Gamify your channels to attract consumers!

In an era of advertising saturation, consumers are exposed to so many messages that they have learned to tune them out. Advertising is perceived and experienced as a form of pollution. Brands are increasingly vying for the attention of a society that demands honesty, transparency, and ethics.

Brand content has emerged to meet these expectations, but while storytelling has proven its worth, it is time to move from traditional advertising to customer experience. 🚀

Consumers need an escape from this advertising pollution. Brands must therefore take into account new consumer expectations by simultaneously creating an experience that exceeds them.

🎯 You need to target individuals where they least expect you.

Previously, the marketing world was held back by numerous technological challenges; now, it is brimming with countless creative possibilities, limited only by the imagination.
You can surprise your target audience where they are receptive and create new approaches by staging your strategies and turning the consumer into the hero of your story!

In a world where games drive society, transform that image of intrusive advertising into a playground.

With gamification, stand out in a sector where key channels like social media are flooded with ads, where Search ads blanket the web and display ads invade the media. Long limited, gamification is now exploitable to almost its full potential. However, the evolution and changes in consumption patterns now offer the possibility of generating multiple interactions in various forms and engaging your target audience.

🤔 Gamification: what are we talking about?

Gamification means integrating game mechanics into advertising to make it more playful, attractive, and thereby generate interaction from internet users. Interacting is one of the pillars of gaming, and human beings have a need to play; it is a psychological and physiological fact.

Gamifying your strategy is therefore one of the best ways to engage your target audience without them feeling overwhelmed by a wave of advertisements.

Gaming: a sector still in full growth

73% of French people play video games. A simple observation leads to a world of growing opportunities: gamifying the way brands communicate. With video games becoming increasingly accessible to everyone, everywhere, and at all times. Game mechanics represent the future of impactful and attractive.*

At Klox, it is in our DNA to offer disruptive solutions, leveraging tech to innovate and transform the advertising experience.

Now, let's make way for the gamification of advertising.

Traditional levers: engagement goals

When we talk about gamification, we are also talking about traditional levers, which are already well-known and used by brands. However, it is important to know how to stage your story, which means using the right communication channels.

Knowing how to stage your story also means using the right communication channels so that the message is read, seen, and heard. Among disruptive and innovative levers, gamification stands out, as it catches the consumer's eye by making room for playful advertising. And interactive advertising is the perfect example: by aiming to get the user to react to the message they are presented with, it aligns with a goal of engagement or conversion.

Examples of traditional gamification

📍 Loyalty programs

A lever so deeply rooted in our habits that we often forget its gamification logic. Yet, customer loyalty has reinvented itself and is here to stay, first through the emergence of apps for easier and faster tracking of loyalty accounts. But also through the creation of new, well-crafted strategies to engage communities. Many marketing strategies are being implemented to encourage customers to interact in exchange for rewards.

Fleet Feet, a running gear brand, is a great example. It saw downloads of its app soar (+10,000) after establishing a loyalty program where users earn points for every kilometer run, store visit, event participation, and more generally for every brand interaction provided they have installed their mobile app.

📍 Conversational advertising

When we hear this term, we think of chatbots and voicebots powered by artificial intelligence. While they are indeed part of it, they are only the beginning of what technology can offer. Today, conversational advertising is giving way to connecting with the userthe moment their interest in a topic is identified. Integrated into the content of an article, this lever fits seamlessly into the experience and helps foster closeness between an advertiser and their target audience. Using multiple-choice questions, for example, the ad aims to engage the user in a natural way to introduce them to a product or offer that matches their needs. This format, where interaction is a priority, increases brand recall by 80% compared to a traditional ad.

Conversational advertising can take many forms: chatbots, duels, quizzes, and more.

👉 See all conversational advertising formats and objectives here

Conversational advertising is therefore easily adaptable to your objectives and can be tailored to the different expectations of your target audience. It also highlights the importance of creating a dialogue with the consumer. Interaction remains a key element in advertising gamification.

📍 Contests

While contests may no longer command as much attention due to how frequently brands use them, they remain effective and relevant. With 52% of consumers discovering a brand through a website contest, it is a compelling strategy to implement.  When a gift or reward is on the line, users love to try their luck; they click, comment, and share because they want to win. Consequently, especially on social media, engagement rates skyrocket. Furthermore, the more appealing the reward (due to its rarity, value, or originality), the more buzz the contest will generate. You must, however, define the format of these contests (sweepstakes, quizzes, or challenges) and tailor them as effectively as possible to your target audience. Simplicity is also essential to optimize and maximize engagement from users, whose attention span, particularly among younger people (15-25 years old), is about 8 seconds.

📍 Playable ads

As the name suggests, the principle of a playable ad is to make the target audience an active participant in the content they are viewing by having them interact with the message they encounter. Not only attractive due to its format, such a tool increases the memorization rate by 4x and the attention span. This is explained by content that primarily consists of short, fun mini-games, designed to capture the user's attention with an early break to avoid losing their interest and to encourage action by making them want to continue playing.

The 3 phases of playable ads:

- Goal: capture the user's attention
- Provide a customer experience through gaming
- Message: Call to action: encourage action

📍 Augmented reality

Filters available on networks like Instagram or TikTok have been a huge hit in recent years. But the pioneer remains Snapchat, which democratized their use and allows brands to customize them and spark engagement with their target audiences. It is worth remembering that this social network remains the number one most-used platform among young people. Snapchat's masterstroke was truly taking filter development further by integrating augmented reality.

Disruptive levers: branding objective

📍 VR Programmatic

The Snapchat example leads into the introduction of VR programmatic: a lever with a vast array of possibilities. Based on delivering an advertising message in an impactful format, virtual reality makes it possible to disrupt the codes of traditional advertising.

Take the example of Optic 2000, which allows customers to try on their future glasses from their computer, or L'Oréal, which lets users visualize how a hair dye will look on their own hair.

📍 In-Game Ads

Speaking of gamification, what better way than integrating your advertising into a game? In-game ads involve placing a product or service within gameplay, allowing a brand to be placed at the heart of the user experience. A significant impact in terms of branding that helps improve visibility and awareness by reaching a wide audience . It is also a lever that offers a new level of targeting precision, by game and game category. One of the advantages of In-Game Ads is the increased level of attention, and driving conversions is made easier by the various formats this lever can take.

Want to learn more?

As part of a more comprehensive branding strategy, new technologies are opening the doors to an infinite universe. They provide a canvas for imagination and creativity, leaving it up to brands to seize the opportunity.

Discover the world of the Metaverse

Ideas are exploding and new concepts are being created. The Metaverse is the perfect example of a multitude of unprecedented possibilities, such as Travis Scott’s live concert in Fortnite, which generated endless buzz. While this is one of the most iconic examples, there are countless others. Fashion shows are becoming a fixture in the digital landscape, new collections are being launched within video games, and virtual fitting rooms are appearing on the Web3, while Heineken has made its entrance by releasing a virtual beer… The scale at which brands are moving into the Metaverse allows for the spectacular gamification of the advertising experience.

But others are making themselves more accessible and inviting their target audiences to join in the fun. We saw this with Canal+, which offered travelers free access to its platform while waiting for their flight, with Domino’s Pizza, which provided access codes to watch a match with the purchase of a pizza, and with Coca-Cola , which in Hong Kong paired a commercial (broadcast on TV, in cinemas, or on digital billboards) with a mobile app where people could win virtual gifts simply by shaking their phones. The campaign was a massive success: the app ranked #1 on the App Store upon release, and the ad garnered over 9 million views across various media.

In short.

This new virtual world pushes the boundaries of imagination and allows for a level of creative freedom that gives brands the opportunity to reinvent the advertising experience.

If you would like to gamify your strategies, contact us!

👉 Here are all the formats and objectives of conversational advertising