time to take notice of one of the fastest growing phenomenon within the gaming industry. MOBA’s, or Massively Online Battle Arenas, have greatly surpassed other popular gaming genres to become the most played games on the PC platform. This shift in the trends of PC players began in 2012 with the game title League of Legends, which has retained its throne ever since; with other MOBA’s such as DotA 2 and Smite creeping into the top ten as well. These types of games have become so popular that they are selling out seats at large venues as well as being covered by major sports networks like ESPN.
Anyone who takes the subway on a daily rush hour commute understands the experience of being jostled on crowded platforms and crushed inside packed trains. Now one transit system is trying a novel approach to easing the commuting crunch. The San Francisco Bay Area’s BART system is rolling out an experimental customer loyalty program that aims to entice riders to shift their travel outside of peak commute times.
The gamification market is estimated to be worth about $2.8 billion, having increased 10 fold over 3 years. Widely used in staff training or education, there is now a growing trend toward adding gamification to drive consumer engagement and loyalty. The online environment vastly increases the possibilities for the use of gaming to engage customers . You can turn your instructions into simulations that can demonstrate your products. Virtual tours have become popular for the travel industry and real estate industries. Virtual environments can also apply to the use of products. Customers can try products in a virtual environment and be rewarded for their efforts.
Consumers aren’t exactly brand loyal as they were years ago. Consumers evaluate how a product or service benefits them on multiple levels. They are savvy buyers and have access to a lot of information to help them make their choice. A Texas-based company called CataBoom offers tools to integrate reward-based games in marketing campaigns. Through gamification, consumers discover new ways to benefit from engaging with a brand.
The smart people at OhMiBod may have ushered in a serious game revolution with the release of their new wearable device, Lovelife Krush. “It’s the gamification of sexual health,” declared OhMiBod’s co-founder, Brian Dunham, to CNBC’s Chris Morris as they discussed his product fetching one of Engadget’s top honors at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This top honor certainly helps OhMiBod efforts to launch their new device into a Sexual Wellness market currently worth $16 Billion and forecasted, by research firm Technavio, to reach $21 Billion by 2019.
The latest innovation in the mobile shopping space is Biddl, a U.S.-only smartphone application that hopes to make the experience more entertaining and visually appealing by “combining mobile game mechanics and gamification with easy-to-use shopping features…” according to PRNewswire. Developed and released by Biddl Inc. for both iPhone/iPad and Android platforms on October 14, 2015, Biddl invites users to compete for high-end branded items.
With an eye toward international expansion, London-based consumer engagement app OnePulse recently closed a $1.07million seed investment round. Led by D5 Capital, AngelLab and LCIF, OnePulse has already signed over 300 clients looking for on-demand consumer insights. Major businesses and retailers including Aviva, Coca-Cola, and CGA Strategy, look to OnePulse mobile app users for instant responses and feedback.
Loyalty programs have a long and varied history, with retailers rolling them out in different forms to entice longtime customers to continue spending with them. Canadian Tire, one of Canada’s largest automotive accessory retailers, has one of the oldest customer loyalty programs. Consumers who buy items with cash or credit cards earn paper bills that look like money. The Canadian Tire Money loyalty program has been in place since 1958.
If you were listing five subjects that seem impossible to gamify, you probably would list personal finance first. Singapore-based start-up Jojonomic thinks it has cracked the code with its new financial management application, offered as what its CEO and founder Indrasto Budisantoso says is the antidote to the very low level of financial literacy in the company’s target geographic market, which is South East Asia. The goal of the gamified mobile app, according to Budisantoso, former CEO of Groupon, is to facilitate personal finance management by minimizing the number of screens that a user had to work through in order to record transactions and by making it fun.
