Cambridge Business Association
Game-Based Marketing
Book

Game-Based Marketing

Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges, and Contests

Gabe Zichermann and Joselin Linder
Wiley, 2010
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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Concrete Examples
  • Insider's Take

Recommendation

People play games – online, on phones, on game consoles – everywhere. Industry expert Gabe Zichermann, in collaboration with pop culture writer Joselin Linder, tells you how to engage your customers through interactive game play and take advantage of this growing trend. While Zichermann’s book gives readers a head start on exploring game-related marketing, the author refers to Frequent Flyer Programs, World of Warcraft and even Webkinz, but unfortunately doesn’t explain how they work. Zichermann details the growth of gaming and explores the use of “Funware” – the word he coined for using games in a business context. getAbstract finds that this invitation to the playground is an appropriate opening move for those interested in adding gaming elements to their marketing mix.

Summary

Why Play?

Traditional advertising is losing effectiveness as competition for consumer attention grows by leaps and bounds. Today’s consumers decide what to listen to and watch by making full use of mute buttons, social networks and pretaping systems. While once-effective advertising methods do not work as well as they used to, game playing is on the rise and vying for your customers’ attention. “To compete with games, marketing must become a game.” By adding gaming elements to your marketing mix, you can harness the power of play to boost your sales.

Since the 1920s, NBC News has amassed an extensive video library. Rather than let those news clips gather dust, TV producer Chris Tiné created a software application called iCue that high schools use to teach history. NBC followed up with What’s Your iCue?, a Facebook trivia game. What’s Your iCue? quickly became a hit, garnering more than 100,000 users each month and becoming a revenue builder for the network. The successful game achieved several objectives for NBC: It created a positive brand image, engendered long-term loyalty and generated revenue.

NBC’s trivia game also produced a “sticky” ...

About the Authors

Gabe Zichermann is CEO of beamME. Joselin Linder wrote The Purity Test and Fake a Death in the Library.

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