Recent years have marked the beginning of a new era for businesses to engage customers with their brand and products, using the internet as the primary mediator. Social media has proved to play a...Show moreRecent years have marked the beginning of a new era for businesses to engage customers with their brand and products, using the internet as the primary mediator. Social media has proved to play a pivotal role in providing new ways of customer engagement and encouraging customer’s buying behavior, of which a concept known as “gamification” has grown out to become a global phenomenon. In this thesis I will provide an answer to the question of how the concept of gamification has developed within the Japanese market and for what purposes it is used in contemporary Japan, in both commercial and non-commercial contexts. I will demonstrate how gamification can be used as a mechanism to urge on a user’s intrinsic motivation, by utilizing extrinsically motivating game elements such as rewards. Implementing gamification in a company’s business strategy can be an effective way to engage customers, which then has the potential of establishing new, or strengthening existing relationships. This will be demonstrated based on a variety of examples within the Japanese context, including convenience-store chain Seven-Eleven Japan and Japanese idol group AKB48.Show less
