Did you know that most newspaper subscriptions are still sold on the street? The salesmen who are kindly thanked by most of us while standing in front of the supermarket entrance, are particularly important employees for the sale of the Dutch morning papers. The Telegraaf Media Group, publisher of the largest Nederlands Dagblad, approached EngageIT to come up with a challenging game that will boost the acquisition of subscribers by street vendors. With the World Cup football approaching, this resulted in the twenty-week 'World Cup sales game'.

The objective that the TMG had in mind was to give the 36 regular street vendors extra motivation to sell subscriptions. To achieve this goal, EngageIT designed a competition in which gamification elements such as avatars and a leaderboard, as well as physical rewards such as a box of chocolate and Hema gift vouchers, were used. While playing, the sellers were motivated to achieve their targets and, as the icing on the cake, perhaps win the main prize, which was also entirely dedicated to the World Cup, namely a trip to the World Cup match Spain-Netherlands in Brazil!

The game
By logging in to his own personal screen, the player enters the game, which consists of a number of assignments. To give a face to the character of the player in the game, all employees were given their own avatar. The game is further shaped by the website on which a virtual football field is displayed.

The 11 players and 3 reserve players that can be seen in the virtual football field symbolize the assignments. After logging in, the player can immediately see which assignments he still has to perform and which he has already completed. Whether successful or not. The cheering doll with its hands in the air symbolizes a successfully completed assignment in this course. All puppets have their own position within the team with an associated assignment based on the puppet's strengths. For example, you had back number 10: the game distributor, the brain of the team, was therefore linked to an assignment that appeals to the knowledge of the player. While shirt number 2: the right wing defender asks for an assignment that is all about taking initiative and willpower. Assignments that had to be carried out were all aimed at sales, for example: 'Take out eighteen subscriptions this week', 'Work during late night shopping this week'.

The players earned points by completing assignments. The number of points achieved compared to the other players could be viewed on the leaderboard. It also showed which gifts the players had earned. Based on the scores that were achieved, your position rose or fell. The players therefore always had an overview of how they and their fellow players performed, which provoked an even stronger competition.

Sjacco Miedema, project manager TMG is excited. 'The World Cup sales game was really alive. The variety of assignments and the visibility of the results on the website made this project a great success. In the past period we have also generated at least twenty percent more turnover.'

Chris van den Berg

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