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I was taught to believe messaging matters and in my conversations with entrepreneurs, I always want to learn about their marketing strategy. A trending topic in my conversations about customer acquisition and loyalty is adding “game mechanics” to a consumer internet service. It reminds me of Josh’s post on viral marketing and the more recent article by Dave McClure encouraging start-ups and Vc’s to focus on marketing and design in consumer internet businesses.

Just like “viral” and “social” before it, GAMES ARE HARD TO BUILD and cannot be bolted on to the marketing strategy.

Well designed game mechanics are addictive

The ability to define value for the consumer with in-game rewards that motivate behavior that reveals consumer utility is the magic of game mechanics. Tony Adams makes my point with his list of business models available to Foursquare. Each of these models is dependent on the user’s willingness to expose their location to the system. If Dennis and Naveen had decided to ask users to click a button every time they went somewhere the utility of Foursquare would have never been discovered. They knew this and they built a game. You start out “playing” foursquare and you end up “using” it (as you might use crack).

The fitness game that I built in 2003 (now licensed to Ubisoft as YourShape) and my work with MTVGames taught me a lot about how to use game mechanics to motivate specific consumer behavior. We offered rewards within the game to support consumer engagement long enough for the player to discover the utility of the product. The combined effect of in-game rewards layered with real-world benefit was an incredibly sticky experience.

When I designed the fitness game, here are the three high-level things I focused on:

1. On-boarding: Give them the perception of managable choice, meaningful rewards and at least one clear/obvious path toward the next discovery item. Make the choices easy and include understandable consequences for every action

2. Capture: once the consumer enters, there have to be lots of reasons for them to keep going. Give them managable choice, meaningful rewards and at least one clear/obvious path toward the next discovery item

3. Deep engagement: Create emerging complexity with layers of simplicity that interact so as one is mastered, another is being discovered. Encourage experimentation by making it obvious that you can find your way back to a stable place (allow them to hit CTRL Z).

When you build these three elements into the design of the game from the beginning, the user floats between a sense of mastery (that could lead to boredom) and a sense of overwhelming complexity (that could lead to frustration). Done right, the optimal gaming experience looks like this:

A well designed game experience looks like this

If you are using game mechanics that help users discover the utility of a service or motivate a significant consumer behavior change let me know in the comments, @phineasb on twitter or by e-mail  Phin@firstround.com. I would love to talk.

To me, this is about knowing your audience and creating messages that will motivate the desired action from the targeted segment. I would appreciate links to other images/short clips that make this same point — if you have a favorite, leave it in the comments.

What's in a name?

I was talking with an entrepreneur today about messaging and his frustration with having a great product that some customers are struggling to understand reminded me of some kicks I built.

When I was the creative director for footwear at AND 1, Ballers were walking around in soccer slides with socks on before and after games, to the mall, to the B-B-Q and to school. Not a good look, not that functional and your socks get ruined. We wanted to create a slip-on shoe that could be worn before and after games and generally enter the casual athletic market. We built the shoe you see here and called it “the slide.”Comfortable, affordable and way better looking than soccer slides with socks.

I took it up to 155th and 8th to test it. Everyone hated it. I took it to West 4th, they hated it. At playgrounds and malls across the country, everyone hated “the slide.” We tested different colors and fabrics and nothing worked. Kids said we should stick to lace-ups or make a soccer slide.

The shoe was a failed experiment until our audience helped us with the messaging.

On my last testing stop before heading back to Asia to finalize the line I was at the Northline Mall in Houston, TX and didn’t notice the kid holding The Slide until the argument started. 30ish high school kids, boys and girls, surrounded the shoes and 29 of them were laughing at the one holding the shoe. He argued with them with no success until he said, “No, stupid. It’s not to hoop-in yo, it’s to-chill-in.” The other kids were silent. Then, one by one, they agreed. In this group “the slide” was the best shoe.

I delayed my trip to Asia by a week and went back to all the other places we tested product, but this time I did not bring “The Slide” I brought the “Tochillin.” It tested off the charts and we included it to the line. Within 12 months we had a $50M Tochillin business with multiple styles and the original Tochillin Low went on to sell over a million pairs in 3 years.

The name of a product or service or how it is positioned through marketing and customer messaging can determine its success or failure. Don’t assume to know your audience, listen to the market to discover the right message. If you have an example of messaging changes that drove significant changes in consumer acceptance I would love to read it in the comments. If you own a pair of ToChillin’s, post it here or on twitter with the #todayskicks tag.