CORUM L’Épargne is one of the brands that embraced gamification as a communications tool. Indeed, this company offers transparents and accessible savings solutions. They chose Playable Marketing coupled with sports to raise their profile and address the audience.

In this article, we’ll look at the relevance of gamification in marketing challenges of the banking sector, particularly with CORUM l’Épargne. Through examples of playable campaigns made alongside Adictiz, Lucie Odoux, Head of Sports Sponsorship, shares with us the practices she learned.

SUMMARY

• Why has CORUM l’Épargne chosen gamification to optimise its marketing campaign ?
• 2 examples of successful gamification campaigns
• 3 tips for boosting awareness marketing through gamification

On one hand, the banking sector is facing challenges. From creating a closer relationship with a younger audience and improving experience to increasing loyalty by adapting to new digital communication and usage channels.

On the other hand, to strengthen its reputation, CORUM l’Épargne decided to implement a gamification strategy. As the company has been involved in sport since 2018 (supporting 21 athletes in various disciplines), gaming is part of its DNA. Above all, playable marketing enabled it to achieve several of its objectives.

Boosting awareness marketing through gamification

Above all, gaming is a way to stand out from the crowd and reach a wider audience.

As Lucie Odoux, Head of Sports Sponsorship, explains in her testimonial:

Gamification allows us to address a new audience, or at least our audience, but in a different, more playful way. It allows players to spend more time with the brand, without really realising it.

By offering fun marketing games, CORUM l’Épargne’s objective is to develop its brand awareness. The idea is to multiply the points of contact via interactive experiences.

In fact, games enable the company to collect contacts (via subscriptions to its mailing list and opt-in forms). Contacts that the company would not have been able to reach with traditional communications.

Generally speaking, playable marketing is a way of modernising your brand image and humanising it. Interactive formats are effective to engage audiences around unifying values. Also, they permite to create an emotional bond that traditional communications (static advertising, etc.) are unable to generate.

Raising awareness of the need for better financial management

In a sector as complex and sensitive as banking, play-based marketing is a way of raising awareness and educating customers. This is true when the target is a young audience, for whom it’s important to share practices in a fun way.

With these marketing games, CORUM l’Épargne is making its saving message accessible. Also, it demonstrates transparency, a strong value, by helping its users to understand where they are investing.

Improving customer relations and building audience loyalty

Finally, gamification helps to strengthen the bond with the audience: a major challenge for a 100% digital player like CORUM L’Épargne. Gamification makes it possible to extend the time spent with the brand. Indeed, that creates a stronger customer relationship, based on positive emotions such as surpassing oneself, creativity, etc.

It’s also a lever for maintaining contact established with prospects and customers by collecting opt-in data. But also by collecting data (via a participation form, by analysing interactions) so that they can be reactivated later with personalised and powerful content.

To achieve these objectives, CORUM L’Épargne has set up two gamification campaigns:

A customizer to boost your marketing profile

Corum L’Épargne is involved in sailing, with a boat racing at the Vendée Globe and the Route of Rhum. They decided to use this lever to raise the brand’s profile. Therefore, with a boat due to undergo modifications before its participation in a race, they took the opportunity to involve the audience to decorate the hull and sail.

A Customizer mechanism is ideal for inviting users to suggest ideas for decorations (with elements chosen by the brand beforehand). Players were able to submit proposals for the decoration of the boat.

That campaign worked very well with the audience, as it allowed to take part in a project and let creativity shine through. Moreover, the Customizer enabled the company to achieve an excellent opt-in rate (via subscription to its newsletter) and thus raise its profile.

A game mini-site to optimise your sports marketing

CORUM L’Épargne also used Playable Marketing to reaffirm its commitment to sport. As a reminder, the company supports 21 athletes in various disciplines, from fencing and climbing to judo and Formula 2 racing.

As sport is a lever for reaching a wide audience, the company combined sports marketing to gamification strategy. To this end, it has launched a site with six mini sports games allowing users to discover the athletes supported by the brand.

This experience enabled CORUM to bring participants into the sporting world while maximising the time spent with the brand.

Using her experience of gamified marketing, Lucie Odoux shares 3 tips on how to optimise campaigns and make them levers for building brand awareness.

• Choosing the right format, depending on a strategic objective and target audience. The key is to offer an interactive experience, aligned with the brand’s universe (in this case, sport) and the results you want to achieve. As an example, CORUM relied on sports games, but also on initiatives that enabled its audience to get involved in a renovation project.

• Track KPIs to assess the effectiveness of your campaign and improve what needs to be. CORUM L’Épargne wanted to raise its profile, so it monitored its brand image with a large panel. Also, they monitored the number of subscribers on social networks and the opt-in rate (two metrics for assessing its ability to reach a new audience).

• Equip yourself with a gamification marketing tool. CORUM chose Adicitiz to give it access to a wide variety of games. Indeed, they need to be adaptable and easy to customise to challenges.With the support of the Adictiz teams, they created high-quality, innovative experiences and work on the media coverage of its campaigns to reach the targets.

Conclusion

Gamification is a highly effective way of boosting brand awareness in marketing. Expand your audience and strengthen your brand image with our interactive and fun advertising tools.

Beauty is a sector that has always reinvented itself. Even during the pandemic, when we were all stuck at home or forced to wear masks, brands redoubled their creativity to adapt their beauty routines and products.

But beauty is also an ultra-competitive sector. Newcomers are finding it hard to make their mark. Numerous brands have emerged in the natural beauty and organic products niche.

To stand out from the crowd, beauty marketing needs to be innovative and original. By getting closer to their community of customers and relying on more authentic and playful campaigns, companies have the opportunity to reinvent themselves and win over new consumers.

Here are 3 innovative marketing levers to explore to boost visibility and conversion.

SUMMARY

• Marketing idea no. 1: Leveraging the community in the beauty sector
• Marketing idea no. 2: Prioritise personalisation and inclusiveness
• Marketing idea no. 3: Implement a coherent omnichannel marketing strategy

The beauty sector is fiercely competitive. Brands have to compete creatively to stand out from the crowd. One of the first levers they can use to stand out in beauty marketing is the community. Building a community of committed and loyal customers is one of the best barriers to entry that companies can create.

Co-creating in beauty through gamification

This co-creation process can be duplicated by sharing surveys on social networks to its audience. This will enable brands to better understand their customers’ expectations and consumer trends.

Another interesting mechanism: the swiper. Popularised by dating apps like Tinder, the principle involves swiping left or right to choose the make-up look you prefer. It’s a great way for brands to identify the desires of its audience.

Interactive experiences to stand out from the crowd

Offering interactive advertising experiences as part of marketing campaigns also means :

• gain visibility. Not least thanks to the commitment of his fans on social networks;
• generate authentic content. It will create a bond of trust with prospects (via UGC, i.e. publications shared about the brand’s products by its customers);
• co-create innovative products that really meet the expectations of their market;
• recruit new customers by leveraging the power of brand ambassadors;
• build customer loyalty by creating a much more human and authentic relationship between the brand and its users.

Many start-ups in the beauty sector have banked on the community as their main marketing lever. One example is the brand Respire. She has managed to build up a core group of fans during its crowdfunding campaign. Its customers were its first investors and now act as powerful ambassadors for the brand and its products.

Another inspiring use case is that of Nide.co. The beauty brand co-creates all its products with its community of customers. It is they who suggest new ideas, based on the needs they encounter (and which are not yet being met by other brands). Each idea is then put to the community for a vote. In this way, the brand ensures that it has a solid demand for each new product before it even begins to be produced.

The trend in the beauty world is towards personalisation and inclusivity. To compete with the big beauty brands like Sephora and L’Oréal, newcomers are increasingly focusing on specific niches. In this way, they address market segments that are often ignored by the market leaders. It’s an opportunity to win over ultra-committed customers who have long felt shunned by the more established brands.

It’s a strategy that singer Rihanna’s brand has applied. Fenty Beauty made a name for itself right from the start with its ultra-varied foundation palette. The brand aimed to appeal to women of all complexions, from the fairest to the darkest.

Another beauty brand that has managed to stand out thanks to this marketing idea of beauty is MÊME cosmetics. The company has decided to focus specifically on women suffering from breast cancer. It offers them natural products that meet their needs at this delicate time in their lives.

Customisation is another way of addressing very niche needs while continuing to offer a wider range of products.

Many of the major generalist brands offer their new customers the chance to take a quiz. It can take the form of a gift finder. It helps to find the perfect gift by collecting preferences. This acts as a diagnostic to target their skin or hair type. The brand can then offer products that better meet the needs of each customer.

Gamification to collect customer data

Gamification is a particularly important lever here for collecting data in a fun and intuitive way. Users are invited to share personal data via a game or interactive format. They are all the more encouraged to share reliable and accurate information as they will be the first to benefit from it. In exchange for their answers, they will receive highly relevant recommendations. Customers can also benefit from vouchers to use on a personalised selection of products.

Brands that want to stand out from the crowd in beauty marketing will need to succeed in creating an omnichannel experience (both digital and physical). They will be able to engage their prospects online thanks to interactive playable marketing

For example, Showroomprivé has set up a Click & Win with a wide choice of prizes to highlight the new La Roche Posay serums. The activation attracted over 69,000 subscribers to this 100% winning activation, giving the product great visibility.

For customers who prefer to try out a product before buying it, a drive to store strategy will enable online marketing to be stepped up. Beauty brands will be able to capitalise on in-store events (with influencers, for example) to generate traffic to their physical points of sale. On-site competitions, via an interactive terminal or using Scan&Play, will make the retail experience more fun for consumers.

Conclusion

Engaging and retaining an audience has become a major challenge for brands in the beauty sector. To stand out from the crowd, they need to adopt new marketing ideas to make their branding more appealing to new consumers. Gamification will enable them to respond to all the main challenges they face (visibility, community engagement, personalisation through data collection and omnichannel activation).

Fashion marketing has faced unique challenges. Brands must adapt to new trends, including consumer trends. It has also become complex to identify the marketing messages and channels that can effectively target customers and potential new markets.

Gamification – incorporating game-based elements into a marketing strategy – is proving to be one of the most effective ways to meet today’s challenges. It’s a way of facilitating interaction with consumers who are demanding authenticity. But gamifying your shopping experience, both online and offline, is also a way of updating your branding and modernising your image.

In this article, we’ll be looking at how fashion marketing can successfully update through gamification. We’ll look at the stages of the customer journey that can benefit from the introduction of game mechanics.

SUMMARY

• The key issues in fashion marketing
• Why gamify your fashion brand?

The purchasing behaviour of fashion consumers has changed in recent years. In particular, they have been transformed by the arrival of e-commerce, but also by the pandemic.

New players have also entered the fashion market. Those known as DNVBs (Digital Native Vertical Brands) have rapidly competed with the more established brand. They created a strong connection from the outset, with a highly engaged community of customers.

The channels through which consumers discover fashion are no longer the same. Yet fashion marketing has had to adapt to digital, and social networks. Luxury brands have undergone a major change in their branding and communication codes by moving onto media such as TikTok.

The rise of young Gen Z consumers has also reshuffled the deck. Fashion marketing that relied on inaccessible muses has given way to influencers and UGC (User Generated Content). Therefore to more authentic communication and less retouched visuals.

Inclusiveness, digitisation and data collection

The values of inclusiveness, transparency and sustainability are central to standing out from the crowd and to win consumer’s loyalty (particularly younger ones). Fashion brands need to review their production chain, but also their product range (by including unisex clothing and accessories).

Finally, the explosion of online shopping also poses challenges for fashion marketing. The introduction of an omnichannel customer journey, which can start in-store (for consideration), continue online (for purchase) and return to retail (for returns management). That involves a change in marketing paradigm.

Brands therefore need to open up to more fluid,  marketing strategies in order to adapt to these upheavals. The issue of data and audience knowledge will also be decisive in adopting a positioning. But also for an offer that is aligned with their customers’ expectations.

Gamified marketing is a strategy that involves using games to strengthen the conversion funnel. Integrating interactive and playful elements into the customer journey is a way of arousing consumer interest. Indeed it permits to effectively conveying brand values and encouraging users to move from consideration to purchase.

In a demanding sector like fashion, gamification can provide a competitive advantage that will be crucial in standing out from the crowd and encouraging consumers to buy from your brand.

Easy to integrate into the sales funnel, playable marketing addresses issues specific to fashion marketing.

Strengthen your branding

Luxury brands have understood the appeal of gamification as a way of rebranding themselves to a younger audience. They have drawn on new tools such as the metaverse and NFTs to appeal to young consumers (and even more directly to gaming fans).

Some offered digital versions of their most iconic pieces to dress up your video game avatar. Another interesting user case is the fashion shows organised in the metaverse, which have democratised events that were considered elitist. As a result, brands have been able to increase the reach and visibility of their catwalk shows.

Without using such advanced technologies, brands can reinforce their branding with low-fi gamification mechanisms such as a Wheel of Fortune. That’s the choice Kiabi has made. The fashion brand has launched an engaging campaign dedicated to highlighting its second-hand offer. The aim of the campaign was to make this offer grow and shine. But also to communicate its commitment to make fashion sustainable and socially responsible.

Boosting community involvement

Gamification is not just a way of democratising fashion marketing. On the contrary, it can be an excellent way of reinforcing a sense of belonging to an exclusive community. Kenzo gave access to its own game for limited number of its most loyal customers. 

Tape à l’Oeil, for its part, relied on playable marketing to attract new customers. For its anniversary, it set up
a 100% winning Wheel of Fortune in France and Belgium. The campaign generated 48k opt-in leads. The brand was then able to reactivate them and turn them into customers by distributing prizes.

Increase the visibility of a new collection

As already mentioned, organising fashion shows in the metaverse or through interactive video games is a way of reaching a new audience. Moreover it’s a way to boost the launch of a product or a new collection. This is what Balenciaga has done, by forming a partnership with the game Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow.

The interactive format offered by gamification allows users to discover clothes in a more immersive context. In this case, they could navigate in a virtual reality with characters dressed in the new collection.

The BZB brand also relied on playable marketing, via the Flip & Win mechanism, to launch its summer collection and generate new leads.

Increase sales through promotions

Reward systems specific to video games can be powerful conversion levers. In fashion marketing, this logically take the form of promotions, vouchers to encourage participants to place orders with the brand.

Instant Wins mecanics permite to boost a campaign’s virality. But above all, it’s about turning participants into buyers. The opportunity to win discount vouchers will generate traffic to the brand’s shop and increase sales.

Optimising qualification and collecting product preferences

Finally, gamification mechanisms such as battles and swiper ads give fashion brands a better understanding of consumer preferences. The principle of having to choose between two looks or two pieces will give valuable indications of the fashion trends to be explored. It’s also an effective way of gathering the product preferences of your audience and sending them targeted marketing campaigns (recommendations).

Conclusion

Gamification is a powerful way to promote a product, raise awareness of your company and strengthen brand memory. To boost your marketing performance, all you have to do is discover all our interactive mechanisms and customise them to suit your brand universe.