Gamification Archives - Neosperience

Italian Wineries and the next year opportunities

Posted on 9 November 2020 by Neosperience Team

The wine sector today

The wine sector has not yet risen from its lowest point, and is likely to return to pre-Covid levels only in 2021.

Current data - provided by the TradeLab analysis company - predicts a closure of 2020 for wines equal to -28%. This contraction, however significant, is better than one percentage point compared to previous forecasts, but still not sufficient.

The main reasons for this collapse are due to the sharp decrease in consumption outside home, in the HO.RE.CA channel, due to the closure of the spaces and the clear decrease in foreign tourism.

Regarding exports, the first half of 2020 saw a 3.4% decrease in value: the largest percentage collapse was that of the Chinese market (-40%). While large production companies are reacting a little better, small companies, those that put quality and territoriality first, are the most in crisis.

But not everything is lost. Indeed, for many wine producers the coming months will be full of opportunities.

The substantial change in the types of consumption requires a change in the product proposals: in this context, the possibilities for the sector to return stronger than before are considerable.

In this article we will describe the growth opportunities for the wine sector in terms of product positioning, new market opportunities and experiential offerings, with an eye on both the digital world and the indispensable physical experience.

Voice of Customer: listening to improve

vino tavola rotonda

The first thing companies should do today to get back on their feet is “try to understand” what is happening to their customers. The months of chaos we have all experienced have undoubtedly changed our habits, thoughts, behaviours and desires.

Companies cannot ignore these changes: it is necessary to understand which direction the public is moving in. This is the right time to stop and start asking yourself questions.

The Voice of Customer can absolutely help: this is the branch for the collection of feedback and desired users (prospects, customers, employees) with the aim of providing a better user experience (UX), but also aimed at collecting information to support marketing and branding strategies.

Thanks to digital technology, market research is now much cheaper and more effective. Through major social networks, email, whatsapp, chatbots, but also Amazon Alexa, you can relate one-to-one with your users. Starting from the data collected, it is possible to discover relevant and potentially disruptive information, especially today.

It is therefore essential for the wine sector to start from listening to what the present has to say to us.

Digital Commerce: selling without the intermediary of third parties

Another factor that can no longer be postponed is the adoption of a digital sales channel. Having a Digital Commerce where you can sell your wine to the general public and professionals has become essential.

This period has allowed millions of Italians to discover the value of Digital Commerce: therefore, it is difficult to go back to pre-pandemic habits. Of course Digital Commerce does not necessarily have to be an exclusive platform for individual producers.

To improve its effectiveness, it would be better to create hubs of more players who together decide to join forces: doing so would reduce costs, increase the visibility of the platform and give more choice to consumers and merchants. An example? A platform that unites all Piedmontese producers of Barolo.

What other benefits does Digital Commerce provide? Obviously it allows wineries to expand their market, differentiate the public and eliminate the expenses of third party operators, whether they are restaurants, wine bars or large retailers.

In addition, being able to create a direct relationship with the public helps to create all those loyalty dynamics so dear to the company's income statements.

From this point of view, it is necessary to devote a specific study to what is called a subscription economy.

Product Subscriptions: Building Lasting Relationships

abbonamento vino

The subscription economy - which has been booming for some years - is an opportunity which, if well exploited, can be a major economic discriminator. What is it? It is simply the offer of a subscription to the products to the customer, in exchange for a discount. We are well aware that this mode of sale is already widespread within the wine sector. Many families, every year, call the trusted manufacturer to stock bottles.

Digital, however, makes a qualitative leap to this service. In fact, as we have already said, the greater probability to create a loyal relationship with the customer improves the probability that a subscription will take place. Obviously all this applies to both B2B and B2C audiences.

Digital Commerce and Subscription Economy go hand in hand, and in our opinion it is right to implement both once you decide to move a part of the business online.

Gamification: entertaining and engaging the public

Gamification consists of offering to the customers an experience, digital or physical, that aims to involve them through a "game”. Marketers have always known that linking product experience to fun is a winning tool to gain public trust and appreciation. Thanks to digital the possibility of engagement is considerably greater, and allows customers to be reached wherever they are.

Prize games, competitions, badges, trophies and competitions are not to be underestimated if you want to increase your customers and make them loyal to your products. Until a few years ago, only large companies were able to bear the costs for activities of this type: today this is no longer the case.

In addition, the games themselves have also changed, which over the years have become increasingly engaging: if previously we were limited to collecting stickers, today we can create interactive competitions (contests on social media, in-app games, etc.).

Ultimately, playing today has never been so beneficial for companies.

Internationalisation: taking Made in Italy all around the world

Made in Italy has a future only as long as it can attract and involve even the most distant peoples.

To make this, you need to continually renew your offer and distribution channels, to be relevant in the digital age. One of the most complex markets for Italian companies, both culturally and because it is highly digitised, is the Chinese one.

As we pointed out in the introduction to the article, the Chinese market was the one that experienced the steepest collapse due to the pandemic: -40%.

As the first country to suffer from the consumption crisis caused by lockdown, China was also the first nation to emerge from it, and to resume growing and buying as usual: at the moment, foreign alcohol purchasing rates are growing rapidly.

The Chinese market was the fastest growing market in wine consumption worldwide. Although the pleasure of wine is universal, in order to be able to communicate with the Chinese people it is necessary to have a valid cultural knowledge of the country: for this reason it is not advisable to engage in promotional and internationalization activities without relying on external consultancy companies, which are able to support and recommend the best strategies.

Value China, a subsidiary of Neosperience and composed of young Italian-Chinese, has recently implemented a digital promotion program dedicated to Italian wineries.

Winease offers Italian producers the opportunity to learn directly about Chinese consumers, to discover the most effective ways to communicate with them and to use the most suitable tools to promote their uniqueness.

Through partnership with Wechat, China's largest social media platform, Interwine, the largest and oldest professional wine fair in China, and Putaojiu.com, China's leading press release platform in the wine sector, Value China is able to support and guide Italian winegrowers in conquering the market.

Conclusions

Ultimately, the growth possibilities for the sector are considerable and necessarily pass through the implementation of strategies focused on digital channels.

Understanding the public, engaging and retaining customers, eliminating third-party brokerage, joining stronger and more structured hubs, selling online and reaching distant and untapped markets: these are the guidelines for the wine sector that guarantee immediate success against a medium-term investment.

If you have any questions, please contact us and we will be happy to answer your questions.

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"Games are the new normal." These words, pronounced by Al Gore in 2011, are even more true years later. Today, thanks to the spread of mobile devices, games are everywhere, as a stratified layer over our daily life.

Talking about games as a business tool, we do not just imply the Pokémon craze; we also consider the idea of applying game dynamics and thinking to non-game applications. Gamification strategies, in a few words.

In the last decade, gamification has established itself as a powerful tool that uses a combination of internal and external rewards to drive both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. As a result, it can help you address your target more successfully to achieve multiple business results.

There is still little knowledge, however, about gamification and a lot of perplexity and hesitation about how to get started. The main reason for skepticism is that, when people hear the word ‘gamification’, they often just hear the sound of the first element, the ‘game’.

They immediately think of a quick, fun one-shot initiative for short-term entertainment purposes, aimed at generating some word-of-mouth and awareness.

Also, the fact that there are so many companies adopting a gamified system and missing the mark may lead to the conclusion that these mechanics do not work with complex organizations.

The truth is hard to swallow: in most cases, failure is the result of underlying issues within the organization itself. That is, using gamification as a set-it-and-forget-it tool, without fully understanding how it works and, even worse, without a clear goal and a coherent strategy.

We have stressed out so many times the importance of game dynamics in business contests, and yet we have to admit that lots of marketing professionals still do not take it seriously. They do not see it as a valid alternative to traditional methods, in the a priori belief that gamification is quite the same as games, ignoring that it comes in many shapes and forms.

There are many online blogs and resources where you can find complete lists of mistakes you must avoid when using gamification for your business purposes.

Most of them can be summed up in one: Losing the perspective and use gamification like it was the objective rather than the tool to reach it, and then subsequently end up having a mere technological exercise that does not serve your business purposes.

It is one thing to apply gamification from scratch as a one-shot, just to do something different and generate some word of mouth. It is quite another to implement it thoughtfully, looking at consistency and dealing with long-term goals.

In a certain way, it is like confusing the method with the methodology: as any other business practice, to be effective gamification must be based on a coherent overall paradigm – that is, your approach, your goal-based strategy.

Considered with the right approach, gamification is one of the most promising areas in marketing and is positioned to become a highly significant trend over the next years. And there are some good reasons.

VERSATILITY

As a method, it is up to you to include gamification in a proper strategy. So, you can apply it in various areas of your company:

- Internally, to motivate your employees and sales team improving their performance;

- Externally, to drive your customers' behavior delighting them with engaging dynamics and interactions.

MULTIPLE GOALS

In a world where creativity and innovation are increasingly crucial for competitiveness, and where the ‘fifth’ p - people - of marketing has become the ‘first’, the gamification represents a great the best way to bring your brand and customers together.

Whether people means your employees or your customers, all you have to do is to select specific actions and rewards – the two most important elements of gamification - and combine them creatively to reflect and give voice to your brand values, engaging people with diverse activities simultaneously.

PERSONALIZATION

Today, the employee and customer experience has replaced the product/service as the main element of differentiation in crowded markets. Digital customers do not just want to buy things; they want to live experiences. They want personalized experiences.

Thanks to psychological and motivational theories behind game dynamics and mechanics, using gamification you can decide to incentive specific actions, activities and behaviors in specific audiences.

Take your buyer personas' characteristics as 'filters' to help you choose the most efficient dynamic for every customer segment.

However, as said before, to confuse the method with the methodology is the ever-present risk with gamification, and it ends up with a mere technological exercise. The first step to avoid it is to clarify where you want to position within the vast world of gamification.

That is why a model - such as the one we have sketched above - might be useful if you are considering gamification as the next step or a future step in your marketing strategy.

Analyzing a set of successful case studies in the gamification landscape, we have identified four main categories of strategies. They can be inserted in a two-by-two matrix, formed by crossing two fundamental elements:

Actions. What kinds of actions, activities, and behaviors enable to participate and succeed? Do they have an impact - more or less direct - on your bottom line, or not?

Rewards. What kinds of premiums and benefits do you offer in return for these actions and behaviors? Are they about your products and services, or not?

By crossing these two elements - actions and rewards - and considering as variables the different forms they can take, we get four broad typologies that might help you choose where you want to position.

In most cases, companies decide for what we call the focused strategy. Being "Focused" in this context means to adopt a business-oriented approach with both actions and rewards, encouraging desired behaviors that have a - more or less direct - positive impact on your bottom line, and giving visibility to your products or services at the same time, putting them as rewards.

For example, Urban Outfitters’ customers receive points when they use the app to upload and share photos of Urban Outfitters merchandise on their social networks. They can exchange points to receive rewards such as designing their outfit or hold their own fashion show at an Urban Outfitters store.

Through a series of mini challenges, that include tweeting about a purchase, using a certain hashtag, or visiting a particular store, customers receive rewards for their interactivity, including badges, access to merchandise, and early sales notices.

Rewarded actions can be of various kinds, more ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ depending, in general, to what extent they involve money. The more 'soft' they are, the more they take distance from giving you a profit, but can come close to other means of outcomes and make your brand more human.

Look for example at DICK'S Sporting Goods, a brand that rewards users for their healthy lifestyle. With its app, DICK'S Sporting Goods allows users to earn points for achieving activity goals, motivating and encouraging them to reach their personal goals by offering special savings for being active.

Take also the Nike Hong Kong #Makeitcount Campaign: participants complete “missions” in a variety of activities such as running, skateboarding, playing football, walking a pet or attending a dance class. They then share a photo or status on Facebook, earning points that they can exchange for accessories, clothing, accessories, equipment and tickets to sporting events.

These two are typical examples of the "Engaging" gamification strategy because promoted and rewarded activities are related to people’s daily life, not to your brand.

Instead, the "Generous" type does exactly the opposite, encouraging desirable actions with a much more people-oriented approach in the rewards system, and thus giving users the opportunity to choose from a wide range of benefits, not just your products or services.

What about the fourth type? Unlike all others, here both actions and rewards are unrelated to your business. “What will I gain?”, you may ask. This fourth typology is the creation the genuine experience, a game where you are delighting and "Unconventional".

Employee engagement and customer care initiatives - whose primary objective is to build a stronger trusting relationship - are excellent examples of this gamification type in practice.

This is not an unexplored topic, and online it is easy to find use cases from small and big companies that have successfully adopted gamification for very different purposes.

You just have to find your inner reasons and understand which types of mechanics resonate better with your customers or employees.

And remember that "it is play that helps us do serious things better." (Jake Orlowitz, ‎Head of The Wikipedia Library - ‎Wikimedia Foundation)

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