Winning is defined as “gaining, resulting in, or relating to victory in a contest or competition”.
According to Psychologist Kenneth Barish, “winning evokes a feeling of pride; losing evokes a feeling of failure and shame”. This feeling of victory brings enjoyment and achievement, for example games offer us immediate indication of our success in comparison to real-life achievements which may take a lot longer.
So why do certain people love winning games so much?
The feeling of winning games for young children evokes a sense of physical or intellectual dominance (Kenneth Barish, 2012). Which makes young children believe they possess a relatively high level of strength and skill resulting in expression of victory – bragging and gloating.
In a study undertaken by Harvard University, students preferred to have 50% less real income but higher relative income, if this meant defeating their classmates(Solnick & Hemenway, 1998).
As a result, winning creates a ‘social hierarchy and comparison’.
Taking into account societies need to win this can be utilised in marketing by using game mechanics such as gamification. Gamification is a marketing strategy that uses gaming techniques such as competition, ranking lists, scoring systems and incentives to attract consumer in order to build brand loyalty and creating connections with consumers.
The main purpose of gamification is to increase sales & profit, it also helps businesses to collect data, increase engagement and increase the companies brand.
For example, McDonald’s Japan partnered with Pokemon Go in July 2016, this attracted a large number of new consumers to its restaurants. McDonals received 1.5 to 2 million new daily visits across its 3,000 locations in Japan and had an estimated sales increase of 22% and earned an increase in market capitalisation of 9.8% (Jorge Calvo, 2018) .
Therefore, my question for the week is, do you think gamification increases sales & profits and what gamification strategy has gained your attention?
Digital Growth Unleashed 3.0 
I have never heard about gamification but from what you have wrote explains a lot about the concept. I think incentives are an extremeley good way to gain peoples attention so I do believe it can increase sales and profits.
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Hi Isabelle,
Incentives are great aren’t they, I really believe from a businesses perspective incentives really motivate customers to purchase their goods and services especially if it provides a form of entertainment.
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Very interesting read as I personally do not know much about gamification! However, the one gamification strategy that comes to the top of my mind was also from McDonald’s, who partnered with Monopoly by creating a whole new Monopoly board as a way for consumers to play the game, collect pieces and enter the running to win prizes. This in turn, made customers return to McDonald’s to continue collecting pieces to try and win, thereby increasing their sales and overall profits!
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Hi Jess, I loved the McDonalds gamification strategy it definitely helped increase their profits like you said!
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Agree with the previous comments above. I’ve never really heard or been aware of ‘gamification’ before. But after @jessbethune comment, I’m guilty of being reeled into McDonald’s Monopoly marketing strategy… Who doesn’t love a free happy meal?
I think gamification does increase sales and profits but perhaps may be not as strong as other strategies such as the use of an appropriate influencers/endorsers.
Thank you for your insight Kiki!
Linna 🙂
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Hi Linna, I definitely agree with you in regards to endorsements and influencers but maybe gamification is the new and upcoming strategy because it provides an entertainment component to it.
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