#2 Behavior Change Games: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement

2. BEHAVIOR
People's Insights Annual Report
Now & Next:
Future of Engagement
CHANGE GAMES

We are delighted to share that we will be
publishing the People’s Insights Annual
Report titled “Now & Next: Future of
Engagement” in January 2013 as an interactive
iPad app. The report will highlight the ten
most important frontiers that will define
the future of engagement for marketers,
entrepreneurs and changemakers:
Crowdfunding, Transmedia Storytelling,
Social Curation, Behavior Change Games,
Grassroots Change Movements, Collaborative
Social Innovation, Crowdsourced Product
Innovation, Collective Intelligence, Social
Recommendation and Hybrid Reality
Experiences.
Throughout 2012, 100+ planners on
MSLGROUP’s Insights Network have been
tracking inspiring web platforms and brand
programs at the intersection of social data,
citizenship, crowdsourcing and storytelling.
Every week, we pick up one project and
curate the conversations around it — on the
MSLGROUP Insights Network itself but also
on the broader social web — into a weekly
insights report. Every quarter, we compile
these insights, along with original research
and insights from the MSLGROUP global
network, into the People’s Insights Quarterly
Magazine. Now, we have synthesized the
insights from our year-long endeavor in future
scanning as foresights into the future of
engagement.
We believe, like William Gibson that, “the
future is already here; it’s just not very evenly
distributed.” So, innovative web platforms
in the areas of social data, citizenship,
crowdsourcing and storytelling point towards
interesting possibilities for brand programs
that leverage similar models to engage
people. In turn, the web platforms and brand
programs of today give us clues to the future
of engagement tomorrow.
In our reports on the ten frontiers that will
define the future of engagement, we start by
describing why they are important, how they
work, and how brands might benefit from
them; we then examine web platforms and
brand programs that point to the future
(that is already here); then finish by identifying
some of the most important features of that
future, with our recommendations on how to
benefit from them.
For the next ten weeks, we will publish
these reports one by one, then present them
together, in context, as an interactive iPad app.
Do subscribe to our email newsletter to receive
each report and also an invite to download a
free copy of the interactive iPad app.
People’s Insights Annual Report

3
What are Behavior Change
Games?
Behavior Change Games use game design
elements and the power of communities to
motivate people to achieve challenging tasks
in the real world. Behavior change games have
been used to enable people to lead a healthy
and sustainable lifestyle, recover from illness
and injury, manage time and money, learn
new skills, and engage with political and social
causes.
The rise of behavior change games can be
tracked to three changes in how people play
games. First, social games on Facebook have
widened the appeal of games beyond the video
gaming niche of kids and young adults. For
instance, Zynga’s Farmville (video) had more
than 83 million monthly active users at its peak.
Second, marketers, entrepreneurs and change
makers have adapted game design principles
in contexts other than entertainment, to design
marketing and loyalty programs, social networks
and training software, and serious games for
social impact. For instance, location-based
social network Foursquare (video), which uses
gamification to make “checking-in” more fun,
crossed 25 million users in September 2012.
And, third, the explosion in personal, social
Source: nanpalmero on flickr
and location data has led to the popularity
of the quantified self movement, enabling
people to track and change their behaviors. For
instance, 10 million people use personal finance
management service Mint.com (video) to track
over $80 billion in credit and debit transactions
and almost $1 trillion in loans and assets.
Behavior change games use the power of
games, networks and data to help people
create meaningful change. In 2012, a number
of niche behavior change games emerged
across a diverse range of topics. Quentiq
(video), FitBit (video), Nexercise (video), Health
rageous (video), Hotseat, Jawbone UP (video),
Striiv (video) and Zamzee (video) help people
track their workouts and activity automatically.
Fitocracy, Super Better (video), Habitual,
SlimKicker, Hubbub (video), HealthMonth,
Mindbloom (video), Healthy Heroes (video) and
Goalpost help people become healthier and
develop good habits. Practically Green, Recycle
Bank (video) and OPower (video) help people
adopt a greener lifestyle and save electricity.
Mint (video) and Pay off (video) help people
manage their finances and debt. Urgent Evoke
(video) and World Without Oil (video) educate
people about social issues and encourage
them to contribute to solutions. Code Academy
and DuoLingo (video) help people master a
programming language, or learn French. Epic
Win (video) and The Email Game (video) help
people increase their productivity and complete
tasks or clear their email inbox. Finally, Goodify
(video), Keas (video), Shape Up and Youtopia
(video) are focused on organizations and
schools, and help them motivate employees and
students to volunteer or get fit.
Some of these behavior change games have also
created social impact at scale. Shape Up has
helped 700,000 people lose 1 million pounds,
PayOff has helped members pay off $41 million
of debt, and OPower has helped people reduce
energy consumption by 1.6 billion kilowatt hours
and save $179 million on electricity bills.
People use the power
of games, networks and
data to change their
behavior

Source: latddotcom on flickr
Click to watch: Jane McGonigal at TED 2010
Source: hyerdashery on flickr
The success of behavior change games shows
that people can change deeply entrenched
behaviors and form lasting good habits, if they
are able to break up big challenges into small
goals, receive feedback on their progress, and tap
into their networks for support.
This is not surprising. Game researcher Jane
Mc Gonigal, who is also the author of Reality is
Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How
They Can Change the World explains why such
games work:
“Gamers spend on average 80% of their time
failing in game worlds, but instead of giving up,
they stick with the difficult challenge and use the
feedback of the game to get better. With some
effort, we can learn to apply this resilience to the
real-world challenges we face.”
How do Behavior Change Games
work?
Most behavior change games include four game
design mechanisms: setting goals and missions,
tracking progress, receiving incentives, and
receiving support.
The first step in most behavior change games
involves setting a goal and missions, quests or
challenges to achieve the goal. Players have
missions assigned to them, choose from a set
of pre-configured missions, or create their own
missions. Missions range in difficulty, and new
players are encouraged to start with easier
missions before proceeding to more difficult
ones. On Mint (video) and Payoff (video), typical
goals include paying off a credit card debt or
buying a house, while on Fitocracy and Super
Better (video) typical missions include eating
healthier or working out.
Most behavior change games track progress
by asking players to complete virtual tasks
(Urgent Evoke (video), World Without Oil
(video), Code Academy and DuoLingo (video))
or self-report on their progress (Recycle Bank
(video), Fitocracy and Super Better (video)),
while some automatically track data through
sensors and feeds (Quentiq (video), Nexercise
(video), Zamzee (video), OPower (video), Mint
(video) and Payoff (video)). Most games use

5
points, rankings, levels and leader boards to help
players measure their progress and compare
their performance to friends, similar others, and
other players. For instance, OPower compares
players’ energy consumption to that of their
neighbors and Mint compares peoples’ spending
habits across categories such as coffee, phone
bills and gas. These benchmarks help players re-
evaluate their missions and encourage a healthy
sense of competition, both to beat their own best
performance and that of their friends.
Players receive incentives when they accomplish
tasks such as completing their profile, inviting
friends, sharing their progress, or achieving a
milestone. Incentives range from rewards like
points, virtual goods and unlocked content;
recognition through badges, levels, titles and
special privileges; and in some cases real-life
prizes including cash prizes (Payoff.com) and
holidays packages (Recycle Bank). Incentives
are effective in attracting first-time players,
helping them get started and creating fun and
excitement. After they are hooked and begin to
successfully complete missions, players receive
the ultimate incentive to keep playing – they
see a change in their behavior and experience a
sense of pride and self-empowerment.
Most behavior games are intrinsically social
in nature. They encourage players to share
their performance with their social networks
and connect them to other people who have
struggled with or overcome similar challenges.
These communities of friends and like-minded
strangers offer players support, encouragement,
advice and, when needed, a good dose of peer
pressure. In some games, friends have specific
roles to play; for instance, in Super Better, players
invite allies to create special missions for them,
while in Urgent Evoke, players give power votes
and act as mentors for others.
Behavior change games work best when they
are designed with wonder, playfulness and
storytelling at their core. In spite of the hype
around gamification and the success of white
label gamification solutions like Badgeville
(video), Bunchball (video), and BigDoor, it’s not
enough to just add community or game elements
to boring tasks.
Game researcher Nicole Lazzaro explains
why we play games:
“Wonder, one of the strongest emotions of game
design, rivets player attention and unleashes
powerful neurochemicals that facilitate learning.
At the heart of every intellectual pursuit, at the
root of nearly all engagement, wonder keeps
players coming back.”
Game researcher Raph Koster argues in his book
Theory of Fun for Game Design that games and
stories have a complimentary role:
“Games tend to be experiential teaching;
stories teach vicariously. Games are good at
objectification; stories are good at empathy.
Games tend to quantize, reduce, and classify;
stories tend to blur, deepen, and make subtle
distinctions. Games are external – they are
about people’s actions; stories are internal –
they are about people’s emotions and thoughts.”
Behavior Change Games for Brands
Brands are beginning to create their own behavior
change games, as marketing campaigns, smart
phone or social apps and even sensor-enabled
products, to help people change their behavior in
an area that is aligned with the brand purpose.
Several brands are adding game elements
or even creating social games to deepen
engagement with their grassroots change
movement campaigns. These are typically short
term contests, tied to marketing campaigns or
important events, with prizes for participation.
For example, MTV created the MTV Fantasy
Election (video) to educate and engage young
voters around the 2012 U.S. elections. Players
created teams of politicians and gained or lost
points based on their team’s performance on
five criteria — civility, transparency, honesty,
engagement and public opinion — calculated by
using data from social networks and non-partisan
civil society organizations.
Other brands are creating smart phone or social
network applications that enable consumers
to sign up for challenges, self-report on their
progress, and get the support of their friends to
stay fit. For example, GE has created a series of
social apps including HealthyShare (video) andFit
Friendzy (video) as part of its Healthy magination
(video) initiative to help players stay fit.
Finally, sports and fitness brands are creating
sensor-enabled products and creating games
and communities around them to enable people
to automatically track their personal data and
use it to change their behaviors. Nike with Nike+
has been an early leader in creating a behavior
change game ecosystem, including the Nike+
community, Nike+ iPhone and Android apps
(video) and several Nike+ products including the
Nike FuelBand (video). Since 2006, Nike has

motivated its community of 7 million people to
achieve 13 million daily fitness goals, run 733
million miles, and burn 27 billion calories. Now,
Adidas is trying to replicate its success with
miCoach (video).
Behavior Change Games case
studies
Throughout the year, we have tracked the
conversations around a number of behavior
change platforms and branded behavior change
programs in our weekly insights reports and
quarterly magazines; here are a few highlights.
Web platform: SuperBetter
Read the full case study on our blog or on
Slideshare
Source: superbetter.com
Source: fantasyelection.mtv.com
Launched in 2012, Super Better is a super-hero
themed online game that helps people improve
their resilience, meet their health goals, recover
from illness or injury, and have fun along the way.
The game packages everyday occurrences into
elements of a super-hero story and offers a
new perspective to solving daily challenges. For
instance, obstacles are ‘bad guys’ or ‘villains’ that
need to be defeated in order to win. As one player
commented:
“The very idea has changed the way I approach
work – as a challenge to defeat and earn my
reward (pride).”
As part of the story, players choose personas
for themselves. Personas can be based on real
or fictional heroes and help motivate players
to achieve goals they previously considered
impossible. As SuperBetter player Courtney
Sloan commented:
“The gaming aspect allowed me to step away
from myself and do things not because I wanted
to, but because my hero self would not take no for
an answer. She had the willpower, so would I.”
To educate and engage 18-29 year olds around
the 2012 U.S. elections, MTV launched Fantasy
Election – a game in which players create teams
of politicians and gain or lose points based on
the politicians’ real-life behavior. For instance,
politicians received points for engaging with
their constituency on social networks or in a town
hall, and lost points for inaccurate statements
and uncivil advertising. Players who selected
SuperBetter relies on the power of its community
to help motivate people. Players are encouraged
to invite family and friends, or other members
of the SuperBetter community, to become their
“allies.” Allies keep players motivated with words
of encouragement and by creating new quests for
them. Alex Goldman reflected:
“I suppose this is a bit of a no-brainer, but I was
shocked at how motivating it was to have other
people designing quests for me. The quests
I created for myself seemed so pedestrian by
comparison."
As success stories begin to emerge, acupuncture
student Jason Lay commented:
“I see healthcare professionals of different
strokes being very interested in SuperBetter.
The potential for hands-off delivery and training
of health-promoting habits and attitudes is
tremendous using this gaming model.”
SuperBetter has over 100,000 members and
people have used the game to meet health
challenges ranging from sleeping disorders,
obesity and self-confidence issues, and even
to meet ‘life challenges’ such as completing a
novel.
Branded program: MTV Fantasy Election
Slideshare

7
“good” politicians scored more points, climbed
the leader board and increased their chances of
winning prizes.
TIME journalist Keith Wagstaff noted:
“The idea is that while Millennials might not
venture to a host of dry political sites to keep track
of which politicians are disclosing funding sources
and making false claims, they might pay attention
if their Fantasy Election team loses points —
especially if those points can lead to prizes like a
trip for four to the Video Music Awards.”
MTV offered a total of 3,022 prizes ranging from
$5 gift cards to an all expense paid trip for four to
the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards to keep people
engaged during the two month campaign.
The game also gives political issues a much
needed layer of fun. As blogger Gary Henkle
noted:
“Fantasy Election ‘12 can definitely be used as
a tool by student activists to bring their
disengaged friends on board. For any friend who
says “I want to be more involved, but I don’t know
how this works,” this game makes discovery of the
political process more fun than a didactic civics
lesson, and as mentioned brings awareness in
less time.”
MTV Fantasy Election replaces MTV’s 20-
year “Choose or Lose” election slogan with a
campaign more suited for today’s youth. As Keith
Wagstaff said:
“The days of simply prompting young people
to vote from a rock concert are over; twenty-
somethings expect everything to be online — and
that includes political engagement.”
Branded product Nike FuelBand
Slideshare
Source: nike.com
In 2012, Nike introduced the Nike Fuel Band – a
wearable product that measures people’s daily
activities and work outs in a virtual metric called
NikeFuel. People can view their performance
data on their smart phones or the Nike+ website
and can compare results and NikeFuel earned
with friends and members of the 7 million strong
Nike+ community.
Nike targets the “everyday athlete” with the
FuelBand. As journalist Jessica Stanley observed:
“Just Do It’ is one of the best positioning
statements in the world, but customers started to
change. Don’t just say it, help us.”
The FuelBand does this by re-positioning
everyday activities and chores as a sport,
measuring people’s daily activities and rewarding
them for doing more. The concept of instant
feedback immediately appealed to self-trackers,
like Jenna Wortham, who commented:
“From the moment I wrapped the band around
my wrist, I was enamored with the idea of a
device that could help me collect data about my
habits and behavior, so that I could try to improve
them.”
Ever present on the wrists of the owner, the
FuelBand displays the amount of NikeFuel
earned for the day, and motivates people to meet
their daily goal.
MSLGROUP’s Gaurav Mishra talks about how the
NikeFuel band has helped him become more
active:
“I am a big believer in breaking down a large
challenge into small challenges and ticking
them off in public. I remember that the year I
first bought a Nike+ shoe was the year I ran most
regularly. The instant feedback and the sense of
progress were almost addictive. Then, I lost the
sensor, and lost my stride. I bought a NikeFuel
band a few weeks back and I have seen my activity
levels go up significantly since then. Instead of
taking a taxi, I walk 3+ km to work, both ways,
and I am planning to buy a bike for the weekends.
I even created a goal on Nike Plus to finish 2012
active.”
Another FuelBand user Alyson Shontell wrote:
“The mix of guilt and competition the
FuelBand makes you feel pushes you to make
healthier decisions.”
The Nike FuelBand is the latest addition to Nike’s
suite of fitness tracking products, all of which

incorporate some elements of games, networks
and data to help people achieve their fitness
goals.
The Future of Behavior Change
Games
We believe that we are only beginning to
understand the potential of behavior change
games to create meaningful change for
individuals, communities and the world, and
also their many risks. In the future, behavior
change games that tap into the power of games,
networks and data will become pervasive
across business, civil society and government
organizations and permeate all aspects of
society.
Game designer Jesse Schell, who is the author
of the classic The Art of Game Design: A Book of
Lenses, predicts in his visions of game pocalypse
talk:
“Games and real life are reaching out to each
other with such force that we might come to
a condition of “gamepocalypse—-where every
second of your life you’re playing a game in
some way.”
Click to watch: Jesse Schell’s Visions of Gamepocalypse talk
at The Long Now Foundation
Click to watch: Zappos + SuperBetter
We expect the gamification enterprise solutions
ecosystem to mature, and new startups to
focus on niches like governance and public
services, health and wellness, environment and
sustainability, and education and learning. For
instance, UBoost offers gamification solutions
tailored for education and health.
We expect behavior change games to also
become more focused on specific demographics,
diseases or habits, to create customized
experiences and close-knit communities. For
instance, Goalpost has created a 12-week game
to help people quit smoking and Zamzee (video)
focuses on helping teens become more active.
Specifically, we expect healthcare and insurance
companies to work with governments to explore
behavior change games as cost-effective ways to
manage, treat and prevent long-term illness such
as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
As Dustin DiTommaso, VP of Experience Design
at Mad*Pow, said:
“Each year, billions of dollars are spent to move
our behaviors in a healthier direction to avert
crisis such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular
disease and other costly and painful afflictions.
Leveraging the motivational dynamics of game
play to energize and sustain people through
behavior change is a challenging yet profound
solution.”
We expect to see a new generation of innovative
sensor-based gadgets designed to track data and
trigger behavior change in niche areas. Products
like the Withings blood pressure monitor, FitBit
Aria Wi-Fi scale (video), MyZeo sleep manager
(video) and Changers solar charger (video) are
early examples of this trend.
We expect brands to create their own behavior
change game ecosystems, like Nike did with Nike
Plus, or acquire innovative startups that integrate
the power of game, network and data, like Intuit
did with Mint (video). Other brands will sponsor
third party behavior change games and make
them available for employees and associates like
Aetna did with Mindbloom Life Game (video).
We also expect more brands to partner with
games to create dedicated versions for their
employees, like Zappos did with SuperBetter.
Zappos was a development partner with
of SuperBetter from the game's inception,
and Zappos employees were the first to use
SuperBetter to achieve their health goals.
Finally, we expect more start ups like Goodify
(video), Keas (video), Shape Up and Youtopia
(video) to offer solutions for companies to inspire
employees and engage them around health and
wellness, and social service, and we expect these
startups to specialize around narrow niches.

9
Learn more about us at:
peopleslab.mslgroup.com | twitter.com/peopleslab
People’s Lab is MSLGROUP’s proprietary
crowdsourcing platform and approach that
helps organizations tap into people’s insights for
innovation, storytelling and change.
The People’s Lab crowdsourcing platform
helps organizations build and nurture public
or private, web or mobile, hosted or white
label communities around four pre-configured
application areas: Expertise Request Network,
Innovation Challenge Network, Research &
Insights Network and Contest & Activation
Network. Our community and gaming features
encourage people to share rich content, vote/
comment on other people’s content and
collaborate to find innovative solutions.
The People’s Lab crowdsourcing platform
and approach forms the core of our distinctive
insights and foresight approach, which consists
of four elements: organic conversation analysis,
MSLGROUP’s own insight communities, client-
specific insights communities, and ethnographic
deep dives into these communities. The People’s
Insights Quarterly Magazines showcase our
capability in crowdsourcing and analyzing
insights from conversations and communities.
People’s Lab:
Crowdsourcing
Innovation & Insights

Write to us to start a conversation on the future of engagement.:
Pascal Beucler,
SVP & Chief Strategy Officer
(pascal.beucler@mslgroup.com)
Janelle Dixon,
North America Head of Insights
(janelle.dixon@mslgroup.com)
Dominic Payling,
Europe Head of Insights
(dominic.payling@mslgroup.com)
Gaurav Mishra,
Asia Head of Insights
(gaurav.mishra@mslgroup.com)
mslgroup.com | twitter.com/msl_group
MSLGROUP is Publicis Groupe's strategic
communications and engagement group,
advisors in all aspects of communication
strategy: from consumer PR to financial
communications, from public affairs to
reputation management and from crisis
communications to event management.
With more than 3,700 people, its offices span
22 countries. Adding affiliates and partners
into the equation, MSLGROUP's reach
increases to 4,000 employees in 83 countries.
Today the largest 'PR and Engagement'
network in Europe, Greater China and India, the
group offers strategic planning and counsel,
insight-guided thinking and big, compelling
ideas – followed by thorough execution.

#2 Behavior Change Games: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement

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#2 Behavior Change Games: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement