Hello, my name is Carlos Gonzalez. I am a Social Media curator and manage the social media for many different clients and brands. I assist BigDoor with their social media goals. I have been socially promoting a gamification design studio in Park City, Utah for about two years now. I have remained focused in this niche of “gamification”, as the industry is relatively new, and frequently share my personal thoughts on my blog, gamifiXation.com. BigDoor has invited me to write a guest blog, and so I thought I’d share one of my favorite examples of gamification that works.

I often monitor the threads on Twitter regarding gamification, and see many posts from folks looking for examples of gamification. Yes, the word “gamification” has caught a big buzz in the last year, but it is nothing new at all. Some of the most successful companies online have relied on game mechanics to self monitor their large online communities. The most obvious example, eBay, which has successfully used game mechanics since day one. However, the usage of game mechanics in eBay’s strategy is rarely mentioned in any eBay news.

Status and leader boards are also nothing new, (you were probably introduced to them in Kindergarten). When game mechanics are implemented well, they create engagement and accountability within the online community (I didn’t want to read those books, but I was definitely not going to let my classmates beat me on the status board!). One of the first things I check on eBay before I buy something is the feedback score of the seller -basically the seller’s status. If the seller has a bad rating, especially on an item I am interested in –then I am less likely to buy. These type of game mechanics and online community self-policing saves eBay a lot of dollars in customer service. On eBay, you can’t buy your favorite badge or rating, you have to earn it.

While eBay has a great program for existing users, I also love catching examples of great gamification that influences potential users to become active community members. Starbucks is a prime example of a major franchise chain that is doing it right. Great gamification means a GREAT User Experience (on AND offline). You can always count on the wi-fi working flawlessly at a Starbucks location.

Today’s marketers need to understand the value of a Social Media Impression. A good game keeps you coming back to play. Because of the lousy experience I received at the last non-Starbucks coffee I tried –I never went back. Starbucks,  on the other hand –has their free wi-fi blasting 24-7 and is very consistent. They know how to keep customers happy and returning to their stores. While their online experience is smooth, I believe BigDoor could do some cool stuff with the Starbucks landing page to create stronger engagement and social loyalty to the site (such as implementing BigDoor Quests). However, I have to say –the Starbucks iphone app kicks ass and does a great job of using game mechanics (progress bars, badges, and points) to keep people playing.

I recently decided to visit a Starbucks to pay with my iPhone for the first time. Confident that my money wouldn’t go to waste, I uploaded $20 to my Starbucks iPhone app and began to play.

Without even realizing it, I had become a green level member, well on my way to gold, and in the process become even more hooked on Starbucks (or maybe caffeine?). While Starbucks does a fantastic job using gamification in their mobile app; the possibilities of gamification on their website, rewards site, and integration with the app from the web, are limitless. BigDoor’s experience in web gamification, could beef up the gamified program Starbuck’s already has with mobile and create a more engaged and loyal web audience. Like the app’s encouragement to join the rewards program, Starbuck’s website has a great potential for a landing page that encourages web users to join, engage online, download the app and start drinking more Starbucks.

Thanks for reading, would love to hear of some feedback and gamification examples you’ve come across in the comments!

Posted in: Advertising, Badges, Blog, Game Mechanics, Gamification, Gamification Tips, Loyalty, mobile, Monetization, Social Media, Technology, User engagement, Virtual Currency

What do Kraft, McDonald’s, Sears, Boeing and Motorola all have in common? Of course they’re all huge brands but as Crain’s Chicago Business pointed out, they are also brands who are winning with their social media strategies and keeping their consumers engaged. In all, the article profiles ten brands and examines their campaigns based on each program’s Audience Strength, Content Sharing, Conversation Strength and Topical Alignment – as well as overall Sentiment. What’s important here is each brand really knows their audience and has created programs that are distinctly diverse from each other but are truly engaging their consumers. As we’ve noted  before, social media is one of the cornerstones to gamification. We applaud these brands on a job well done!

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Loyalty, Social Media

Last week Bryan Estes, Director of Business Development here at BigDoor headed to Ad:Tech NY. Ad:Tech is a digital marketing event held in 10 locations all over the world. The conference focuses on the digitization of media, and its redefinition of business marketing. The event took place November 8^th-10th in NYC’s Javits Convention Center. We asked him to share some thoughts on the conference below.

Typically, I attend these events as a booth guy, so it was nice to be on the other side of the coin, walking the floor, making connections, and getting a chance to check out all of the different vendors and pitches. I also got a great deal on a 20oz bottle of water, for $3.90 (note the sarcasm) and had a great time overall.

This year, the conference focused heavily on two trends, social and mobile. It’s clear that these two trends are continuing to dominate marketing and advertising, with more and more companies looking to social and mobile platforms as advertising solutions. Businesses need to go far beyond the standard banner and video advertising to attract new customers and keep current customers engaged and loyal to their brand.

A number of companies were focused on in-game advertisements or advergames (games that are built specifically as a viral marketing message for a product or service). BigDoor provides a similar type of viral marketing approach but also rewards users beyond an in-game experience. This way, users are being acknowledged and rewarded no matter how they are interacting with your brand and site. I for one was excited by these trends and was eager to talk to people about BigDoor’s offerings. Overall Ad:Tech was a great event with lots of information. and I’m looking forward to next year!

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Conferences

Today our Co-Founder and CEO Keith Smith and our Director of Monetization and Implementation Tommy Lee are attending Ad:Tech San Francisco. We’re really excited to announce the launch of the BigDoor Engagement Economy with Cost Per Quest! The BigDoor Engagement Economy is a new way for sites to engage their users while monetizing their content. One of the initial pieces is Cost Per Quest, an entirely new, performance based, ad format meant to reward end users for their time and attention while engaging deeply with online brands. Quests are a critical component of BigDoor’s Engagement Economy and are sold to advertisers on a Cost Per Quest (CPQ) basis.

The BigDoor Engagement Economy is currently in private beta mode. Last week, in partnership with SpectrumDNA Quests launched with UGO Entertainment. The incredible team at SpectrumDNA worked their magic and has truly created a gamified experience that’s intrinsically a social loyalty program incorporating interaction with news and information, as well as a rewards system that is original, native and meaningful.

We talk to websites all the time and get the question about our rumored “hidden fees.” We truly believe gamification should be a profit-center for web publishers and app developers, not a cost-center so we offer our technology for free. However, in order to provide publishers a free platform as well as enable them to make money by using gamification, we realize we need a solution that works not only for publishers and end-users, but also for advertisers as well. We think that any solution that gives advertisers traffic, can make publishers money, and reward users can be an Epic Win! The BigDoor Engagement Economy will roll out to a broader network of publishers by Summer 2011.

Online website owners interested in learning more about our Engagement Economy and Cost Per Quest advertising pilot program can contact us. Additionally, those attending San Francisco’s ad:tech 2011 are encouraged to meet with Keith Smith (keith@bigdoor.com; @ChiefDoorman) and Tommy Lee (tommy@bigdoor.com; @pikopoki) during the event, April 11-13, 2011.

Posted in: Advertising, API, BigDoor news, Blog, Conferences, Gamification, Monetization, Partners, Technology, User engagement

see more Epic Fails

So often in highly competitive marketplaces competitors find themselves in a race to the bottom.

This is certainly true on the Internet for both publishers and advertising networks. For publishers the name of the game is getting as many eyeballs looking at your site at the lowest cost. For advertising networks it’s about creating a profitable margin between the publishers who are constantly getting pitched better rates and advertiser’s who are always looking to cut their payouts.

With some notable exceptions, the eyeball, the actual user of the site, gets lost in the equation. We think the publishers who create the best and most interactive user experiences should be rewarded. Aligning advertising rates with the interactivity of a publisher’s user experience is the challenge that we, here at BigDoor, are working on right now.  We like to call this the Loyalty Economy.

Rather than racing to the bottom, we want to be involved in helping our publisher’s race to the top. Racing to the top is about creating win-win-win monetization strategies that reward user loyalty and participation, rewarding interaction between publishers and users and building on that relationship to create value for trusted advertisers.

Recent events have amply demonstrated that when values are improperly aligned online advertising can become a vicious cycle of manipulative and deceptive advertising begetting poor user experiences begetting cynical and manipulative users.

If values are properly aligned then trusted advertising should beget better user experience which begets engaged and happy users in a virtuous cycle – a mutuality of value for everyone involved in the process.

–Patrick Murck

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Loyalty, Monetization, Virtual Currency