I recently took a Gamification Course on Coursera. This is a 10 week MOOC conducted by Prof Kevin Werbach, Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
The course includes taking online quizzes and written examinations as the course progresses. The written assignment needs you to evaluate the problem and provide an enterprise gamified solution around the defined objectives.
Gamification Written Assignment 1 – Definition : Cereals Incorporated
Gamification Written Assignment 2 – Motivation : Health of City Employees
Gamification Written Assignment 3 – Design Document : ShareAll collaborative Consumption
Written Assignment 1 – Cereals Incorporated
You are an employee of Cereals Incorporated, a large manufacturer of breakfast food products. Your supervisor, Madison County, approaches you because she knows you recently took a course on gamification, which she has heard will revolutionize marketing.
She tells you that Cereals Inc. is about to release a new line of ready-to-eat breakfast pastries, and she wants to know whether to use gamification as part of the marketing strategy. The breakfast pastries will be aimed at the 18-35 age bracket. Surveys show members of this demographic often skip breakfast because they don’t want to eat the typical cereals of their youth, and they are too active to cook their own breakfasts. Market research indicates that the pastries are likely to appeal more to women than men by a 65%-35% ratio. Cereals Inc. has a 35% share of the overall breakfast food market, but only a 10% share of the fragmented ready-to-eat segment.
Provide as many reasons as you can why gamification could be a useful technique to apply to the situation your manager has presented to you. Explain why these reasons address the specific scenario provided. At this stage, focus on the problem rather than the solution. In other words, describe the goals of the project, not the particular game elements or other techniques you plan to use. We strongly encourage you to watch this week’s lecture segments before attempting this assignment.
Format: Maximum of 300 words. A normal answer will be 1-2 paragraphs of text, and/or a set of bullet points.
My Submission for the assignment
The goal of the project is to promote ready-to-eat breakfast pastries in the age group of 18-35. As per surveys and market research this segment generally skips breakfast for lack of choice in ready to eat breakfast and being too active to cook for self. Also these are more likely to appeal to the women.
Gamification would work very well in this scenario the audiences in this age group are more socially active and likely to be engaged in game experience. So elements like social recognition, peer pressure, competitiveness & rewards can be easily build in to achieve the desired consumer behavior ie. Buying the ready to eat pastries as a breakfast option. The entire framework need be build around concept of bringing the audience to the breakfast table and ensuring they opt for this product.
A. Healthy Food Habits: This is to focus on getting more and more audience to opt for breakfast for their own health and fitness. Game elements can be used to link breakfast with having healthy food habits. The product intake can be linked to a calorie meter or daily energy meter and building a community for social acceptance around good health habits.
B. Image makeover of breakfast: Another reason for skipping breakfast is its association of being boring (plain cereals) and for young ones. The gamification needs to bring back fun element & affinity to the breakfast. As habits get developed slowly this could start with once a week contest for best looking meal or most interesting breakfast prepared with pastries.
C. Time: Whole experience of preparing breakfast to be gamified as easy and fun. A contest around the fastest and healthiest breakfast can also break the ice with the male target audiences, who can give a great push to the product sales.
Result : I got an effective grade of 8 out of 10 based on the peer-to-peer assessment.
Here is some of the feedback I received on what they like and what they don’t.
Peer 1 → The idea of the image makeover is great. This would help improve the image of breakfast to the younger audience. I am not sure how the time element fits in with a ready to eat breakfast and making breakfast. I think this needs more explanation on how gamification of making breakfast helps with sales for the ready to eat pastries.
Peer 2 → Structure.
Peer 3 → Your reference to making the breakfast experience more interesting by injecting fun elements to the whole experience. In addition, you clearly laid out the reasons and provided an explanation for each and tying back to course concepts. Good job in being thoughtful under a word count limit.
Peer 4 → Very clear reasoning and layout for gamification but Lack of specific examples.
Peer 5 → The reasons were original.
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