Gamification: I Ain’t Mad At Cha, Coke

March 23, 2012 | Marketing

Expand your customer base to form lifelong brand loyalists, increasing average selling price and frequency by decreasing price sensitivity while garnering evangelists to promote your brand through word of mouth. That’s the goal of marketing.

Gamification

I started playing My Coke Rewards in December 2007. I usually enter codes for 2 liter bottles of pop (worth 3 points) or 12 pack cans (9 points). After almost five years, I have about 1,050 points. I don’t cheat or buy codes online. (Yes, there is a black market for Coke Rewards codes. Much like property swapping during the McDonald’s Monopoly game.)

I’ve amassed my points organically. I keep playing because I’m a consumer who has been gamed, because I expect a great prize when I reach a high point level, and because Coke accomplished their goal: I am more engaged in the brand and spend more time on their site.

Sadly, the most point-expensive prizes aren’t off the charts. What’s funny is the variance in prizes for a point level. 1,000 point rewards:

Coca-Cola Ceramic Cookie Jar 1000 Points	Garden Tool Set 1000 Points	Red Wireless Mouse 1000 Points	$100 Restaurant.com® E-Gift Certificate 1000 Points
Coca-Cola Popcorn Bowl Set 1000 Points	Personalized Laptop or Notebook Skin from Skinit® 1000 Points	Diet Coke® Yoga Mat 1000 Points	$25 Nike® E-Gift Card Code 1000 Points

Of the above prizes, the most discrepant in terms of retail value:

Garden tools
$100 restaurant.com gift card
$25 Nike.com gift card
a yoga mat

The only prize that looks A) useful to me as a baker and B) worth at least $100:

Six (6)-pc Stoneware Gourmet Mixing Bowl Set

1900 Points

More prizes that make no sense for their even higher point values:

Terry Velour Shower Wrap

1500 Points

Coke Zero® NCAA® Basketball

1850 Points

Madness, right? But I echo 2Pac: I Ain’t Mad At Cha, Coke. You gamified drinking Coke and I participated because humans are inherently competitive, I like your brand so I want to project that image, (and admittedly, because I was doing research).

Consumer psychology

Shouldn’t I be irked that I have wasted an estimated 2-3 hours of my life entering codes for a selection of prizes that is hardly what I feel my brand loyalty and effort deserves? I’ve had my mom send me codes from our Coke-loyal house. Once someone even emailed me several high-value codes as an apology or a peace offering or something as intangible as the virtual rewards of Foursquare (according to Emily Murphy at Forrester Research). The point is that people knew I was playing the game and it mattered to me to some degree. But was I duped?

…critics say the risk of gamification is that it omits the deepest elements of games — like skill, mastery and risk-taking — even as it promotes the most superficial trappings, like points, in an effort to manipulate people.
-NYT, You’ve Won a Badge (and Now We Know All About You)

I guess I’m not really playing a game because My Coke Rewards requires no skill. In fact, it’s boring. But I need another 850 points to get my stoneware mixing bowl set. Send me your extra codes via my contact page.