I’m not a gamer, but I can’t help noticing that games have become a big part of how marketers are engaging consumers with their brands; Foursquare, for example, is a game that rewards people for “checking in.” In fact, there’s an official name for games used in marketing: social game marketing.

Mashable ran an excellent post showcasing five brands that have incorporated social gaming into their marketing (Why 5 Big Brand Marketing Campaigns are Betting Big on Social Gaming, May 3, 2011).

According to stats cited by author Brian Anthony Hernandez, the social gaming population is expected to reach 68.7 million players by the end of 2012. Big brands haven’t ignored this fact, with many offering “branded virtual goods, integrated ads and offers as well as games that combine digital and real-world incentives.”

MasterCard is one company that’s using a social game to engage customers and prospects. In the You Play, We Give campaign, players shoot at colored balls on the brand’s Facebook page. For every minute someone plays, MasterCard donates 10 cents to Junior Achievement Hudson Valley. As of this writing, 36,000 people have “liked” the page and MasterCard has donated over $100,000 to the charity!

Pop star Lady Gaga last month partnered with FarmVille (another huge game played on Facebook) and began offering tracks from her “Born This Way” album on a new partner site — GagaVille. According to Entertainment Weekly, players can “undertake lightweight tasks to unlock tracks.”

Why games matter: they’re part of the human condition

In her 2010 TED talk, Gaming Can Make a Better World, Jane McGonigal gives an impassioned talk about how games can help us improve our society and our lives. Games, she says, offer the following benefits:

  • Clear and compelling goals
  • Challenges suited to our capabilities/skill level
  • A chance to work hard to improve our skills
  • Non-financial rewards and recognition
  • The chance to become a hero by saving the world

We all like games, says McGonigal, because they make us feel good. Even more important, research has shown that we like people better after we play a game together, which is why brands like MasterCard and Lady Gaga are using games to connect with their audiences.

According to Aaron Dignan, author of Game Frame: Using Games As a Strategy for Success, people have turned to games because they’re bored — bored at school, at work in their lives — and games offer an escape. In fact, McGonigal cited a statistic that gamers spend 3 billion hours a week playing online games!

I find social game marketing fascinating, especially since many of the ideas being put forth by people like McGonigal and Dignan resonate with what I see in my own life.

Games, says Dignan, give gamers the motivation and internal drive to do something (e.g., get to the next level, meet a challenge, solve a problem, etc.), and they give players the necessary skills and tools to handle the challenges presented — something that’s often missing in real life. They also allow you to score an “epic win” — a positive outcome so extraordinary you can’t even imagine it, according to McGonigal.

While developing a game may not be something your company can implement right now, I highly recommend that you read Game Frame and watch McGonigal’s TED talk if only to gain insight into consumer behavior and how games affect us. Both Dignan and McGonigal are brilliant.

You can also follow how marketers are using games by subscribing to the Inside Social Games blog (scroll down and click the “Marketing” link under “Topics”).

Do you have examples of social game marketing that you like? Let me know in the comments section!