Drive Slow, Win Big

In our discussions about inserting gaming into everyday life, we’ve spent a good chunk of time discussing Volkswagen’s “Fun Theory” campaign. That effort included a user-generated component, where folks could suggest tasks that would be improved through gaming mechanisms. The video to the right was the winning submission, and asked:

Can we get more people to obey the speed limit by making it fun to do? The idea here is capture on camera the people who keep to the speed limit. They would have their photos taken and registration numbers recorded and entered into a lottery. Winners would [receive] cash prizes and be notified by post. Better still, the winning pot would come from the people who were caught speeding.

A “fun” campaign all around, we’d say.

But we aren’t the only folks touting the benefits of bringing a bit of fun to everyday tasks. Jesse Schell, of Carnegie Mellon University, is even more gung-ho about the topic. In this CNN article (thanks to Adam Stipanuk for the tip!), Schell ruminates on how to insert gaming into everything. While his ideas oscillate between the clever and the far-fetched, some are worth nothing. Our oral care clients might be interested in Schell’s suggestions for incentivizing better brushing habits (which has already been attempted with kids); perhaps there are similar opportunities for other health and beauty regimens?

Schell also calls attention to Green Goose, a product that can be affixed to a bike in order to measure the total distance you’ve ridden. You can compare this distance to friends and coworkers, automatically post your rides to Twitter or Facebook, and – perhaps most interestingly – see how much money you’ve saved compared to driving. (Green Goose can even transfer that amount to an interest-bearing savings account.) For some, this product may lead to a change in behavior (i.e. someone starting to bike instead of drive). Still, our hunch is that most folks buying a Green Goose are already biking, but this allows them to track and quantify an existing behavior. While a cyclist might generally know that they’re saving money compared to driving, seeing how high that number gets over a long period of time is probably pretty startling (and, more to the point, fun). It’s an interesting opportunity for a brand to help consumers realize just how much of a good thing they’ve been doing, and in the case of Green Goose, helping them turn that into a bit of cash as well.

After all, the only thing more fun than fun is fun with a bit of profit, right?