A gamification element can help your brand stand out at an event. But if no one plays, what’s the point? If you answer the right questions and apply your findings, your audience and brand will get more from a gamification strategy.

 
The ubiquity of smart phones paired with the addiction to Social Media has made internet connectivity and engagement a necessity for brands at events. Last year Facebook announced that its US mobile users make up 78% of its 128 million daily US users. This number demonstrates that conversations and engagement are happening between people while they’re engaging or conversing with people in the physical world. We considered these facts when working with FedEx on an event engagement last spring.

FedEx has been sponsor of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) organization for more than a decade. As part of the sponsorship, FedEx donates shipping of kit-of-parts and robots for all of the teams competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition. This competition takes place regionally around the world and culminates at the finals in St. Louis, MO. The final competition takes place at the America’s Center/Edward Jones Dome where over 400 teams from around the world compete.

In 2014, FedEx wanted to build upon the PR they receive for their sponsorship and create dialog and engagement with the kids on site. They wanted to be seen as potential future employer and stand out against other prominent sponsors like Google, Microsoft, NASA and the Department of Energy to name a few.

We worked with FedEx to create a solution for the competition that was game-based and would engage the youth during the overarching event.

Here are some of the questions we thought through when developing our activation for FedEx:

Understanding the audience

a. Determine the audience’s passions and activities – what type of engagement is appealing to them?
b. What type of time commitment is your audience willing to invest? What does the event realistically allow for?
c. How accessible is the interaction? What type of device will they be using? Will connectivity be an issue?
d. What type of prizing will be incentivizing and how attainable will the prize(s) seem to be?
e. How and when will you communicate the competition, rules, etc.?

Creating the mechanics

a. How will the engagement kick-off? How will you get everyone’s attention?
b. What is the premise of the challenge(s)?
c. What is the duration of the game and will it live beyond the event?
d. What social platform will you use and how will you gather submissions?
e. Will the competition entries be scored or judged?

Communication and participation

a. How will you communication updates?
b. How will you keep the momentum going?
c. What’s in it for those that do engage, but don’t win?
d. How do you announce/award the winners?

Measurement

a. What are the KPIs associated with the game/challenge?
b. What does post-metrics look like and what tools do you use?
c. How does this data translate into your objectives?
d. What do you do with the social engagement post event?

Adding a gamified element to an event can create extra buzz and activity. Hopefully these questions give you a place to start. Whether it’s social-based or even physical, a successful activation takes all of these variables (and more) into account.

Chris is our Director of Digital at Switch. To talk to him about purposeful gamification, send an email to ChrisD@theswitch.us.