Gamification as an engagement marketing strategy

Abstract

Recognising that customers are owners of valuable resources, firms are strategically implementing engagement marketing to deliberately motivate and empower customers to actively and voluntarily contribute to the firm. Gamification, a well-established technique in Information Systems, is the process of enhancing a service offering by harnessing on the engaging power of game-thinking and concepts of game design. This paper contributes to the on-going literature about gamification by conceptualising gamification as an engagement marketing strategy, whereby the restructuring of gameful experiences aim to facilitate emotional, cognitive, behavioral and/or social engagement. Gamification is examined in relation to the characteristics of engagement mar-keting and its potential effect on customer engagement. We propose that the effect of gamification needs to be assessed on an engagement continuum (considering various dimensions of customer engagement), ranging from positive to negative effects, and including the prospect of a neutral effect. Finally, we conclude by exploring future research avenues.