社交游戏引领市场营销领域发展潮流编辑本段回目录
我并非游戏玩家，但我注意到游戏已成为营销人员吸引消费者关注品牌的重要方法。比如说，Foursquare就是个为“登录”人群提供奖励的游戏。事实上，运用游戏的营销有个学名——社交游戏营销。
根据作者Brian Anthony Hernandez引用的数据，到2012年底，美国社交游戏玩家数预计达到6870万。那些大品牌不会忽略此等事实，许多会提供品牌化的虚拟商品，把广告、推广与游戏进行整合，将数字世界和现实世界的动机结合起来。
MasterCard便是个使用社交游戏吸引顾客的公司。在《You Play, We Give campaign》中，玩家可以射击该品牌Facebook页面上的小球。玩家每玩1分钟，MasterCard就会为Junior Achievement Hudson Valley捐赠10美分。此刻，已有3.6万人“赞”过公司页面，MasterCard向慈善机构的捐赠也超过10万美元！
流行歌手Lady Gaga上个月也与《FarmVille》展开合作，开始在一个新合作站点GagaVille上提供《Born This Way》专辑的新歌曲。据Entertainment Weekly所述，玩家可以通过完成简单任务来解锁音乐。
lady-gaga-farmville(from m24digital.com)
游戏是人类生活的一部分
Jane McGonigal在2010 TED大会上发表题为“Gaming Can Make a Better World”的演讲，充满激情地阐述了游戏如何帮助我们改善社交状况和生活。她表示游戏有下列好处：清晰且强烈的目标；适合我们能力和技能的挑战；提供努力提升技能的机会；非经济性奖励和认知；有机会成为拯救世界的英雄。
McGonigal说道，我们都喜欢游戏，因为它们让我们产生很棒的感觉。甚至更为重要的是，研究表明我们与玩家玩伴能相处得更好，这也是为何MasterCard之类的品牌和Lady Gaga会利用游戏来与粉丝建立联系的原因。
《Game Frame: Using Games As a Strategy for Success》作者Aaron Dignan表示，人们选择游戏是因为他们对学习、工作和生活感到厌烦，游戏提供了个逃避的空间。McGonigal引用了一项数据，玩家每周在网游上花费的时间多达30亿小时！
我觉得社交游戏营销很奇妙，尤其是看到McGonigal和Dignan等人提出的许多想法与我在自己生活中看到的现象相一致。
Dignan说道，游戏给玩家提供动机和内在驱动力，让他们去做某些事情（游戏邦注：如升至下一级、冲破挑战、解决问题等）。游戏给予玩家必要的技能和工具来处理面临的挑战，而这些往往被现实生活所忽略。据McGonigal所述，它们还让你获得史诗般的胜利，所带来的积极推动作用的效果甚至比你想象的还要大。
现在你的公司可能还无力自行开发游戏，如果你只想更深入地了解消费者行为以及游戏如何影响我们，我强烈推荐你阅读《Game Frame》以及观看McGonigal在TED上的演讲视频。Dignan和McGonigal的论述都是很有价值的。
游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年6月14日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Sandi McCann）
Trends We’re Watching: Social Game Marketing
Sandi McCann
I’m not a gamer, but I can’t help noticing that games have become a big part of how marketers are engaging consumers with their brands; Foursquare, for example, is a game that rewards people for “checking in.” In fact, there’s an official name for games used in marketing: social game marketing.
Mashable ran an excellent post showcasing five brands that have incorporated social gaming into their marketing.
According to stats cited by author Brian Anthony Hernandez, the social gaming population is expected to reach 68.7 million players by the end of 2012. Big brands haven’t ignored this fact, with many offering “branded virtual goods, integrated ads and offers as well as games that combine digital and real-world incentives.”
MasterCard is one company that’s using a social game to engage customers and prospects. In the You Play, We Give campaign, players shoot at colored balls on the brand’s Facebook page. For every minute someone plays, MasterCard donates 10 cents to Junior Achievement Hudson Valley. As of this writing, 36,000 people have “liked” the page and MasterCard has donated over $100,000 to the charity!
Pop star Lady Gaga last month partnered with FarmVille (another huge game played on Facebook) and began offering tracks from her “Born This Way” album on a new partner site — GagaVille. According to Entertainment Weekly, players can “undertake lightweight tasks to unlock tracks.”
Why games matter: they’re part of the human condition
In her 2010 TED talk, Gaming Can Make a Better World, Jane McGonigal gives an impassioned talk about how games can help us improve our society and our lives. Games, she says, offer the following benefits: Clear and compelling goals; Challenges suited to our capabilities/skill level; A chance to work hard to improve our skills; Non-financial rewards and recognition; The chance to become a hero by saving the world.
We all like games, says McGonigal, because they make us feel good. Even more important, research has shown that we like people better after we play a game together, which is why brands like MasterCard and Lady Gaga are using games to connect with their audiences.
According to Aaron Dignan, author of Game Frame: Using Games As a Strategy for Success, people have turned to games because they’re bored — bored at school, at work in their lives — and games offer an escape. In fact, McGonigal cited a statistic that gamers spend 3 billion hours a week playing online games!
I find social game marketing fascinating, especially since many of the ideas being put forth by people like McGonigal and Dignan resonate with what I see in my own life.
Games, says Dignan, give gamers the motivation and internal drive to do something (e.g., get to the next level, meet a challenge, solve a problem, etc.), and they give players the necessary skills and tools to handle the challenges presented — something that’s often missing in real life. They also allow you to score an “epic win” — a positive outcome so extraordinary you can’t even imagine it, according to McGonigal.
While developing a game may not be something your company can implement right now, I highly recommend that you read Game Frame and watch McGonigal’s TED talk if only to gain insight into consumer behavior and how games affect us. Both Dignan and McGonigal are brilliant.
You can also follow how marketers are using games by subscribing to the Inside Social Games blog (scroll down and click the “Marketing” link under “Topics”).
Do you have examples of social game marketing that you like? Let me know in the comments section! (Source: The Heinrich Report Blog)
