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Playing Games with Customers

Computer games are irresistible – so why not use them as sales tools? Some
smart companies already are.

by Keith Ferrazzi, Jane Chen, and Zhan Li

Keith Ferrazzi is CEO of YaYa Media, a games-based business solution company in Los Angeles. Jane Chen is the
vice president of strategy at YaYa Media. Zhan Li is a video games researcher with the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Comparative Media Studies program.

We all know that computer gaming is big business. Companies like Sony and Electronic
Arts are making pots of money selling gaming software and the hardware to play it.
But a growing number of executives are looking for ways to marry the public’s love of
gaming with their companies’ strategic objectives. In fact, some companies – Chrysler,
Coca-Cola, and the U.S. Army, to name a few – have begun to add games to their
marketing, training, and recruiting tool kits. While it’s too early to get an accurate ROI,
the data thus far are encouraging.

Car companies have found that simple on-line games can be a powerful way to
promote vehicles. When Jeep launched its Wrangler Rubicon, for instance, it put on its
Web site a special demo version of a retail game featuring the new car. Fourteen
percent of the initial orders came from people who had registered for the game. Last
year, when Chrysler wanted to increase its brand awareness among women ages 34 to
49, it launched a travel-themed personality test. Called Get Up and Go, it followed the
popular “Cosmo Quiz” format. Chrysler and Wyndham Resorts e-mailed the game to
their mailing lists, and each company put links to Get Up and Go on its Web site.

After they answered the 21 questions, players were matched to a travel personality
(beach bum, city slicker, and so forth) and a corresponding Chrysler vehicle. They
were then encouraged to invite friends to play in order to assess travel compatibilities.
On average, players spent 7.6 minutes with the game – and 32% kept playing for ten
to 20 minutes – compared with the 30 seconds people generally spend looking at a
television ad. What’s more, 15% of the players ended up requesting vehicle brochures,
compared with less than 1% of overall Web site visitors. And 22% of players sent e-
mails inviting friends to play; 66% of the e-mail recipients opened the messages – far
exceeding the industry average of less than 40% open rates for other types of e-mail
direct marketing. Along the way, Chrysler collected the players’ e-mail addresses and
some demographic information while intermittently displaying information about the
company’s cars during play.

As Chrysler’s story suggests, gaming may have some advantages over traditional
marketing. It can hold a consumer’s attention longer than advertising can; it often
gives the company a way to collect customer data, such as names, addresses, and
buying preferences and history; and it’s relatively inexpensive to execute. Putting a
sales message in an entertainment wrapper allows an organization to not only project
an image about its products but also to engage in dialogue with its consumers. And

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Harvard Business Review Online | Playing Games with Customers

02-Apr-03

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/hbr/hbrsa/current/03...

that can produce all kinds of useful information. A Nike game, for instance, explored
what colors kids like to wear; Ford of Canada discovered what automotive features
parents were looking for; and CRM services company, Roundarch, developed a game
aimed at corporate executives so that it could learn what kinds of customer service
challenges they were facing.

As for training, studies have shown that employees learn and retain more from
interactive games than they do from the one-way delivery of information. What’s
more, companies that rely on third-party resellers and distributors can’t necessarily
mandate training for these nonemployees – but they can sometimes entice them to
learn by offering the information inside entertaining games.

Chrysler uses an on-line game to help train Jeep and Dodge dealers on the nuances of
different four-wheel-drive systems. Players learn by assembling drive-train
components in a virtual motor pool and then applying that knowledge in a simulated
driving experience through a variety of environments. Preliminary results show a ten-
times better retention rate from playing the game than from reading a manual.

When it comes to using games for recruiting, the organization to watch is the U.S.
Army. It recently spent more than $7 million on a suite of games to support the
increasingly difficult task of signing on 120,000 new soldiers each year. The first game,
America’s Army: Operations, was distributed on CD-ROMs inserted in gaming
magazines and handed out at recruiting events. The army also made the game
available on its Web site.

In the first six months after the game was launched on July 4, 2002, more than 1.2
million people registered, playing nearly 55 million game missions for an average of
ten minutes each, and 758,584 completed the game’s basic-training component.
Before the launch, the army’s recruiting Web site logged 30,000 hits per day; after
launch, that number rose to half a million. Commercial organizations like Siemens are
now following the army’s lead by incorporating games into their recruiting efforts.

Reprint Number F0304B

Copyright © 2003 Harvard Business School Publishing.
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Harvard Business Review Online | Playing Games with Customers

02-Apr-03

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/hbr/hbrsa/current/03...