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Brands with longer sales cycles have grappled with how to leverage social media to maintain meaningful engagement with potential customers. The purchasing decision process for a residential solar energy system is squarely in this dilemma. Home solar installations have become a more understood product in recent months, and solar industry experts such as Ucilia Wang of Forbes have noted that solar manufacturers are making consumer marketing a priority as consumers become more interested in solar as a viable option for their home.

For most homeowners, the considerations around whether or not to buy a solar system can be daunting. From understanding a timeline for ROI, to appearance, to maintenance, the list of factors to weigh when considering a solar energy installation can be intimidating.With this in mind, SunPower has just launched the Solar Discovery Game as a means to help homeowners better understand the history of solar, mechanics behind the technology as well as the various opportunities a home installation can provide.

The Solar Discovery Game is hosted on Facebook as a completely custom built game, using a SunPower branded Google Maps interface to present solar trivia questions designed to promote solar education and energy awareness. The game supports ongoing engagement by allowing players to earn “badges” for unlocking achievements. These badges can be published to Facebook friends via wall posts as they progress throughout the experience. The game also leverages Facebook Connect to show a custom leaderboard of just your Facebook friends to drive some friendly competition. Each week, SunPower will add new questions to answer, many of which are based on common misconceptions found in solar conversations online that have surfaced over the last year.

By playing, you can win the grand prize of a complete SunPower solar energy system worth up to $25,000 and will be entered to win more than 60 featured prizes, including plane tickets, video cameras, gift cards, event tickets, SunPower gear, and much more! In addition to offering prizes, we are collaborating with SunPower partners to develop unique questions, which will be placed on the map during the contest.

Come play the Solar Discovery Game, and let us know what you think! The game will run throughout the summer, from June 21 to September 14.We’re also looking for you to get involved! Tell us what questions you’d like to see in the game. Also, we’re still accepting partners if you’d like to promote your sustainability efforts, feel free to get in touch. Happy exploring!

Disclosure: SunPower is an Ogilvy client.

I recently attended Facebook’s first studio conference held in New York City in May, 2011. The conference offered an interesting look at Facebook’s culture and how success can be achieved through sharing. Several enthusiastic presenters spoke regarding Facebook’s marketing strategies and the culture for the company.  However, the session that intrigued me the most was “Social by Design” by Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s Vice-President of Global Sales.

Ms. Everson talked about how the capability to share is perhaps the most significant ingredient in making a design successful. She mentioned two particular case studies that resonated with me since I am a gamer and love the World Cup: 1) EA Halo vs. Zynga Farmville and 2) Nike’s 2010 World Cup advertising.

EA Halo is one of the top games for Microsoft’s XBOX and generates millions of dollars in revenue.  In addition, EA spends millions of dollars on creating the best graphics with cutting-edge technology for Halo. On the other hand, Zynga’s Farmville graphics are much simpler. But as Ms. Everson rightly noted, there are far more people playing Farmville than Halo. (Farmville has over 57 million players.)  In fact, Zynga has recently been valued at $8 billion by Bloomberg, which is more than the value of EA. The main reason that Zynga has been able to be so successful is that Farmville was built to share.

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Late one night on Twitter last month, a tweet from Jane McGonigal- gaming advocate and researcher extraordinaire-caught my eye. “Only 8 more hours to submit your entry to STAY OVERNIGHT at the New York Public Library & play my new game! http://game.nypl.org” I was intrigued, to say the least. I navigated towards the site and ended up submitting my application to participate in an incredibly unique game and first-of-its-kind event. When I received my acceptance via DM a few weeks later to Find The Future: Write All Night, I was ecstatic.

On Friday May 20^th, 500 nerds, librarians, gamers, history buffs and maybe even a LARPer or two gathered at the New York Public Library to take part in an all night digital scavenger hunt throughout the library’s archives and exhibition halls. This multi-platform, multi-player game designed by McGonigal, served as the launch event for a larger media campaign celebrating the library’s 100 year anniversary.

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Definition: Badge fatigue – noun. c. May 2010

• a reduction in the effectiveness of mobile loyalty programs that use status or icons as incentives
• being so over the idea that you’ll be rewarded with some intangible thingy for identifying yourself as a fan

About a year ago, the discussion around “badge fatigue” began. Fans and followers were starting have trouble seeing through the clutter of countless gaming programs that offered incentives. So, plans were hatched to reinvigorate the model before it became another fad.

In the initial format, a user was given the incentive to go to an establishment because he or she would be rewarded with an intangible prize: a title (e.g. “mayor” Foursquare or royalty titles on Yelp!) or an icon (e.g. “badges” on Foursquare or “pins” on Gowalla). Users competed with their friends and unknown competitors to get the best status and personal gratification. As users achieved higher status and left check-in competitors in the dust, they got an even greater incentive: a discount or something for free.  This discount wasn’t targeted to the individual’s tastes specifically, but more so, whoever got the reward first.

The model grew and companies began to experiment; people gained VIP access to parties (Internet Week 2010) and points for existing rewards programs (Top Guest). And this is where we stand today – with a lot of great experiments, but also a lot of clutter.

So, what will happen next?

There seem to be three (somewhat nebulous) schools of thought:

1. We continue along the same lines with this gamification model that has a broad reach, because, in all honesty, it has worked. These indicators of status in the “game” continue to get people in to the cash register even without targeted (and often intangible) incentive. (Note: Some are questioning the impact on business)
2. We move on. Since the market is becoming saturated with these types of programs, it is worth the effort to focus efforts elsewhere.  “Call me crazy, but I say that Foursquare badges go the way of POGS, Tamagotchis, and Farmville – interesting ideas that captivated our attention for a time, but ultimately lost out,” hypothesizes Colin Slasheimer.
3. We repurpose and rebuild these programs a highly relevant, laser-focused marketing tool. Two examples of how this can happen include finding a way to hyper-locate down to the layout of a store or revaluating how the data is used (see pilot launched by Foursquare).

I fall in the third group. I want to be found where I already need to go and told about specifically what I want with hyper-relevant offers. I want to check into the toothpaste aisle of the drug store, and be told what toothpaste brand sale right now.  (Ok, I know this probably isn’t possible right now, but could be pretty cool.)  If I go to the hairdressers, I want to come across an incentive in 3 months when I need my next haircut, instead of right when I check-in.

So, what do you think?  Have we jumped the shark?

Who among us does not enjoy a good social experiment? As you have probably heard by now one of the themes rising out of this year’s SXSWi is the importance of game mechanics and how people engage when a game layer is added to community.

Seth Priebatsch of scvngr.com ended his presentation with a little social experiment that was a great illustration of how the game layer can bring people together. As we entered the auditorium everyone was handed one of two cards that were color coded.

One card was blue on one side and green on the other while the other card was gold on one side and orange on the other. As Seth wrapped up his presentation he announced he was launching a social experiment. The challenge: Without getting out of your seat, work with the people on your row to determine what color card your row was going to be and then negotiate from your seat to get the color card you needed. He gave us a time frame and if we made the time his company would donate $10,000 to a charity. He counted us down and the game began.

On my row and the rows around me, we had several empty seats and while you would think it made it easier to choose a color it was actually harder to communicate. As the game began, each person was created equal because each person in the auditorium was working toward their own goal as well as making their row or team reach their goal - celebrity status did not matter. Quickly, my row decided we would go green, and then the race was on to use our influence to negotiate with the rows and people around us to trade cards so that each person on my row had a green card. We quickly determined how many “greens” we needed and then went about making the necessary trades to secure green cards. The process was exhilarating and challenging and at the end of about 150 seconds, Seth called time and asked each row to hold up their cards.

Personally, I was concerned as I found myself wanting to win and for the charity to win. As we all held up our cards, much to I think everyone’s surprise, we (meaning the entire auditorium of 2,500 people) had accomplished the goal. Each row had come together and worked not just with the people on their row, but also the rows around them. It was quite a moment; 150 seconds and 2,500 people had come together and made the experiment a success.

So why am I so energized by this experiment? I think there are several reasons:

-    While Seth’s presentation was interesting I think his point was made stronger through the “game.”
-    The experiential side of this exercise made it more powerful; this was experiential learning at its best. One of the guys sitting next to me commented that he never thought he would fall for game mechanics but as soon as the challenge was on – he was all in to win.
-    Your influence comes with accountability and responsibility and you never know when you will need to exercise it. Someone sitting in front of me had a minor kerfuffle and I noticed as we started the experiment it took his row longer to embrace him. I could not help but find myself wondering if he was wishing he had made different choices about how he joined that row.

In the end, I think Seth did a great job of proving his point that a game layer not only breeds participation but that it can breed cooperation. However, I also find it troubling that the game layer is what motivates people to come together. I’ll admit the gaming made it more fun but is that what we are becoming as a community? Do we need a game to work together?

This past weekend, the New York Times published an article, “Will Zynga Become the Google of Games?” in which author Miguel Helft weaved together the components of every great start-up story: a confident visionary, early doubters, copycat competition, eventual success, and the forward-looking, “What’s next?”

While I enjoyed reading his article and am pleased games are getting the attention they deserve, the information mainstream journalists present their readers on the topic can be misleading.  Often this is because they’re comparing apples to oranges, restating known facts, or asking extremely broad and generic questions.

In an effort to create a clearer picture, here are three points the reader should know:

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The World Cup, the biggest sporting event in the world, is quickly approaching. Starting June 11^th, 32 teams representing different countries from around the world will compete for the soccer title that has been given every four years since 1930 (with an exception of 1942 and 1946 due to WWII). But 2010 is a particularly special and relevant year. Why, you ask? Because of social media!

Social Media as we know it did not exist during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Twitter did not launch until July 2006. Facebook didn’t become public until September 2006. YouTube existed but videos looked like this #6 most popular YouTube video of 2006. Now, only 4 years later, Facebook has over 400 million members and more than 50 million tweets are sent each day. These platforms, which were infants during the last World Cup, are now globally available and hugely popular.

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Last week was chock full of announcements that changed the landscape in the ever-evolving partnership between brands, social networks, and game developers.
A few of the more intriguing story lines were:

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Nate Ralph of Wired was on to something when he wrote in a 2008 article, “…there’s a largely untapped market that enjoys having fun, but can’t be bothered with system requirements or even plugging something into their TV.”

With Zynga, creator of FarmVille, recently valued at $4 billion dollars and established game companies such as Electronic Arts jumping on board, games are becoming a legitimate interactive social channel for the masses.

Why Would Your Brand Consider Partnering With A Social Game?

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Day 2 of TED2010 covered everything from suspended animation in humans to the need for better democratic argument in our society.  What continues to be top of mind, however, are issues of id and identity.  These were touched on in some way by 4chan founder Christopher “moot” Poole, game designer Jan McGonigal, and multiple demos from both Google and MSFT.

4chan is an insanely popular and prolific anonymous imageboard that has no memory or archive - threads are deleted after a few days.  While I don’t know what the causal relationship is, obscenity, porn, and rage run rampant in the environment of anonymity and inpermanence.  Is it a collective online id?  If you could say or post whatever makes you feel good regardless of how it will make you look or impact reputation, who would you be online? Maybe, but its not entirely bad - the community has come together and organized to do everything from protest scientology to using online tools to find and punish a board member who uploaded a video of abusing his cat.  The community even organized to game Time.com’s voting system for 100 most influential people and got their founder a #1 berth. Now, “moot” is afraid that the coming specter of universal online identity will make havens like 4chan an endangered species.
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