Would points, badges, leaderboards and other rewards common in popular social and video games be a more effective means than the "stick" for corporations to influence traveler behavior and policy compliance?
As some corporate travel executives struggle to communicate policy with younger travelers, they question whether gamification--the practice of applying game mechanics to non-game areas--might be the next new way to gain policy compliance, especially from those under 40.
What Is 'Gamification?'
"Gamification" buzz has been around for a couple years, but took center stage a year ago after game developer Jesse Schell, CEO and founder of Schell Games, shared his vision of the future in which "gaming invades real life." He was delivering a keynote address at the 2010 DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate and Entertain) Summit.
"The idea of the gamepocolypse is that every second of your life you're actually playing a game in some way," Schell said. He also is a teacher of game design at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center and author of "The Art Of Game Design." Schell is slated to deliver a keynote address in April at the Association of Corporate Travel Executives Global Conference.
[PULL_1]In Schell's vision, consumers would earn points for brushing their teeth, walking, exercising, taking public transit, making beverage choices, arriving for work on time each day and watching television. Sensors on cereal boxes, devices like phones and television sets and even on bodies would convey data for base and bonus points awarded to encourage behaviors desired by product manufacturers, government agencies or others. Shopping would be so complicated--because of the point-potential decisions--that users would enlist the help of their "apps" to determine what to buy to earn the most points.
"Is it possible that since all this stuff is being watched, measured and judged that maybe I should change my behavior a little bit and be a little better than I would have been?" Schell asked. "It could be that these systems are just all crass commercialization and it's terrible. But it's possible that they'll inspire us to be better people if the game systems are designed right." He also highlighted ways that gaming trends have already permeated aspects of everyday life and the dramatic rise in gaming across age groups and geographies.
Not Just For Kids Anymore
Since launching in December 2010, Zynga's Facebook game CityVille reached 96 million average monthly users, nearly double the 51 million for Zynga's FarmVille, according to AppData's Feb. 13 report. Video games have grown to a multi-billion-dollar sector with adults as a prime driver. Social gaming this year is forecast to grow to a $1.25 billion market, according to research firm Inside Network. Collectively, users spend 3 billion hours a week playing video games, according to Jane McGonigal, Institute of the Future director of game research and development and author of the book "Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change The World," speaking in February at the DICE 2011 conference.
Highlighting "ways that games are creeping into our lives," Schell pointed to the Weight Watchers and frequent flyer programs and asked, "Who do you think is designing these? Experienced game designers? No, not really; whoever is there. Imagine when game designers get a hold of all this--your shopping points, frequent flyer points"--and sensors start tracking what really is happening.
Other game developers, researchers, venture capitalists and the authors of more than a dozen books on interactive entertainment or gamification marketing, as well as organizers of the first Gamification Summit (held in January) likewise are touting the extension of gaming to influence everything from education to politics to business.
Would It Work In Travel Management?
Could gamification change corporate traveler behavior? "I think it can work well, if one effectively sets up a company-based frequent flyer kind of system," Schell told Procurement.travel. "These systems are delicate, but they can be effective. I would view points and prizes as only one facet of such a system. Simplicity, flexibility and usability must come first. Prizes only sweeten the deal."
Applying game design techniques to corporate behavior has "many pitfalls," Schell cautioned. "But if you do it right, I believe you can build the kind of loyalty that is needed to make such a system work."
[PULL_2]Some point to examples of gaming aspects that are already used in travel.
"It's the simple concept that anyone under about 40 is used to having games in their lives," said BCD Travel strategic marketing and technology planning director Miriam Moscovici. "We grew up with them. A frequent flyer program is very much like a game. You get points, your points give you powers like upgrades. You 'level up' so as you get more points, you achieve higher levels. That kind of mentality is throughout a lot of our experiences."
Instead of relying on policy, rules and restrictions, "you can create a program that uses incentives to behave in a good and thoughtful way," Moscovici said in January during a Procurement.travel webinar. "I think it's exciting--setting up a situation where travelers are awarded points for booking a preferred hotel or the lowest fare, or submitting the expense reporting within 48 hours of a trip," she added.
Ruesink Consulting Group president Tom Ruesink said entertainment techniques used to influence employee behaviors on travel policy typically fall into three categories: incentives, scoring or gaming. "Incentives are seen in frequent flyer and other programs, where a behavior is rewarded," he said. In the simplest forms, companies have designed incentive programs to boost online booking compliance or preferred vendor use with a free lunch or other rewards.
Having studied the return on investment of incentives, Ruesink said, "there was not always the financial justification for a complete rewards system. If you're trying to improve self-booking by 10 percent, you have to reward the 65 percent who are already self-booking, plus that extra 10 percent. The amount to get the increase didn't always make for a compelling case."
Scoring systems emerged in recent years to help companies rank departmental or traveler performance to key performance objectives. Companies typically weight performance and provide a single score, similar to a credit rating, to make it "digestible" for travelers and department managers to understand top performers and the benefits to the company, Ruesink said.
For example, in a program he designed for Coca-Cola, company travelers received a "batting average" or numeric value for policy compliance to online booking, advance purchase, attaching a hotel booking to an airline reservation and other behaviors the company wanted to promote. The 20 top and bottom averages--along with traveler names--are sent each month to department managers who are encouraged to use the data to boost performance. Some departments identify the names of travelers to encourage competition. Siemens and other companies use scorecards to help business units measure and track their performance to key travel indicators.
"One of the benefits of a single scoring system," Ruesink said, "is that it allows companies to report positive behavior alongside negative behavior." Companies said they and their employees were "tired of the whole exception mentality."
"Where we haven't gone as an industry yet--that's kind of the exciting frontier--is the whole area of gaming. Where you're not only putting a system in place, but making it fun and interactive," he said.
Worthless Points
Another trend Schell and others noted is that participants appear to be motivated by competition and the ability to earn titles and points, even when there is no value attached. For example, Foursquare players are incentivized to play often to earn the title of "mayor." The prestige is enough of a reward to entice players to keep playing the game. "That was a really big aha," Ruesink said. "It becomes more about competitiveness and not about the points." Other than status, users often receive nothing for accrued points, "yet they still engage."
Competitive influences within a corporate travel environment also are of interest to Moscovici. "If I know a colleague has 200 more points than me and it's shown on a leaderboard, there's that competitive mentality and wanting to achieve better than them. I think that's pretty powerful."