Advertising is dead. So how to you reach your elusive, media-cynical, social media-obsessed customers? With games. Game-Based Marketing makes professionals aware of how pervasive games are today, how large a role they are playing in business marketing, and how to better use "funware" to create an engaged and loyal customer base.

Get into game-based marketing . . . and play to win!

TV advertising has "jumped the shark." Online advertising and marketing promises to fill the gap, but despite enthusiasm for buzz-generation and the value of social networks, no one has outlined a workable marketing model that actually leads to reliable revenue . . . until now.

Written by videogame innovator and entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann and writer Joselin Linder, Game-Based Marketing explores "Funware," a new model for incorporating and leveraging games and game mechanics to reach today's customers. Behaviorally based, Funware will give you strategic insight into the deep-seated impulses and habits that drive our socially networked marketplace.

In this groundbreaking guide, you'll discover which game-based marketing programs have already generated millions in revenue and produced the world's most loyal and engaged customers. You'll get a firsthand look at how this powerful approach applies to the new world of social media. Most importantly, you'll see how to create game-based marketing plans that measurably increase both sales and profits.

Game-Based Marketing gives you practical guidance on adding games and gaming concepts to your marketing toolbox, including:

• How to cut through the media noise to use games more effectively
• Why "free to play" designs are irresistible to customers and lead to long-term revenue
• How to leverage the passive games people are playing every day without even realizing it
• How to create virtual economies and link them to your real-world business objectives
• Who the different types of gamers are, and how to reach them—even when they're not "intentionally playing"
• How to use games internally to motivate employees and boost sales
• How to find the best game-based techniques for communicating with youth markets
• And much more

Filled with case studies from leading brands such as NBC, United Airlines, the U.S. Army, and more, Game-Based Marketing examines how Funware delivers results today and will be an integral marketing channel tomorrow. Use the tools in this book to reinvent your marketing strategy, or you might be out of the game altogether.