Case Studies 1/3 - Gamification

I had take an online course on Gamification offered through
& Conducted by Prof Kevin Werbach
Duration: 10th Jan 2014 - 14th April 2014

During the period all students were given 3 written assignments. Will be publishing all 3 cases and my solution along with peer comments in 3 blogs:

Assignment 1:


Project Part I:

You are an employee of Cereals Incorporated, a large manufacturer of breakfast food products.  Your supervisor, Madison County, approaches you because she knows you recently took a course on gamification, which she has heard will revolutionize marketing.

She tells you that Cereals Inc. is about to release a new line of ready-to-eat breakfast pastries, and she wants to know whether to use gamification as part of the marketing strategy.  The breakfast pastries will be aimed at the 18-35 age bracket. Surveys show members of this demographic often skip breakfast because they don’t want to eat the typical cereals of their youth, and they are too active to cook their own breakfasts.  Market research indicates that the pastries are likely to appeal more to women than men by a 65%-35% ratio. Cereals Inc. has a 35% share of the overall breakfast food market, but only a 10% share of the fragmented ready-to-eat segment. 

Provide as many reasons as you can why gamification could be a useful technique to apply to the situation your manager has presented to you.  Explain why these reasons address the specific scenario provided.  At this stage, focus on the problem rather than the solution.  In other words, describe the goals of the project, not the particular game elements or other techniques you plan to use.  We strongly encourage you to watch this week's lecture segments before attempting this assignment.

Solution:

Lets first look at the objective:

• Launch Breakfast pastries & increase the market share which currently is only 10% (for ready to eat)

how would one do it?

• Make it appealing to the target audience
• Engagement being on of them

Why will gamification be a useful technique? Reasons given below:

• Gamification is a great engagement tool, as through participation, player gets motivated as she is exposed to challenges, progression, rewards etc, however the game may be designed. (From Mechanics, from element pyramid, lecture 4.2)
• Since gamification uses techniques from various streams like psychology, strategy etc (from Lecture 1.5). it should be helpful to steer brand recall
• Games have pull effect. they draw the players into participating thus increasing involvement (from Lecture 1.5)
• Gamification can prove to be viral (more through the introduction of social elements) drawing more users/participants (voluntarism) who in-turn could be you consumers. And truing current participants into advocates of your brand
• Gamification designed on a specific manner can increase sampling of the product
• It can help in habit formation (usage of the product) (from lecture 3.1, Foursquare model)

Peer Comments:

What I liked was...

peer 1 → A detailed presentation of information

peer 2 → Good use of citations!

peer 3 → This response contained several good reasons for gamifying this breakfast foods market.

peer 4 → [This area was left blank by the evaluator.]

 

What could have made this submission better was...

peer 1 → Deeper study aspects of marketing

peer 2 → [This area was left blank by the evaluator.]

peer 3 → The reasons were had the quality of not quite being complete; they weren't tightly written enough to be compelling. Each idea needed a bit more 'follow through' to be compelling and complete.

peer 4 → [This area was left blank by the evaluator.]

Case II on Gamification will be in the following blog