Writing for Adweek, interactive shop Barbarian Group s Benjamin Palmer turns his FarmVille addiction into an exploration of lessons in social games for online marketers. The interesting part of his piece is that Palmer isn’t simply highlighting brand-pasting and product-placing in social games. Rather, he wonders how game play elements could translate to compelling marketing experiences. For example, he sees the most engaging aspect of FarmVille and other social games like it in how the experience is less about winning and more about leveling up. He draws a line from that to a similar and very successful offline marketing practice, that of airlines offering frequent flier miles.
Palmer sees frequent filer miles as a service based form of marketing that became a leveling up experience for those obsessed with earning miles to cash in for perks. From there he explores what other sorts of interactions that are pulling in massive audiences into these games could translate into creating marketing experiences and compelling campaigns.
Read more at Adweek {link no longer active}.
