Abstract

Even though many industries have started utilizing gamification in their product buying journeys (Deterding et al. 2011), most of them remain unsuccessful in achieving their marketing objectives (Behl et al. 2024). Believing that a straitjacket set of game elements (e.g., points, badges, leaderboards) are enough to generate desired marketing outcomes is a strong reason for this resultant failure (Liu et al. 2017). To entice and appeal to system users, it is vital to build gamification elements that align with their individual preferences. The employment of game design elements within a system is highly contextual in nature, significantly dependent upon the motivational needs and characteristics of the user group (Hamari et al. 2014). Consequently, in our industrial context, we aim to determine the game design elements that can befit within motivational structures of engaging the mobile app consumers in m-commerce, specifically beauty apps of five different countries. For achieving this objective, we have mainly relied upon the User type Hexad, given that it is particularly suitable for identifying game elements in non-gaming contexts in relation to other frameworks specific in video gaming contexts. Typically, the effects of game design elements are only known when they have been analysed in the information system over a period of time (Hamari et al. 2014). Therefore, an event study through systematic mapping spanning over two weeks delineates the significance of including game mechanics which motivate free-spirited, socializer and philanthropist player types to reinforce buying behaviors, app stickiness and loyalty throughout their buying journey. The findings discuss how game designers and marketing managers can collaborate to introduce different game elements throughout the buying journey based on the stages (i.e., discovery, onboarding, scaffolding, and endgame) that users encounter on the gamified app, rather than embedding all of the game elements at the same time, as well as the importance of consumers' cultural dispositions in making gamification a successful marketing strategy.

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