Jyoti’s piece on brand gamification published in Arabian Business, the Middle East’s weekly business magazine

Unlocking Brand Engagement: The Power of VR Gamification in Business Storytelling

Businesses are using VR to create gamified experiences that captivate customers and deepen their connection with the brand, presenting an opportunity for serious companies to engage nongamers, argues business storytelling expert and bestselling author Jyoti Guptara

My first experience creating a digital escape room was in 2020 for one of the biggest companies in the world. This science-based company wanted a creative way to show how they developed their highly complex products. This was, first, for their own numerous non-scientist employees and, second, for the public to help build trust in their processes.

From confusion to clarity: translating science with business storytelling

I was responsible for the storyline: the structure of the game as well as the dialogues. Not having a science background, it was a challenge to understand the client’s business. I had to ask a lot of ignorant questions so that I could clearly explain the highly sophisticated matters involved. As a business storytelling consultant, that’s my bread and butter. But this time, the challenge was simultaneously getting to grips with the possibilities and limits of a new technology, virtual reality (VR). I had recently played a physical escape room wearing a VR headset. The disorienting experience left me nauseous, but excited.

Why? Even a great book never sucks me in as intensely as a great game. Competition and camaraderie are taken to the next level by playing along with other people, for example in a local area network (LAN) party. When I was a teenager, a dozen of us would sequester ourselves in the cellar for three or four days to play a collection of favorites, or sometimes even just one game. Day became night, mealtimes were forgotten, personal hygiene neglected. Even after such an exhausting weekend, part of me wanted the game to go on, and I’d eagerly arrange dates for the next LAN party.

Now you understand why the nauseating VR experience nevertheless left me excited – I knew intuitively that gamification is the future of brand engagement.

Storytelling meets gamification: the next frontier in brand engagement

For the last decade, marketing and branding have revolved increasingly around storytelling. That trend is merging with the 250-billion-dollar games industry (ten times bigger than Hollywood). Over three billion people regularly play games. Astonishingly, 40-46% of them are female. And, at least in the USA, the average age of a video game player is 35 to 44!

To keep them entertained, some companies are using VR merely for a ‘wow’ effect. But savvy brands realize that can be like producing a movie with lots of special effects – momentarily impressive but soon boring and quickly forgotten.

The magic happens when you add gamification and tie it all together with storytelling. Most successful games are framed by a story that serves as the backdrop for the game, providing a sense of purpose and direction. Similarly, adding game mechanisms to a story makes it interactive. Societal and technological trends are coming together, so ‘immersive VR storytelling’ holds huge potential to deepen brand engagement.

Trust and authentic connections in an era of AI and deepfakes

Of course, technology also raises concerns. For example, AI combined with additive manufacturing will enable even a startup to quickly copy any product in the market. AI deepfakes are already eroding trust not only in brands, but across society. Seeing can no longer be believing! So, on what basis do you trust anyone and anything?

For companies, the issue is: how do you protect your brand, and get people to continue trusting it?

For building trust, there’s nothing like spending positive time with someone, especially when we experience something together. A story is an imaginative experience. That’s why stories, too, build trust. When people play games, they tend to be relaxed and receptive – competitive, but not defensive or critical.

Making brand gamification accessible to all

We encountered some defensiveness when we were designing my first escape room, and it taught us an important lesson. Surprisingly, many of our client’s scientists did not own a smartphone, let alone a VR headset. Many also consider themselves ‘serious’, and are unsure about their brand being represented by a ‘wacky’ game. These facts led us to two decisions. Rather than an escape room for a VR headset, we created a browser-based game anyone could play from their phone or computer. (Less than three percent of people globally are estimated to own a VR headset.) Second, instead of inventing a game world, we virtualized the client’s own premises with 360-degree photography.

This proved to be a popular approach in our case. When Facebook rebranded as Meta, with Mark Zuckerberg floating alongside alien avatars, many businesses thought the Metaverse too playful. But demand has exploded for virtualized physical premises or ‘digital twins’. In fact, recognizing the importance of bringing together the real and the virtual, my VR technology partner, Switzerland-based startup Aumivi, chose as its tagline ‘the real-world metaverse’. So solid and multi-use steps exist into the mixed reality future, whether for recruiting, onboarding, or offering customers a gamified experience.