Few buzzwords have generated as much hype in the 21st century as "gamification." The term itself was coined in 2002, but the idea behind it started to gain widespread acceptance around 2010. The concept is as simple as Go Fish: take the more abstract aspects of a process – for exhibitors, this might be generating sales leads or increasing brand awareness – and turn them into a contest. According to Gartner Research, thousands of companies in dozens of industries have adopted gamification, from Autodesk Inc. gamifying its trial programs to PatientPartner using it to improve adherence to medication schedules.

But like any game, you cannot master it until you learn the rules. So EXHIBITOR reached out to Yu-kai Chou, founding partner of The Octalysis Group LLC, who has devised engaging gamification programs for industries and governments alike. Here, Chou explains why some games work and why some fail so you don't have to scrabble for a clue on how to get a monopoly on your customers' attention.

EXHIBITOR Magazine: First off, how does gamification differ from, say, just having people come to your trade show booth and answer some trivia questions?
Yu-kai Chou: Gamification and what separates it from, as you say, a trivia game, is defining a desired outcome – which could be increases in leads, awareness about your brand, or requests for information about a product – and then creating a competitive activity for attendees that hopefully leads to that result. This means inserting gameplay into things that are not normally considered to have any of the qualities of games, like obtaining attendee information or motivating booth visitors to download your marketing literature.

EM: When you break down examples of successful gamification, what tend to be their common denominators?
YC: Whether it's for learning something – like the Duolingo language software – or selling something, you want to make the activity engaging and fun and not have the feel of an obligation. That way, visitors to your booth or event want to do the activity as opposed to feeling on some psychological level that they have to do it to be sociable or to obtain some basic information. Overall, games should be related to acquiring more knowledge or stimulating more inquiry, more interest, or more excitement toward the product or service you're selling. In practice, this means generating motivation to participate and then arousing a feeling of continual progress and accomplishment during the play.

EM: And how might one do that in a trade show environment?
YC: At a trade show, you could have a scavenger hunt that uses the best practices of gamification, especially since you're already in a physical space that allows for such a game. Every object on the hunt would relate to acquiring more knowledge about the brand. Players would report in when they successfully located an item, and their names would then both go up on a physical leaderboard and be sent to all participants in a text message. This would further the sense of friendly competition among the players while they acquire more knowledge, interest, and excitement toward your offerings. No matter who "wins" the game, each participant should be recognized for their taking part and perhaps even given a score indicating how much more they now know about your brand.

EM: Effective gamification, then, seems to allow players a sense of discovery and accomplishment?
YC: Yes. One of the best real-life examples I've seen of this was the hip-hop artist Jay Z's launch for his book, "Decoded." He created a nationwide scavenger hunt where people had to use the search engine Bing's map platform to find where all the pages of the book had been blown up and placed everywhere from a rooftop in New Orleans to a pool bottom in Miami. Participants collected as many of these they could and reported their discoveries by texting a code located on each page. At the very least, this let users read as much of the book as they found for free, but by texting in the codes they were automatically entered in a contest to win concert tickets and memorabilia. It was fun, engaging, and, instead of a winner-take-all prize, offered many levels of awards so all players to feel a sense of accomplishment.

EM: Are games substantively different in their effect than the run-of-the-mill interactions in a trade show booth? Is it worth it for exhibitors to invest time and money in a game if the long-term effect is about the same?
YC: That raises an interesting, even crucial, point, because a lot of trade shows are yearly. When they've happening, everyone's excited and engaged. But in between those shows, all the connections can be lost. Gamification offers an opportunity to start creating a kind of community before the event.

EM: How would that work, in practice?
YC: If you're planning to gamify some aspect of your exhibit before a show, you could give a kind of VIP status to customers who by some criteria are important to your business. Those participants could then be treated as members of a fraternity that receives special updates, messaging, etc., until the next show. This could make them feel like they are part of an experience that could become an ongoing tradition.

EM: Does gamification assume all people are naturally competitive? What about those who aren't?
YC: Competition is just one small element of gamification. I'd say the majority of people are not competitive, and this is a mistake companies make because it's their executives who are usually very competitive, which affects the kind of gamification their companies employ. But in fact, most people don't like to be in a cutthroat environment. Most people like to be creative, express themselves, work with others, and feel appreciated.

EM: What kinds of rewards work best in relation to gamification?
YC: When we think about reward systems, we have what we call SAPS meaning, Status, Access, Power, Stuff. Most companies default to stuff, such as merchandise, gifts, cash, discounts on items, and things that just cost money. The drawback to that is twofold: It gets expensive, but it's also less memorable and less "sticky" in that it doesn't motivate participants to spend time in your booth or engage with your product.

That's where status, access, and power come in. While they tend to overlap somewhat, status might be offering early access to new experiences, being invited to an exclusive event, or having a conversation with a sponsored celebrity. Access might be a sneak peek of new products or new features on current ones. Power tends to be an in-game offering where you might give players something that enables them to play the game better, which in turn could aid them in accruing more status or access.

EM: Gamification stories always seem full of nothing except success. Tell us about how gamification can go wrong.
YC: A good example is a supermarket that wanted to increase cashiers' speed during checkout. Marketers believed that if cashiers processed transactions faster, there would be smaller lines and therefore customers' experiences would be better because if things go fast, they're happy. So they created a gamified solution that was basically a competition that played out on each cashier's computer screen. They saw how fast they were doing and how quickly they compared to others. If they were below par, the screen blinked red and basically told the cashier 'Hey, you got to scan the barcodes faster!'

The speed of transactions increased substantially, but business suffered because the cashiers were so eager to get things done quickly that they became extremely rude. The intent was to create a better customer experience, but they chose an easy metric that put more pressure on workers instead of providing kinder or more empathetic services. So that's an unintended consequence of not designing a gamification campaign well. You can always increase any number you're looking for, but did it make things better for customers?

EM: What do you think most marketers misunderstand about gamification?
YC: Many games are failures because they try to combine business objectives with standard game elements that might be boring or, like the supermarket example, counterproductive. Simply giving a reward for a game isn't effective. Making people feel appreciated and accomplished, giving delightful surprises, and offering immediate feedback? That's good gamification.

EM: Where is gamification heading? That is, how is it evolving?
YC: Early on, it was more about the technology and contests that were simply based on points. Now it's less about the tech itself – whether it's augmented reality, virtual reality, or using Web 3.0 – and compiling points. I think there is a shift in gamification where it's gone beyond technology into something much greater. Gamification is now focusing on the human being, on our feelings and motivations, because the most effective games aren't the ones where we acquire the most points or win the most prizes, but the ones that make us happier.E