More than fun and games, gamification takes center stage

The use of games for a variety of internal and external marketing purposes was a featured topic at the Business Marketing Association's international conference in Chicago, which wrapped up earlier this month. A key takeaway, according to Phil Johnson, CEO of PJA Advertising+Marketing, Cambridge, Mass.: Games work because people are starved for some diversion.

"I'm reminded of a comment by gamification blogger Gabe Zichermann: "The reason gamification is so hot is that most people's jobs are really freaking boring,' " Johnson said.

Whatever the reason, gaming techniques to encourage engagement—using such devices as points, badges, levels, leaderboards and challenges—will be used by 50% of U.S. companies by 2015, according to Gartner Inc. And, Johnson said, half of all U.S. Internet users play a social game at least once a day. "We're not talking about the distant future," he said. "This has begun to change the face of b2b marketing."

Games certainly have changed the way Siemens Industry markets itself. Last year the company introduced Plantville, an interactive game that lets players try their hand at being manufacturing plant managers by using Siemens solutions.

Siemens' customer base is engineers, so Plantville was designed to be deep and realistic, with meaningful goals in achieving plant productivity, energy efficiency and sustainability. Players earn points by running their plants effectively "and picking products that happen to be Siemens products to help them out," said Catherine Derkosh, Siemens' marketing communications director, also a BMA panelist.

"Our first 'wow' moment after the launch was the amazing amount of employee pride we saw," Derkosh said. "We were a little caught off guard by it, but realized that people were proud to work for a company thinking outside the box."

Derkosh said Plantville's engagement has been strong outside the company as well. There currently are 23,000 registered users in 150 countries, and the average playing time is 14 minutes per session. Derkosh said 87% of Plantville players said they'd recommend the game to colleagues, and 62% said their impression of Siemens has improved since playing the game.

"We also want to tie this in to generating new business," Derkosh said. "We're getting some sales leads, and we'll be watching as those turn into new business."

Social games also have the potential of simplifying the communication of really complex things, said Amy Shah, VP-marketing at power supply and data protection company TE Connectivity, also a BMA panelist. And that can be a help to prospects, customers and employees, she said.

"For very complex businesses like ours it's not a simple thing to sell half a million products in various ways—online, direct and through distributors," Shah said. "How do you simplify this business and also train people on how to sell our products? I definitely feel that gamification is a way to engage people, both internally and externally, in learning about our products in a more engaging way than the traditional Web-based "brochureware.' "

Shah said two-thirds of TE Connectivity's business comes from outside the U.S. and that gamification helps overcome language barriers. In addition, the company is experimenting with gamification as an extension of its customer service.

"For example, a question could be put on a chat board, customers could answer it and you could rate their answers—putting their names on a leaderboard, for example, according to how many times they answered the question or the answers that are most popular with others," Shah said.