What is gamification and what are the benefits for companies?
Digital strategy
5 min
From Cayan Frey
Gamification : definition
Gamification, or "Ludification" for the French-speaking who read us, is the use of mechanisms generally found in games, applied in other contexts. In the business world, this mechanism is used to increase employee productivity, customer engagement and recruitment rates. When implemented correctly, gamification can be an effective way to improve performance in the workplace or in a digital activation.
This method has gained popularity in recent years as the "subculture" (and we'll come back to this term later in this article) of video games has become a major pillar, if not THE pillar, of today's digital culture.
The key to successful gamification is to design a system that primarily meets the specific needs of your organization. It sounds simple, but there are many aspects to take into account and many details to integrate. Believe me, game design is a real profession.
The event
Based on our numerous experiences and successful projects, we wanted to share our conviction about the potential of this approach through a conference.
Through a conference gathering our current and future clients as well as our partners, we wanted to demonstrate, through different examples, the opportunities that gamification offers to Swiss companies and institutions.
We therefore reserved the date of September 28, 2022 at EHL and invited about 50 people to this event.
This conference required several weeks of preparation and rehearsals for our 4 superheroes in charge of the subject: Azizah Boo, Julia Pillet, Quentin de Lattre and Nicolas Schluchter. A consistent and constant effort that allowed them to brilliantly emerge from this oratory exercise which is, let's remember, not our core business.
And what a pleasure it was to see that this hour of conference was a real success. Indeed, the guests were captivated by the concept and succeeded in projecting themselves in their respective professions and in detecting the added value of such an approach.
The conference was followed by an aperitif dinner (we are very serious about the aperitif) shared between guests and organizers. During this informal exchange, the various participants were able to try out some playful digital activations developed by us: a photobooth with the reproduction of positions of famous characters from pop culture and, above all, the game "Ice breaker". A game allows, as its name indicates, to break the ice with your opponent in the game, in order to facilitate the discussion.
What are the benefits for your industry?
Our various experiences have shown that gamification can be applied in most professional sectors, both in external and internal communication. Indeed, internal processes that are, let's face it, sometimes a bit cumbersome, can be made fun and exciting. The results of our activations show that people who were given playful tasks were more engaged and motivated than those who were not given such tasks.
Gamification can, of course, help companies increase their profits. For example, companies that use gamification techniques to increase customer engagement and loyalty also see an increase in sales.
A little personal aside
Being a geek, yes, dare I say it, since my early childhood, what a thrill to see, after so many years, gamification principles arrive in the professional world. When the elements I grew up with while playing SNES (or insert any other Nintendo system here) become relevant in business mechanisms, it's a bit like the apotheosis of a passion. The same passion that for years was classified as a "subculture" is now becoming the digital culture of reference.
By the way, this term "subculture" has always made me angry, because it implies that there is a dominant culture and then the others. But this is not true. There is not one culture above the others. They can be complementary, as we are beginning to see (does quality always follow? That's another question) with the cinema-video game <-> video game-cinema link, but not in opposition (or superposition in our case). The video game has been for a long time an "alternative" culture, yes, in the sense that it was not adopted by all types of population, but currently, and with the democratization of video games accessible to all (hello Wii) and the game on cell phones, this culture is an essential pillar of the digital world. A strong pillar that creates trends.
These are the same trends that are slowly surfacing in the professional world. This can be explained by the fact that people are more and more in contact with an element of the video game culture, whether it is from near or far.
As you can see, for me, it's a huge positive point that our clients and prospects are sensitive to this kind of approach and that this discourse resonates in their business thinking. Because video games and related aspects are not limited to entertainment; they can be clever and thought-provoking.
Are you ready to play?
If these few lines make sense to you, you're in the right place. We are always willing to take on new challenges, whether they are digital or not.
We are convinced that with our approach, our philosophy and our mix of players, creative and more Cartesian profiles, we can meet your business needs.
So don't hesitate to contact us via this form to present your objectives and discuss them over a coffee, tea or a game of Super Smash Bros in our offices.
