How to Enhance Your Corporate Event With Gamification
Tags: Event Planning, Corporate, Corporate Culture, Gamification, Events

Gamification enables teams to work together by exercising their mental faculties and bringing them together in a spirit of healthy competition. These benefits are even more critical in the new era of virtual events when we have to fight for every scrap of engagement and participation.

If you’re not yet sold on the true gamification, let’s look at some quick stats.

90% of employees tell us they feel more productive when taking on gamified challenges.

48% say they feel more motivated.

69% say gamification makes them more loyal to their organisation.

So, with such overwhelming evidence, it seems only right that we use gamified activities to energise our corporate event.

Erika Bachis, founder of gamification marketing specialist NeverGram, says: “Any company out there, no matter the industry, can benefit from gamifying its own corporate events.

“Gamification provides immediate feedback on how the company’s teams achieve goals together or learn new skills, and gamified activities improve team building, collaboration, and productivity. In this regard, employees usually take that sense of collaborative accomplishment back to the workplace.”

Here are a series of tips to bring gamification to your event. No matter the size and scope of the gathering you’re planning, these ideas can bring a vital infusion of energy.

Leaderboards

The leaderboard is a crucial part of any event. By creating a leaderboard, you give each attendee a target to reach and a reason to throw themselves into your activity.

Anthony Wong, Marketing Director at gamification training firm Attensi, says “gamification should be immersive, fun and engaging. For example, a simple leaderboard could encourage people to compete against one another.

“When you create an event, include an element of authentic situations that involve human interaction on the landing page — this can plug automatically into attendees’ social media profiles, making it easy for them to access.”

Quizzes and trivia

Research has shown that attendees typically retain only 5% of the information they receive when attending events. So, when planning your gamification activity, it’s worth paying close attention to quizzes and trivia.

These quizzes can serve various purposes. You could create an introductory quiz to promote your gathering; pitch basic questions on the theme of the event to raise awareness and emphasise its importance. Alternatively, you can create quizzes during the event to break the ice and ensure your guests absorb the necessary information.

These quizzes don’t need to be overly long: a quick 10–20 minute burst should be enough to achieve your objective.

Networking

We’ve all heard of the classic business card contest, where guests are challenged to collect as many cards as possible. But there is much, much more you can do on this front. Gamification is an excellent way for your guests to learn more about one another, without feeling pressured to do so.

There’s the classic ‘name tag switcheroo’. Attendees put their tags on a table, pick up a new tag and then go round trying to find the person whose tag they are wearing. Or the ever-popular ‘two truths, one lie’, which encourages your attendees to reveal interesting snippets of their personality and create topics of conversation.

One of our favourites at Spacehuntr is ‘no-one else has done it’, a game in which each member shares an activity which no-one else has tried. It’s a brilliant way to break the ice with new acquaintances, and it provides a shared experience for the entire team to enjoy.

Social media activity

Social media has long been a staple of the corporate event. This rings true in the Covid world when many of us are working remotely and communicating via digital channels. So why not add a touch of gamification to the mix?

One popular idea is to adopt a personalised hashtag for the event and invite participants to post the event pictures on social media, using this same message. Attendees can then vote for their favourites, and reward the winners.

By using gamification in this way, you’ll turn your people into ambassadors for your brand and raise awareness of your event — without paying for the exposure.

Challenge and adventure

Ok, now we get to the fun bit: the party games that we can adapt to our corporate events, giving our attendees a truly memorable experience to take away with them.

Scavenger hunts can be a great way to get your guests thinking on your feet and working in teams. The quest can take them on a tour of your sessions, or exhibitors, and thus drive interest in the most important aspects of your event.

But there are many more possibilities to consider, from digital walls to escape rooms. These ideas can be smoothly adapted for a virtual event; the arrival of digital technologies, such as augmented and mixed reality, have multiplied the possibilities.

One final thought…

So, as we’ve seen, there are all kinds of options when it comes to gamification. But whichever activity you choose, think carefully about the people attending your event. Gamification is, after all, reliant on the people taking part in the game.

Erika Bachis says: “Gamification is 75% psychology and 25% technology, as it’s built around humans: it means that the experiential and storytelling aspects of the event should always be more important than the technology or game mechanics involved.”