Is research game for gamification?

It has been interesting, that after several years of excitement around the topic of “gamification”, this year more commentators have suggested that it’s “game over”. I certainly agree that this concept has moved through the Gartner hype-cycle, into the wonderfully named “trough of disillusionment”.

However, that is the springboard for entering into the stages of pragmatic realism. My experience is that it is often once technologies or ideas reach this stage that those interested in just delivering results can begin to realise benefits (without the distraction of  hype/fashion).

Even though I can see the points made in this Forbes article, I think that the evidence cited concerns a failure to revolutionise business more broadly. What has not yet been exhausted, in my view, is the potential for gamification to help with market research.

One growing issue springs to mind as needing help. I’m thinking of the challenge faced by any client-side researcher seeking representative sample for a large quant study. The issue is falling participation rates unless research is fun, interesting and rewarding. Coupled with the risk that some ways of overcoming this by agencies risk a higher skew toward “professional” research participants.

Gaining sufficient representative sample, that matches a companies own customer base demographic or segments, can also be important for experimentation. This is timely for Financial Services companies who are seeking to experiment with behavioural economics and need sufficient participation in tests to see choices made in response to “nudges”. So, here too, is a need to freshen up research with methods of delivery that better engage the consumer.

No doubt the hype will not be realised. But I hope that as the dust settles, customer insight leaders will not give up on the idea of gamification as a research execution media. Some pioneers like Upfront Analytics and others are seeing positive results. Let’s hope others get a chance to “play” with this.