Gamification is a new buzzword that describes the use of digital games’ engagement tools — badges, levels, power-ups and the like — to drive a marketing program or to motivate employees or students.
Rajat Paharia, founder and chief product officer for gamification company Bunchball, is on the leading edge of the buzz. In a podcast interview with Anthill Editor-in-Chief James Tuckerman, Paharia talks about how gamification works and how Bunchball is applying the tactic for some big-time clients.
People hunger for status, achievement, recognition, even altruism, Paharia says: “Anywhere you have people to be motivated, we can use game mechanics to motivate them.”
Bunchball’s current clients includes U.S. cable giant Comcast, toymaker Hasbro, the USA Network and Playboy.
One of the San Jose, California-based company’s campaigns is for a reality cooking shoot-down on the Bravo network. Bunchball created a parallel competition online called “Virtual Top Chef” in which participants join the team of a chef and push through various game-like incentives to build point for their chosen foodie.
[podcast]http://anthillmagazine.podbean.com/mf/play/ttsup/Rajat_Paharia_Bunchball.mp3[/podcast]
Rajat Paharia – X Media
On 3 March, Paharia will be a guest speaker at Digital Directions 2011, a Sydney conference that will gather some of the world’s top digital media executives and entrepreneurs, and showcase best practices in industry innovation. The conference is presented by Fairfax Media and X Media Lab.
