SXSW Keynote Believes We All Have a Little #Tigerblood In Us
Posted on 16. Mar, 2011 by Matt Whitaker in Blog, Blog, Principles & Ideas, Trends
Please don’t stop reading this just because you’re Sheened out. Seth Priebatsch, Chief Ninja at SCVNGR and Saturday’s SXSW keynote speaker, shared some valuable insight that America’s favorite lunatic isn’t the only one obsessed with WINNING…your customers are too. In his speech, “The Game Layer On Top Of the World,” he suggests marketers should add a layer on top of life that turns everything into a game. Priebatsch begins by explaining how we are exiting the Social decade, which was all about connections, and entering the Gaming decade, which focuses on influence. He believes motivations and rewards change once something becomes a game, and those can encourage someone to act.
My favorite analogy from his keynote was about our school systems—very timely considering thousands of Texas school teachers were protesting cuts to the school system at the same time. Priebatsch compared schools to a broken game that fails the game player if he/she cannot hit a certain level. Grades are simply levels and failing is a constant possibility. He suggested a solution the re-implements grades as a progressive dynamic, not a weighted average. He believes that focus on a final goal, not interim rewards, could lead to increased engagement.
I have always heard “add a scoreboard to something and guys will play it.” Gaming gives guys motivation through competition and bragging rights. Not only is it motivation, but a brand could look at this as a way to create a relationship based on one of the basics of human interaction – FUN. Think about it, they say the best dates are those where you do an activity together, and it should be FUN. The best teachers are those who turn the classroom into a FUN experience. So why do brands have to be so serious all the time? Brands should let loose a little and have some FUN with their current customers and with potential customers. Get them involved together in doing something fun that halos around the brand’s purpose. Now this doesn’t mean that a brand should just sponsor a game or buy a billboard within a driving game, but it should look for a unique opportunity to add some FUN to everything it does. Make it a challenge to see how fast customers can open the package. Encourage people to collect all of the versions of the product. Make the pizza box collectible or a big game piece. Challenge customers to see who can visit your restaurant the most on a Monday. But don’t forget to reward and keep the scoreboard where everyone can see it. Winning is everything. #tigerblood
See Seth’s presentation here.
Lindsay Rose also contributed to this post.
@ebbynezer
18. Mar, 2011
The TL;DR
2011′s top thing marketers need to learn and implement: game theory
Krisalyn
15. Dec, 2011
Your’s is a point of view where real intelligence seihns through.