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Retail Top 100 2012, No. 34: Gamification of retail

December 4, 2012

Boosted by the success of Facebook-supported games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars, gamification is the latest innovation retailers are banking on to improve customer engagement, build loyalty, strengthen their brand, and incentivize employees and business partners for better productivity. Gamification is defined as the process of integrating game thinking and game mechanics into marketing activities to solve problems and engage users. According to Gabe Zichermann, CEO of Gamification Company, the key to gamification’s success is drugs — “One important drug — dopamine,” he explains. “It’s what we secrete in response to challenge and achievement. It is part of the core group of behaviors that makes gamification and games powerful in changing influence and behavior.” Data released by M2 Research set the current worth of the gamification market at $100 million, with a projected value of nearly $2.8 billion by 2016. Gamification vendors predict 197 percent growth through 2012, representing an increase of 42 percent over 2011.

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