Culture is a crucial sector in France, because it helps to preserve the historical heritage and put the country on the international map. But it is also a sector that has suffered from the pandemic.

Marketing gamification is an effective lever in order to revitalise cultural venues and experiences, but also to improve visitors’ experience. Integrating game mechanisms into areas such as leisure, culture and tourism can make customers’ experiences more fun, interactive and memorable.

Thanks to interactive marketing experiences, visitors to a cultural venue are no longer just passive spectators: they are immersed in the history of a place or cultural movement, right from the moment they get in line. They are captivated by the world they are discovering, but they are likely to retain the information that is being passed on.

In this article, we’ll be looking at the ways in which gamification can be a solution to discover a heritage site or museum. We’ll explain how you can use gamification to stand out from the crowd. You’ll also be able to improve customer experience at your venue or cultural event.

Gamification, i.e. the integration of game mechanisms into an experience is not a new phenomenon. It is widely used in marketing, but also in education and vocational training.

It’s also a trend among cultural institutions. They visitors have the chance to rediscover a place or a piece of history through gamified experiences (challenges, competitions, treasure hunts).

The aim is to use these entertaining mechanics for more than fun. There, the aim is to educate visitors, promote a cultural heritage and improve the experience by making the visit attractive (for younger visitors or those waiting in line).

As we have seen in the marketing sector, gamification is an interesting tool at every stage of the customer experience. It’s a great way of capturing consumers’ attention. But also to boost engagement by multiplying the opportunities to interact with the brand.

Interactivity can be a powerful pre- and post-visit strategy. For example, it can be used to prepare for the visit (by sharing information that the visitor will need afterwards). Once the experience is over, gamification becomes a loyalty-building lever, using the data collected during or before the visit. Then, the data can be used to propose similar offers to visitors.

In a nutshell, gamification is a way of improving the customer experience in the culture by:

• Creating a real buzz around an experience or event (particularly online).
• Making a museum visit fun and memorable.
• Enabling consumers to reappropriate cultural content.
• Multiplying interactions between visitors to federate communities around a cultural institution.

Whether it’s an interactive game, a treasure hunt, an augmented reality digital tour or a photo competition, operators have no shortage of ways to gamify and improve customer experience.

Here are 4 use cases to inspire you:

Wait marketing before a visit or cultural event

Wait marketing is based on the use of digital tools to animate an audience before the launch of a product or in the queue at an event. It is  used in certain sectors where consumers have to wait in a waiting room (particularly in the medical world).

The aim is to optimise the user experience and to make the most of customers’ waiting time. This time can be used to display information prior to a visit. But above all, wait marketing can transform this tedious moment into a pleasant and entertaining one.

Before the event begins, the cultural institution can broadcast a quiz on a large screen. It’s a great way to keep visitors waiting while testing their knowledge and skills by teasing out what would happen next.

For the Paris-Roubaix race, the Haut de France region set up an Outrun game to immerse participants in the sporting event. The campaign engaged the public and recruited leads with an entry form for a competition involving attractive prizes (goodies, etc.)

Geocaching: turning a walk into a treasure hunt

Geocaching is a practice that combines treasure hunting with new technologies. It offers an entertaining way to explore a territory or cultural site.

Using a smartphone and a series of clues, participants have to find ‘geocaches’ hidden along a footpath, a neighbourhood or a town. This game is a way of enhancing the value of your location, revealing little-known or forgotten sites, and improve the customer experience.

In the tourism sector, geocaching allows travellers to collect points for the monuments they visit, or for sites observed. The more points they have, the more rewards they receive. It’s a way of encouraging them to return or share their experience with friends and family.

Interactive tours to attract young visitors to the museum

Interactive tours can be experienced physically and online. In addition to a guide, visitors interact with a digital device through which they take part in a game.

The Royal Museum of Mariemont in Belgium has set up a video game called ‘The Ferryman’. Designed for the yougest, this game showcased the museum’s Egyptian collection. Children had to find hidden objects, solve riddles and complete levels. This format was ideal for introducing them to Egyptian mythology in an entertaining way.

Outside museums, digital walks also combine education and fun. Mobile applications can enable visitors to take part in quizzes to find out all they need to know. The use of QR codes will also make it easier to display these animations in key places. It’s an excellent way to visit and to remember important information more easily.

Conclusion

Gamification and wait marketing are two powerful levers for improving customer experience in the culture and leisure sector. They enable to engage an audience at every stage, from discovery to loyalty. To make your cultural venue more attractive, don’t hesitate to use our interactive game mechanics!

There are many reasons why consumers take part in a marketing competition. First and foremost, the majority want to take part in a unique experience, compare themselves with a community (by climbing the leaderboard), but also find out about new products or brand news.

Nevertheless, it’s impossible to deny that gamers enjoy marketing games largely because they offer them the chance to win rewards. The choice of prizes for a competition is therefore crucial to its success. It is a lever for increasing the number of participants, making your interactive game viral and boosting participant retention.

In this guide, we share practical advice and concrete examples of how to choose the best prizes for a marketing competition.

SUMMARY

• Why is choosing the right gifts so important?
• Understand the motivations of the participants of the competition to choose its endowment
• The golden rules of good gamified marketing staffing

Do you know what the first thing participants remember when they discover a competition for the first time?

The prize!

Overall, it’s the game that attracts the most attention from users, ahead of the concept of the marketing game, its graphic universe, the calls to action and the organic brand.

The golden rule for creating an engaging marketing game that encourages your target audience to take part is to choose a striking prize that will capture their attention or stimulate their curiosity!

The prize money for a competition will have an undeniable effect on its appeal. To attract the maximum targeted audience, so it’s crucial to choose your endowment carefully. But it’s also crucial to promote it in all your communication media (media plan, home page, landing page).

This in no way precludes designing a competition that is attractive, challenging and original.

But in order of priorities, the equation for a successful competition is as follows:

A well-chosen prize + a well-thought-out concept = guaranteed seduction

Like any other marketing strategy, the choice of prizes for a competition must be user-centric. Cela signifie concrètement qu’il ne faut pas choisir les lots à remporter en fonction des objectifs de son entreprise (par exemple des produits invendus qu’elle souhaite écouler).

The rewards of a marketing game must be thought out according to the participants’ expectations and what is likely to motivate them to play!

In practice, the right prize will not be the same for all companies and all competitions. The company will have to base its decision on the data it possesses about its target audience. In particular the first-party data it has collected from previous marketing campaigns.

Nevertheless, a better understanding of consumers’ motivations as a whole, and of the current economic context, will enable us to sketch out the contours of the ideal endowment!

Boosting purchasing power with its interactive game prizes

The current boom in marketing competitions is part of a social and economic context that is very specific.

On the one hand, consumers value authentic and playful interactions with brands. They are sensitive to the efforts made by companies to offer them quality content and who are committed to creating a real, close relationship with them.

On the other hand, 74% of French people say that the year 2022 (and its inflationary context) have weakened their finances. 62% will have changed their consumption habits by 2022 to preserve their purchasing power.

Against this backdrop, with household morale at half-mast, businesses have a role to play. They can offer promotions or other commercial actions (such as the famous anti-inflation basket) to help consumers preserve their purchasing power.

But they can also give their target audience the opportunity to win prizes as part of a competition. This will serve the interests of consumers at the same time. In fact, 59% of them are actively looking for promotions. But the marketing game is also a powerful vector for brand awareness, commitment and loyalty.

Now that the company has a better understanding of the motivations of future participants in its competition, all it has to do is choose the right prize accordingly.

Above all, it needs to ask itself the right questions:

• What is the context of my scheme?
• What are the objectives of my interactive marketing campaign?
• What is my target audience: the typical profile of participants, their motivations and their expectations of the brand?
• What is its budget (for the campaign itself and for endowments)?
• What human resources does it have?

Based on their answers and the information we’re about to share with you, it will be easier to organise a winning competition!

The most effective prizes

As a general rule, vehicles, money (in the form of a voucher, for example) and trips are the three most popular rewards for participants in a competition. However, there are other possible prizes to explore, depending on your objectives and the resources available.

Fashion/beauty items, home furnishings and high-tech appliances are also excellent endowment choices.

Choosing a striking prize

The whole point of a good competition prize is to catch the eye and convert as many Internet users as possible into the target players.

The prize must be eye-catching. To do this, it must be visible in the form of a good-quality photo. The visuals must also show the full extent of the prizes up for grabs, as well as their overall value (in euros).

A very good example of hard-hitting prize comes from the competition organised by La Roche-Posay. The campaign’s visuals perfectly showcase the brand’s new serums, which players can win by taking part in a Click & Win. The result: over 69,000 people signed up.

A prize consistent with the brand universe

50% of participants expect a prize linked to their brand. It is therefore advisable to choose a prize that is easily associated with your company, your sector of activity or the marketing highlight ( Christmas, Halloween, etc.). This choice of endowment will increase the conversion rate of the campaign as well as its memorability.

For Black Friday, Norauto has therefore proposed a ‘your order 100% reimbursed’ scheme. This is a promise that is consistent with marketing highlights, giving consumers the chance to grab a bargain.

A prize in line with its interactive marketing campaign

The choice of prize must also be adapted to the context of the marketing game and the objectives it is designed to achieve.

For example, a competition organised to generate leads should choose an exceptional prize (a car or a high-tech device). It can also multiply the number of prizes. To generate traffic and encourage conversion, the gift chosen should be linked to an act of purchase (gift card, discount, etc.).

Targeted prizes for participants

Choosing the right reward for a competition also means defining the target audience you want to reach.. Il peut s’agir d’une cible familiale, avec des enfants. Ou plutôt d’un public féminin/masculin. Les marques devront également s’intéresser à l’âge/génération de leur audience pour choisir la bonne dotation.

The Bonduelle brand has opted for a targeted approach by launching a campaign aimed at customers who have purchased a Bonduelle product. To take part, you had to enter the bar code of your Bonduelle product.

The choice of prize is crucial to accelerating the performance of a marketing campaign, whatever its objective (loyalty, engagement, visibility). So take the time to select rewards or prizes that are both relevant to achieving the objectives you’ve set yourself and meet the expectations of your target audience!

And to make organising your competition easier, discover the Adictiz solution!