August 1, 2026
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Consumer

MOBA’s Promote Teamwork While Disparaging Negativity

Heong Weng Mak06 mins

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.

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Shifting Commuting Habits with BART’s Experimental Loyalty Program

Heong Weng Mak04 mins

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.

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5 Examples Gamification in Consumer Engagement Space

Heong Weng Mak04 mins

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.

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CataBoom: Sparking Brand Loyalty with Rewarding Games

Heong Weng Mak04 mins

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.

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Biddl

Gamifying the Mobile Shopping Experience with Biddl

Heong Weng Mak05 mins

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.

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Redefining Consumer Market Research with OnePulse

Heong Weng Mak03 mins

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.

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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 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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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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J.C. Penny Sale Fail

5 Gamification Lessons From J.C. Penney’s Epic Sales Failure

Heong Weng Mak714 mins

Imagine if retailers decide that it will treat its customers fairly and honestly. There would be no more deceptions, no more tricks. Any item that was made and sold would be priced non-deceptively. Surely a well informed, objective customer would gladly embrace this honest approach to pricing if it makes shopping better for everyone, right? As J.C. Penny (JCP) and recently ousted CEO goes to show, this was unfortunately not meant to be.

In fact, Johnson’s new strategy was a complete and utter disaster.

So, what does the gamification industry have to do with the failed initiative of a retail department’s store? It may seem unintuitive that the gamification industry could learn something from a entirely different field. However, through the gamification lens, we are able to delve into key lessons of the gamification process.

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Global Gamification Market Study Shows Driving Need to Engage Consumers

Kevin Shane14 mins

TechNavio, a research wing of Infinity Research, released a 40-page marketing report in November 2012. The study examines the expected role of Gamification in the North American, European and Pacific Rim areas. The purpose of the research was “to aid decision makers’ understanding of the present and future landscape of the market.”

And the landscape’s terrain is populated by social media and networking.

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Top Articles for Consumer Gamification in 2012

Ivan Kuo04 mins

As we continue with our Best of 2012 Series, we look at some of the top gamification articles in 2012 to engage with consumers. 2012 proved to be an interesting year as more and more companies are choosing to adopt gamification in unique ways to engage with customers. As the industry saturates in 2013, these techniques will have to refined and reiterated and keep up with some of the best examples we see here today.

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