PlayTMN's gamified interactions promise radical results

The company, which installs touchscreen devices right at the location where consumers make purchasing decisions, launched in Singapore in December 2013.

By displaying interactive apps based on gamified branded experiences, founder Julian Corbett hopes to change the way brands operate. According to Corbett, consumers are changing, and while brands are talking to this new audience in a relevant manner online, they have done little to translate this to the store level. “Media space on location is of vital importance and is a game-changer for brands,” Corbett said.

While Corbett admits that similar things have been attempted in the past, he argued that his product is compelling for a couple of reasons. “It speaks to consumers in a language and content format that they enjoy,” he said, noting that games are the number one content consumed on smartphones. “It corresponds to what people seek out, and we have been fortunate to see them choose and engage with this content.”

For brands, the offering provides an opportunity to talk to the audience and get its attention at the most important touchpoint. Few media interactions deliver this kind of engagement, memorization, affinity and purchase intent, he said. “The fact that it happens to be five metres away from their product is a big win for brands.”

One of the first campaigns the company designed for Unilever was a campaign for Lifebuoy. The campaign used the front-facing camera on the company's tablet-like device to prompt shoppers to swipe away at germs—providing a Kinect-like experience. The experience directly echoed a TV campaign that Unilever had been running.

“PlayTMN interactive media space is a truly scalable solution for engaging customers at point of purchase in exciting new ways," said Suzanne Arfelt, director of marketing for Unilever. "We are thrilled to have pioneered this in last few months with them."

PlayTMN collects data on an ongoing basis. This includes knowledge of where the display is, what consumers are engaged on and how long they are engaging for. The company also provides analytics broken out by store, type of location, hour of the day, which brands consumers are interacting with and how rewards are changing the level of engagement.

To date, on a network of 200 screens across Guardian stores in Singapore, PlayTMN has clocked more than 160,000 engagements per month, with each lasting about 57 seconds, the company claimed. Consumers completed 75 per cent of the experiences they started.

Corbett said he is now working with a wide range of leading brands and retailers across Asia ahead of a large scale roll-out.  The company sees relevancy of the platform anywhere there is an audience, including malls, airports, health and beauty stores and supermarkets. It can also be used for luxury brands across a host of locations.