More recently, Dominos Enterprises leveraged these concepts to demonstrate how gamification can be applied to drive innovation in product development and marketing. The Pizza Mogul app and website allows customers to design their own pizza and brand which is then shared with their social networks.  Designers can earn a cut from every slice sold – and one ‘pizza-preneur’ has earnt an impressive $50,000 in the first four months of using the app.

Underpinning the success of this gamified approach to customer engagement is autonomy and reward, users having a stake in the outcome, and incorporating competition and collaboration to facilitate wins. These elements can all be applied by organisations to drive innovation internally and from amongst their own employees. To encourage continual employee engagement and product innovation through gamification, organisations should:

1. Provide autonomy and reward ‘problem solvers’ with a stake in the outcome

When applied effectively, gamification empowers employees/customers to ‘think and act like owners.’ The Pizza Mogul objective and approach was simple: let users experiment and problem solve to create a pizza that sells, and reward them with a percentage of the profits. Directly linking the creator’s personal success to the business objectives incentivised continuous commitment to the objective.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. For instance, not all Pizza Mogul users were motivated by the potential to earn money. For many, it provided intangible benefits such as an ‘entrepreneur status’ and public recognition by sharing their creations on social media. For others, instead of ‘pocketing their dough’, they had the option to ‘doughnate’ the funds raised to charity.

2. Incorporate competition and collaboration structures to facilitate ‘wins’

Successful applications of gamification incorporate social elements.  As game-designer Jane McGonigal points out in her TED Talk, gamification has the effect of ‘weaving a tight social fabric’[iii]. She suggests ‘There’s a lot of interesting research that shows we like people better after we play a game with them, even if they’ve beaten us badly…’ Applying this, Dominos and Nike both integrated social networking platforms into the game experience, with interactions expanding beyond the internal site community to peers and potential customers.

A key takeaway for organisations is that the application of gamification to drive innovation can be optimised if it isn’t simply restricted to an immediate group of customers or employees. Instead, customers and employees should be rewarded for information sharing, collaboration efforts and activities that tap into their social networks to generate referral traffic, new customer insights for innovation and creative ways to solve problems. These ‘social structures’ help expand the appeal for customers and employees, increase the potential number of users and in doing so maximise the opportunity for the gamification platform to drive innovation.

A rapid feedback loop and strong narrative will accelerate strategy execution

In a typical gaming experience, an anticipated ‘ding’ sound of success, ‘+1 skills’ badge or some other indicator to signal that you have ‘levelled up’ fuels your desire to tackle the next challenge.   Similarly, the level of problem solving and user motivation will be influenced by the frequency and quality of feedback users receive for their ideas and actions. In the Progress Principle, Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain that progress is likely the greatest driver of worker motivation and engagement. Unlike the traditional employee performance cycle and its often fragmented annual or at best bi-annual feedback loop, a gamification approach enables organisations to provide real-time, incremental feedback (e.g. receiving a new skill badge or progressing towards a more challenging role). These faster feedback loops enable users to quickly linkURL consequences to action and adjust their approach through a process of iterative discovery to drive towards the overall objective.

In Dominos’ case, the users receive immediate feedback indicators based on likes, comments, shares and sales of their pizza benchmarked against others. Importantly, gamification has enabled a more agile approach to product development within Dominos itself as the company adjusts the pizza products and branding according to the customer feedback and analytics obtained from website and app interactions.

However, a rapid feedback loop alone is not necessarily enough to drive behavioural change and accelerate toward achieving strategic outcomes. For customers and employees alike, a clear understanding of the journey and the destination helps them navigate this ongoing process of feedback and change. This is where a strong narrative becomes essential. As game designer Jane McGonigal explains, overlaying a strong narrative to the gamification elements will provide purpose and help users visualise the ‘epic win’ since people thrive on being attached to ‘awe-inspiring missions’.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach for the application of gamification. However, based on our experience, some of the things that you can incorporate into your employee innovation approach might include:

1. Allowing employees and customers to ‘think and act like owners’
2. Embedding social elements that prompt competition and collaboration, and
3. Driving focus through rapid feedback loops and motivation through a strong narrative with specific objectives.

These core principles will both encourage innovation through the experimental and iterative nature of game-play and support accelerated strategy execution through employee motivation; both of which might convey aspects of critical advantage in today’s rapidly-changing environment.

[i] Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2016

[ii] Rajat Paharia, Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionise Employee and Customer Engagement With Big Data and Gamification

Jane McGonigal https://www.ted.com/speakers/jane_mcgonigal