What’s in store for modern digital marketers with a sense of fun? Marketing gamification, according to digital out-of-home specialist Captive Media (brand promise: Guaranteeing Engagement of Millennial Men). Here, CEO Gordon MacSween – pictured left with co-founder Mark Melford, talks to the GMA about how their novel gamification technology – video games in urinals – has been building brands since its launch back in 2012.
- Augmented reality, virtual reality, gamification, Pokémon Go bonkers – where is it all going in the modern ad world? What should digital marketers be looking for to spark exciting ideas? Have you examples of genius campaigns that you love and they might aspire to?
- One positive example I’ve come across was this clever use of text messages with images, which has driven much higher response rates than previous text-based ad campaigns – find out more here.
MacSween recommends marketers check out Digitonic’s ‘touchable’ experiences, sent directly to smartphones via SMS, generating engaging marketing content that intensifies the user experience.
- As a counter-example, I hear lots of talk about iBeacons, but have yet to see a single study that quotes meaningful numbers of engagements. My own experience of this tech has convinced me that it is a white elephant, in terms of push advertising, as I explained here.
- One positive example I’ve come across was this clever use of text messages with images, which has driven much higher response rates than previous text-based ad campaigns – find out more here.
- Is it all about fun engagement these days in marketing and advertising? Can it go too far?
- Only for the right brands. For that reason there are brands that would never advertise with us. But for those with a GSOH, an emotional reaction like laughter always improves retention – here’s a great recent example by 20th Century Fox we did for Rapport, to promote the US cartoon series Family Guy.
- What’s clever about this particular game is that it directly uses the artwork from the product it’s promoting (a DVD box set), in a way that indelibly prints that imagery on the minds of its target audience.
- You were clearly a front-runner and onto an early gamification/ad winner – but what’s next?
- We’re expanding our network to use Captive Media as a lead product in delivering hard-to-reach audiences. the first of these was millennial men and sports fans in bars, but we’re now in discussions about applying the same principle to engage travellers in airports, in service stations and, potentially, in cinemas.
- And finally – it was tough for you when you were launching Captive Media – is it easier now for entrepreneurs to get going? Have you some words of wisdom for start-ups?
- We had almost three years of technology development, patenting, prototypes, production model and field testing before we began – so, yes, it was a long road!
- However, the UK Government, has made it much more attractive for individuals to invest in start-ups, through its EIS investment scheme. Crowdfunding has claimed a lot of the credit for this, but that often includes substantial investments that founders have already sourced offline! As a consequence, there are a lot more start-ups now than in 2012. I sometimes hear people pitching almost identical business plans – and I suspect that means there’s an even bigger premium on coming up with something genuinely unique. A patent or trademark search, discussions with investors in the sector, or just a simple Google search should flag up whether you have found a ‘blue ocean’, where nobody else is yet competing!
Check out this link to a case study Captive Media has completed with 20th Century Fox.