Wen | Wang Fengzhi
Edited | Wang Xiaokun
How addictive light games are, as can be seen from the tens of millions of monthly flows of match-3 products.
This is different from the "Eldon Law Ring" that has triggered a huge topic discussion, but the number of real players in the world is about one million, and the mobile terminal games that eliminate the integration, simulated management, and text interaction, which have a low learning threshold and almost no difficulty in operation, often have a higher industry penetration rate and player scale, and the inherent design mechanism and gameplay rules of their products are also being applied to more cross-border fields.
On February 22, eyewear brand GENTLE MONSTER (hereinafter referred to as GM) launched the interactive game "Jentle Garden" jointly created by Jennie, a member of the BLACKPINK group. This is a pixel wind simulation business game where users can grow flowers in their own garden, unlock new plant species by accumulating experience levels, and earn more coins by selling them in the flower shop.
Jentle Garden game interface
"Jentle Garden" is similar to the simplified version of Happy Farm and QQ Farm more than a decade ago, and the main purpose of the launch is actually to warm up in advance with the new series of products of GM cross-border cooperation. The game's incentive is to give away limited bouquet packs and five co-branded glasses to the top 10 users each week during a month-long co-branding commemorative event.
In order to market new products, consumer brands have even begun to make games, using the fan effect to superimpose the incentive mechanism of interactive games to attract more consumer attention. It is reported that the day after the launch of "Jentle Garden" became the first in the App Store entertainment classification in Korea and the second in the world.
GM is not the first brand to use games for product promotion and brand marketing.
Last year, LV launched a free-to-play game on the occasion of its founder's 200th birthday, LOUIS THE GAME, recreating the story of Louis Vuitton's founding through the perspective of mascot Vivienne, and conveying the brand culture to a wider user base.
Looking at China, it seems that there is no case of consumer brands doing a separate game product across borders, but this does not prevent many brands from skillfully using the form of gamification interaction to attract new customers and improve user stickiness and payment conversion rate. Including in the recent Beijing Winter Olympics, some brands also launched interactive games related to ice and snow sports to match the brand communication in the critical period.
Marketing gamification: from turntable draws to interactive games
Games are a form of expression, but "gamification" is often interpreted as an application that incorporates game design elements (design principles and methods, game mechanics, game frameworks, and specific interface design elements that are all game design elements) into a non-game environment.
With the development of the mobile Internet, gamification has been applied to the marketing field for a long time, such as users online recharge phone bills, or use payment services after jumping out of the carousel lottery, open blind box page, is the early relatively rough form.
In the past few years, the skillful use of gamification mechanisms in daily operations is actually platform-based enterprises, such as Pinduoduo, Taobao, Jingdong have set up farm game entrances in the homepage, through the design of growth reward mechanisms (physical objects, coupons, etc.) to attract users to log in and punch cards every day, browse interaction, etc.
Early e-commerce platform marketing, the purpose is to shorten the cycle of consumers "looking, choosing to buy", with the peak of Internet traffic and the rise of short video platform content e-commerce, Taobao also hopes to increase user stay time and potential transaction opportunities by strengthening content and social networking. Game interaction and live e-commerce are all innovations based on this.
According to the media 360 survey, 83% of consumers said they were willing to play shop games that could get "physical rewards/coupons".
Source: Media 360
"All games set a lot of definitive behavioral goals, and the user's every step is planned and designed by the developer, and get timely feedback and a sense of value. Marketing gamification is actually a clear target feedback system. Zhu Jianrui has been in the field of games for nearly a decade, and founded Moses Technology in 2019 to focus on the research and development and service of marketing gamification products, in his view, the platform or brand side to do this kind of interactive games for the crowd are non-gamers.
"The current interactive game (for the platform) is a level-up compared to the early years of the turntable lottery, but it is dimensionally reduced compared to the real game product, and it cannot be designed with advanced and complex gameplay."
Referring to the behavioral preferences of kryptonite and kryptonite, interactive games applied to the marketing field also draw on the principles in game design.
"(Carry out) consumer stratification, and users who meet different demands to realize their self-realization value. For example, price-sensitive consumers are willing to pay time or pay actions in exchange for preferential discounts, while consumers who value efficiency and time will be affected by the atmosphere and honor to consume more and consume more. There are more people playing, and rich people are more willing to spend money. Zhu Jianrui added.
The underlying purpose is to stick to the precise customer base, but according to different types of products, user portraits and marketing stages, the design and application focus of gamification are also clearly distinguished.
This also explains why luxury brands are willing to cross borders to make a separate game, while Internet platforms and consumer brands are more inclined to access interactive games in apps or mini programs. In addition to the consideration of research and development costs, the former focuses on the use of the topic carrier of the game to establish a link with the younger generation of consumers, output brand culture (luxury itself has brand power), the latter is intended to revitalize the old users while stimulating the new, the need for more direct data feedback to guide the follow-up of follow-up operation strategies.
How can new brands grow with marketing gamification?
As can be found from the above case, there is room for integration between marketing gamification and new product promotion, brand communication, and user operation, and this model and gameplay can also be reused in the growth of new brands under the background of high cost of online customer acquisition.
Moses Technology's "Marketing Gamified Growth Engine" model
"What consumer goods companies lack most is sticking to users. The user is the platform, this is a traffic business, the brand invested 100 to let the consumer into the store, he left on the day after shopping, it is difficult to return naturally. In Zhu Jianrui's view, the amount of money to buy and star endorsements that appear in the new consumption frenzy stage are mostly superficially lively, "selling temporary goods, but the mapping of the brand mind cannot be sustained, it is difficult to build brand power, repurchase is poor, and finally consumers cannot be retained." ”
In order to solve the above dilemma, many new brands choose the DTC model (Direct To Consumer) to communicate directly with consumers on the one hand, and on the other hand, they use more refined operational strategies, such as interactive games and brand self-broadcasting to reduce customer acquisition costs and precipitate users.
For example, relying on the "adoption concept" to play a popular net red dairy brand to adopt a cow, the brand side to seize the consumer's pursuit of dairy quality and safety pain points, created an unprecedented model of adopting dairy cows, in the whole industry is emphasized when the details of product traceability are enlarged, such as dairy cows eating North American imported alfalfa grass, Australian imported oat grass, each cow daily meal cost of 80 yuan and so on.
Brand storytelling is an entry point for building emotions between consumers and brands, but influencing consumer perception is a subtle process.
In addition to continuously outputing brand differentiation in the live broadcast room and the sharing of talents, adopting a cow and cooperating with Moses Technology has launched a simulated cultivation game cloud ranch, allowing consumers as farmers to experience the whole process of product production, implant brand cognitive information, and promote shopping conversion through points exchange for limited physical objects and unlimited coupons.
"Adopt a Cow Cloud Ranch" game mini program
According to official data from Moses Technology, the interactive game has contributed to millions of GMVs, 80% member activity, and 61% of the coupons issued in the game.
"Using gamified products to do marketing, first of all, to solve the problem of retaining consumers, and then consumers are more likely to be subtly influenced by the product concept, culture and even logo involved when interacting with game content, so as to understand the brand." In Zhu Jianrui's view, "Enterprises map brand culture and concepts in the game to achieve consumer experience." ”
It is foreseeable that as the growth rate of the Internet market slows down and new consumption moves towards the second half, low-cost customer acquisition and refined operation are more important for brands, and establishing connections between brands and target audiences through gamification and influencing their decision-making process will also be a solution to deal with the uncertainty of future development.