June 13, 2026
Headlines

Consumer

Improving Your Business English With Wall Street Journal’s Newsmart

Heong Weng Mak04 mins

On the theory that the best way to learn “business” English is by reading the Wall Street Journal and other publications of Dow Jones & Co., the WSJ has launched an online video-driven educational program called Newsmart. A subscription based service, Newsmart proposes to use game based learning to teach business English to non-English speakers by exposing them to actual WSJ articles and videos drawn from the general areas of business, finance and technology news. Once the learner has read or viewed the media, she is guided through an array of exercises intended to test comprehension and to both teach and improve vocabulary and grammar. A beginning user is also offered the opportunity to self-test on a TOEFL interface presumably to assist the student in determining the proper entrance level.

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Exploring Travel Experiences with Shangri-La Hotel’s Love Journey

Heong Weng Mak04 mins

In 2010, Chinese e-commerce behemoth Ali-Baba decided to take steps to increase sales in the period between the October Golden Week holiday and Christmas. Ali-Baba knew that November 11 was already viewed as “singles day” and had been a special shopping day since the 1990s, presumably because the two “elevens” in the date roughly translated into “only one” and appeared to be “bare sticks” or singles. Single-handedly, Ali-Baba turned November 11 into the world’s biggest online shopping day, easily eclipsing the sales revenues generated by Black Friday and Cyber Monday, traditionally the biggest shopping days in the West.

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Gamification Review Part III: Why Kotex’s Mis Momentos Campaign Succeeded

Steve Bocska03 mins

Part 1 and Part 2 of this gamification review series.

Mis Momentos is an exceptional case-study in the power of cutting-edge community engagement, choice-based campaign design, cumulative participation, and empowerment of individual voices – all towards driving stronger brand positioning & increased sales.

To design world-class community engagement & customer loyalty campaigns, you need to deliver compelling interactive activities, games, contests, and programs that not only establish a rich user experience but also inspire exploration, discovery, and meaningful choices.

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Gamification Review Part II: Why Kotex’s Mis Momentos Campaign Succeeded

Steve Bocska09 mins

Start from Part 1 of this gamification review series.

The second time around, we went back to the drawing board with a fresh redesign to create a more fast-paced, 5-week campaign loaded with improvements, updates, and refinements. Although it seems like a very similar campaign at first glance, the changes touched virtually every part of the campaign with an eye towards creating deeper engagement, more balanced gameplay rules, better risk/reward elements, and greater flexibility.

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Gamification Review Part I: Why Kotex’s Mis Momentos Campaign Succeeded And Yours Probably Won’t

Steve Bocska06 mins

Poorly-conceived customer engagement campaigns have flushed many well-intentioned marketing dollars down the proverbial toilet. According to research firm Gartner Inc., 80% of customer engagement initiatives fail due to bad design. Some of the biggest failures are epic, costing brands millions of dollars and resulting in horrific ROI metrics. One big online retailer I know recently used an agency that delivered a campaign so disastrous that when they calculated the cost of user acquisition, it worked out to over $9,000 per engaged user.

Ouch.

We recently wrapped a second successful collaboration with Kimberly Clark Mexico for their flagship Kotex product line – a customer loyalty activity called “Mis Momentos”. The campaign results were notable, with over 20,000 Kotex customers participating, high repeat play (63%), and strong ROI (8%+ reach conversion). The brand’s investment has now resulted in an extremely versatile and cost-effective asset for supporting a strong base of participating community members across an unlimited number of campaigns throughout its entire brand portfolio. But it wasn’t necessarily an easy path to get there…

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Habitica Battles Procrastination With Gamified Lists and Virtual Rewards

Heong Weng Mak04 mins

Do you find yourself struggling to complete daily tasks, or organize your daily schedule? Habitica is a gamification mobile app that encourages players to control and structure their lives in a virtual setting. Habitica treats your life like a role-playing game, with the ability to earn new equipment, pets, mounts, and more, simply by completing listed tasks. You assign your own tasks under three categories: habits, dailies, and to-dos. When you have finished a task in real life, you can check it off on your Habitica page for instant gold or item rewards!

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Gamified Design Review: A Follow-up Analysis Of Duolingo (part 2)

Andres Solis010 mins

Although I haven’t been particularly interested in getting my Duo a fancy robe or other sort of outfit, users that get a kick from customizing their avatar probably do so. Let’s take a peek behind this door and imagine for a second the opportunities by further developing user avatars’ customizing options. I wonder if the app creators have considered the business deals that could potentially come together on this end.

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Gamified Design Review: A In-depth Analysis Of Duolingo

Andres Solis29 mins

Duolingo has become a hot topic in recent reviews that underline both its pioneer path in the demonetization of online education, as well as its success rate since it first launched. Without a doubt, its gamified design plays a significant role in this success, which itself has obtained the attention of investors interested in its expansion. Duolingo is an online application currently available for use in 21 different languages, offering a free learning experience for 13 different languages.

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Nike+: Building Community and Competitive Advantage with Gamification

Ivan Kuo04 mins

Nike is a brand that has been engrained in the United States and around the world. Motivating people worldwide to “Just Do It”™ and be active; it is a beacon of health, wellness, fashion, and promoting physical activity. However, Nike hasn’t always been this successful. Arguably Nike’s most important product line is their running shoes. Nike has had fierce competition from Under Armour and Adidas for many years. Nike took a step forward and used gamification to increase customer engagement and brand awareness to take control of the running shoe market.

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Gamified Airport Experience Survey with Beat LAX Traffic

Heong Weng Mak05 mins

LAX, Los Angeles International Airport is currently undergoing a major renovation project to overhaul its current layout of getting in and out of the airport terminal. The massive project potential involves reconstructing parking garages, developing a light rail line system and car rentals. Critical decisions will be made throughout the lengthy duration of the project and those decisions needs to be backed by statistical data. Instead of using traditional surveys, LAX has opted for an interactive gamified survey experience, Beat LAX Traffic.

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Gamification and Money: How Online Banks Engage Consumers

Ivan Kuo04 mins

Banks tend to miss out on the benefits of gamification because they do not realize that consumers want to feel like they are in control of what they spend. Furthermore, banks tend not to worry about consumer engagement because what consumers do with their money is not a concept banks have leveraged with gamification. But what if banks made banking more like a game? When spending and saving money resembles a game, it has the potential to flip roles. The consumer takes control of what is in their bank account. Not the bank.

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