PLAYIFICATION AND GAMIFICATION IN SOCIAL MARKETING

In the last decade, organisations and for-profit companies have included the addressing of social issues into their business strategies to support causes. This has also involved raising awareness among customers, who feel more engaged with and loyal to brands which stand for the important issues in today’s society. This trend takes us to the concept of social marketing, which has been around since the 1970s but has been given more attention since the 21st century. However, social marketing does not only entail raising awareness but also motivating the audience to make changes in their own social well-being and therefore influence social well-being. For that, it is important to create engaging and motivating solutions. It has been researched that using elements from game and play help to increase user engagement and build stronger connections. Therefore, there is potential of using game and play elements in a social marketing context to inspire long-term changes and encourage the audience to make behavioural changes. Although the possibilities and potentials for social marketing have not yet been widely researched, studies have proven the prospects of using gamification and playification in the marketing and advertising context. This study helps to expand the theory from the perspective of social marketing. By using thematic analysis of social marketing campaigns that have used game and play elements, this study empirically investigated how the concepts of gamification and playification are used in social marketing. The findings show that using elements of game and play in social marketing campaigns helps to meet different goals through educating and creating a playful attitude among the target audience. Creative ideas are used by brands to arouse change in society by creating a debate and influencing policy makers. Finally, creating context through understanding the specifics of the target group and a certain atmosphere, and making the approach personal, can contribute to fostering the identification and potential for behavioural change.