In a context where consumers are constantly exposed to promotional messages, brands need to redouble their creativity to engage their audience and stand out from competitors. Influencer marketing offers many ways of doing this.

To the question what is influencer marketing? The first answer is that this strategy is unavoidable. According to a recent study, the global influence market is worth more than 16 billion dollars. Working with content creators is an essential way of humanising your brand, creating an authentic connection with your audience and reaching a wider public.

However, this strategy also presents challenges. Influencer marketing is evolving to meet consumers’ expectations of proximity and interaction. Also, it needs to equip itself with more tools to better measure the performance of campaigns and personalise them.

Gamification, the integration of playful elements into influencer marketing, is an excellent way of meeting these challenges. This article looks at the advantages of this strategy and the various interactive tools available to boost its performance.

SUMMARY

• What is influencer marketing?
• The benefits of influencer marketing for brands
• How can influencer marketing campaigns be gamified?

Influencer marketing is a strategy in which brands collaborate with content creators, mainly on social networks. Influencers are personalities who have managed to build up an online audience. Generally by specialising in a particular content niche and creating links with their followers.

This closeness to their audience and ability to create native content on social networks are two levers for companies. By co-creating campaigns with influencers, brands can reach a wider audience that is interested in their products or services. Content creators also act as ambassadors, embodying the brand, giving it an image that is authentic and closer to its audience.

An integral part of influencer marketing strategy is to identify content creators whose interests, tone and values are close to those of the company (as in a co-branding strategy). In this way, companies can ensure to reach the right audience, maintaining consistency in their communications and highlighting their value proposition.

Influencer marketing can be a powerful marketing tool for brands, whatever their reputation, sector of activity or objectives. According to a recent report on the subject, almost half of consumers (49%) make a purchase at least once a month after being exposed to influencer publications. And almost all shoppers (86%) make a purchase following recommendations from a content creator at least once a year.

The reasons for influencer marketing include :

Increase brand awareness

Working with influencers enables companies to reach a highly qualified audience. By sharing campaigns about a brand, content creators help to raise awareness of the brand among new people or improve its image. This is how Léna Situations has modernised the image of the Jennyfer brand.

Target the audience for your marketing campaigns more effectively

Influencer marketing helps brands to target their audience. The key is to work with a creator whose community matches the characteristics of the company’s target audience. So it’s an excellent way of ensuring that your message reaches the right people and is delivered in a way that resonates with them (making the campaign more impactful).

Achieve higher conversion rates

Social proof is a powerful conversion factor. Consumers are more likely to buy a product if it has been recommended to them by someone they trust. What’s more, influencers have mastered the codes of content creation on social networks. As a result, their publications are better integrated into users’ news feeds, making them more likely to capture attention and generate conversions.

Create a more authentic and trusting relationship with your audience

Influencers also enable brands to humanise their communications and create an authentic connection with consumers. They will create credible content that will enable their followers to understand their brand. Identify the strengths of a product or service and the different ways in which it can be used. Their shared experience, which is less formatted and spontaneous, is also likely to generate trust (conversion and loyalty) than a traditional promotional campaign.

Influencer marketing is a strategy for reaching and converting your target audience. But it has also become an ultra-competitive advertising arena in which brands must redouble their efforts to convince designers to collaborate with them and capture the attention of their subscribers.

Gamification in marketing is a lever that can be used to boost the performance of a campaign in many ways. This technique can be used to motivate influencers and promote their content. Companies can gamify their influencer (or ambassador) program in the same way as a loyalty program. Designers who generate sales can accumulate points, reach new levels and benefit from specific advantages (goodies, higher commission on each sale, access to the brand’s backstage areas).

Above all, gamification makes it easier to capture the audience’s attention and stimulate engagement. By creating playful campaigns, in the form of creative contest or marketing games. Companies and influencers can encourage users to interact with them and boost the virality of their content.

The playable mechanics of gamification are also a way of increasing subscriber interaction with the campaign. There fore, it is e lever to collect more zero-party data to better understand the needs and expectations of its audience. Based on this, the company can then create even more personalised, and therefore much more engaging campaigns!

Conclusion

Gamification is an excellent way of creating even more effective influencer marketing campaigns. To engage the creators you work with and their audience, don’t hesitate to integrate interactive mechanisms into your content. Discover our catalog of marketing games and boost your influencer strategy!

Brands are constantly looking for marketing levers to engage and convert their audience. Gift cards are one of the most popular tools for boosting brand awareness and encouraging purchases or repeat purchases.

They are widely adopted by retailers, from fashion to restaurants, not forgetting supermarkets. However, gift cards are also used by smaller brands to engage their audience. They are all the easier to mobilise as part of an omnichannel customer experience. They can be physical or digital.

In this article, we’ll be sharing how to strenghten your relationship with your audience using gift cards. We’ll explore ways of gamifying a gift card program and making the experience interactive and engaging.

SUMMARY

• The explosion of gift cards as a mtehod of payment
• What are the advantages of gift cards for brands?
• How can you gamify your gift cards to boost buyer engagement?

In 2024, brands reported an increase of almost 25% in gift cards purchases. Gift cards are no longer reserved for the festive season, when they are given as Christmas presents. It is now becoming more widespread during high points such as sales, Black Friday, Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day (when consumers want to give pleasure or treat themselves).

Another new development is the dematerialisation of gift cards. Long confined to physical shops, they are now exploding in e-commerce. According to a Global POS analysis, the average value of gift cards activated on the web has riser from €50.73 to €59.56 in 12 months, an increase of 17.42%!

For consumers, they are becoming the preferred method of payment, both in retail and online. The distribution of market shares remains equivalent, with fashion leading the way in terms of usage. Nevertheless, we are seeing an increase in purchases made using this methods of payment during the sales period, demonstrating the growing importance of gift cards in consumer habits.

A significant increase in revenues

Gift cards are an opportunity for brands to increase their sales. This is an advance payment that is not always used by its holders. According to CEB TowerGroup, 10% of gift card balances remain unused, which represents a considerable margin. In one year, a brand like Starbucks can make a profit of 1 billion dollars from unused gitf cards. Buyer who use these cards generally spend more than the initial amount,increasing the company’s revenues. 61% of consumers who opt for this payment method spend more than thier balance.

An opportunity to acquire new customers

Many of the customers who buy a gift card are new customers. It is therefore a lever of brand awareness, which capitalise on recommendations to boost visibility. Overall , gift cards reduce acquisition costs. The brand takes advantage of the visibility and traffic of other brands to raise its profile by placing its gift cards in a distribution network (or on platforms such as my gift card).). C’est d’autant plus efficace quand elles sont affichées à côté de celles d’entreprises comme Amazon ou Netflix.

A lever for customer retention and loyalty

Gift cards improve the shopping experience by offering consumers greater flexibility. They benefit from greater flexibility of choice, and the dematerialisation of cards simplifies their use. This tool can also be a way of strengthening the loyalty program and make it stand out from the crowd. By sending them to customer who cross a threshold (or number of loyalty points), brands can increase the repurchase rate. It’s a way of strengthening the relationship with our most committed customers by rewarding them with an e-card.

A tool for collecting customer data

The use of gift cards enables retailers to improve their customer knowledge. They are able to track purchases and collect data (the time between the purchase of the card and its use, the amount of the purchase, the products or services purchased, etc.).

Dematerialised gift cards, sent via an email campaign (as part of a loyalty program), can be used to refine these analyses.. L’entreprise peut suivre le parcours client et calculer son ROI.

While the gift card is a tool for expanding and engaging its audience, it remains a competitive arena. To stand out from the crowd, brands can enhance the experience by opting for gamification. Gamification strengthens the interaction between the company and the consumer, through playable formats and attractive rewards. In the context of a gift card program, this can take the form of:

• Interactive promotional campaigns. Playable Marketing is an excellent way of boosting visibility and encouraging audiences to buy gift cards. the brand can launch a gamified campaign on social networks in order to generate leads and acquire new clients. Le format du contests increase the virality of the campaign and makes it more attractive.

• Gamified rewards: shoppers can increase the value of their card or unlock rewards (free goodies, free delivery) by taking part in a marketing game or challenge. The brand can integrate a QR code into its gift card, taking consumers to a winning instant to encourage them to buy one.

Conclusion

Gift cards are all the rage, both in-store and online. They’re ideal for raising your brand’s profile and engaging your audience. To make them more attractive and generate more sales, gamify your shopping experience with our interactive mechanics!

Organize workplace competitions is an excellent way to engage employees and strengthen team cohesion. The fun, interactive aspect of these animations can also be used to serve other strategic HR objectives, such as improving the employer brand, helping employees to develop their skills or retaining talent.

Depending on the expected results, but also on the specifics of the workforce (who may be working face-to-face or remotely), the corporate competition can take different forms.

In this article, you’ll discover 4 ideas of workplace competitions adapted to the professional world.

SUMMARY

• 1. Use edutainment to help your employees develop their skills
• 2. Boost employee engagement with creative competitions
• 3. Strengthen team cohesion through fun activities
• 4. Loyalize and retain talent by rewarding them through workplace competitions

Edutainment is the concept of combining learning and play. Introducing gamification mechanics into a professional training course or awareness-raising workshop not only increases participants’ attention, but also encourages the retention of new information.

Competitions can be used to encourage employees to improve their skills. On the one hand, the fun dimension makes professional training more enjoyable for learners. But by introducing a points system or a ranking between participants, companies can also boost their teams’ motivation and push them to excel.

A quiz shared after a training session, for example, can be a very interesting edutainment format for ensuring that employees have assimilated the new knowledge they have been given.

But the competition can also take place directly during the training module via gamified mechanisms such as the 7 Errors Game, for example. As part of a marketing training course, participants might be asked to identify the elements that need to be changed in the visuals of an advertising campaign, for example.

Today’s companies are facing many new HR challenges. Younger generations, for example, are known to be more volatile and stay with the same company for shorter periods. There is also growing talk of quiet quitting, i.e. the gradual disengagement of employees who no longer feel part of a collective.

To engage their employees, organizations can again rely on competitions. The key is to offer activities that encourage employees to get involved in strategy and the company’s future. A good idea might be to ask them to come up with a new product or service.

This is what Lidl has done with its voting competition. The aim of this corporate competition was to engage employees by asking them to create the brand’s next pizza, soon to be available in stores. The animation met with great interest from the teams, enabling Lidl to collect 21.6k votes throughout the campaign.

In addition to valuing the creativity and ideas of its employees, Lidl boosted their commitment through this competition by choosing attractive prizes. After a prize draw, participants could win kitchen appliances and accessories.

Similar workplace competitions can be set up to boost employee commitment. Customizers or gamified surveys can also be used to solicit feedback from teams and incorporate it into strategic decisions.

Within a company, organizing contests for groups can also encourage employees to work together. It’s a particularly good way of strengthening team cohesion and developing a spirit of camaraderie among colleagues.

Play is in fact a powerful lever for creating bonds, this can be a way for employees to get to know each other better, or to facilitate collaboration on joint projects. For example, the employer can encourage participants in an onboarding session to take part in a Personality Test. New recruits can break the ice by finding out which category of leader they belong to (via the famous 4-color test).

Sports competitions are also an excellent way of driving employee engagement. Employees can get together in teams and challenge each other in disciplines such as swimming, cycling or archery. A Prognostics challenge during a sporting event can also strengthen cohesion within the workforce by inviting employees to bet as a team.

The challenges of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are also particularly interesting for bonding staff and giving greater meaning to their mission. The competition can be used to raise funds (or items such as second-hand clothing) for needy people or charities. The teams that succeed in raising the funds will be rewarded with prizes that can be :

• material (gift, goodies, etc.)
• or symbolic (additional days off, promotion on the company website, etc.).

Adictiz took part in a QVT challenge. To find out more about the operation, read the dedicated article: Pimp Your Cup: Adictiz in-house game

Workplace competitions can also be used to build talent loyalty. As already mentioned, organizations face a real challenge in retaining their employees. In fact, the departure of an employee entails :

• additional recruitment costs,
• a vacancy for a shorter or longer period,
• loss of expertise,
• but also lower productivity.

To retain talent within their teams, employers can organize a competition aimed precisely at rewarding employee loyalty. This type of event can be reserved for senior profiles or, on the contrary, for new recruits whose first months with the company are crucial to their long-term integration.

But the company can also take advantage of special occasions to reward all its employees. DPD, for example, capitalizes on seasonal events such as its 25th anniversary to unite its teams around an internal competition. The organization relied on a simple mechanic (Match 3) to spoil their employees. Participants could win attractive prizes (travel boxes). The result: DPD recorded an average of 41 games per player.

Companies can also reinforce their employer brand by organizing internal competitions such as Instant 100% win. All participants can win prizes, demonstrating the company’s commitment to the well-being and satisfaction of its teams.

Conclusion

Organizing a corporate competition is an excellent way to attract, engage and retain employees. Start by defining the objective you want to achieve, so you can choose the most appropriate event idea. Discover all our customizable interactive mechanics and strengthen your employer brand!