Crafting business opportunity through Gamification & Storytelling in digital marketing.
Problem:
A popular sportswear company is launching a new running shoe, but have realized they had few online sales.
Task:
Create a gamified digital marketing campaign to solve the problem.
Proposal:
An alternate reality game application which challenges runners to compete in a regional, national and global leagues from their own city in their own time. Whilst following a secret government agent storyline, users (Agents) gain access to the story and application via QR code when the new shoe is purchased. They receive a redacted classified letter issued to them via email following the invoice. Players earn discount rewards based on their running stats which can be used on online products. Further parts of the story are then in turn unlocked in the form of game ‘secrets’ to enable story progression. Scores are advertised through social media channels to appeal to all types of runner and player.
UX Research
Qualitative: 6 Interviews
Conducted informal interviews with runners aged between 18 – 35 to learn about their interests outside of running and what motivates them to run.
Found that runners already post their running stats on social media to be shared an create conversations. We also found that the most common activity for their down-time was watching crime investigation programs on Netflix.
User Persona
Developed the user persona whilst speaking to runners – young adults, tech savvy, they have the latest gadgets to track fitness stats, enjoy watching sci-fi and crime investigation stories in their down time.
Motivations: Friendly competition, healthy lifestyle, beating friends stats.
Pains: Find it difficult to find new running routes, easily bored and finish running sessions too early sometimes.
Needs: New routes, new challenges, more time spent with friends keeping fit.
Hypothesis
Customers are not motivated enough to shop online by lack of engagement.
If customers play a character in a crime investigation storyline whilst running to earn points and online rewards, they will shop more online and advertise the story through their own social media channels.
By seeing friends taking part in a secret access competition, it will encourage more users to take part and buy the new shoe to gain exclusive access to the competition/story, to then shop more online.
Framing The Problem…
How might we utilize the new release to attract customers who will engage with the company through shopping online rather than in-store?
Storytelling
Ideation
To find the right story to tell, we each found different motivational instrumental music clips to play in a group, and then wrote quick story ideas to each piece of music. Once we had enough ideas, we dot voted to select the strongest storyline.
Characters
The main character of the story is the runner. They are the centre of all that unfolds as they progress their way through the missions by running and bettering their stats. The evil villain is the oppressive enemy state which the user must take down by running.
Conflict
The characters are faced with various conflicts in the form of the challenges of each mission, such as running a certain distance to deliver a special document. This challenges the runner to get further through the story to meet their objectives.
Objective
The objective is to take down the enemy state by moving through the storyline as quickly as possible whilst improving fitness and moving up the public leaderboards.
Gamification
We gamified the Agent storyline by targeting the 4 different player types in different ways to maximize our chances of attracting the most users. We then incorporated game elements to further strengthen the depth of the game, what is achievable for the user, and how game progress can be transformed into online sales.
Measuring User Feedback
We have tested the solution as a prototype with target users and found that the majority would spend more time shopping on the company website in order to progress through the story and run more.
We found that 4 in 5 users feel they could see it being a more healthy opportunity to spend more time with friends and develop competition.
When asked about the storyline they were following, 7 out of 10 users reported they would like to continue using the narrative to run so that they could see what more unfolds.
