The ZIZO Effect

Ep 1 Game On: Unlocking Gamification

• ZIZO Technologies Inc. • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Welcome to the inaugural episode of The ZIZO Effect podcast, where hosts Andrew Reimers and Jimmy Chebat dive deep into the world of gamification. In this episode, they embark on a journey to unravel the origins and pervasive influence of gamification in our everyday lives. From childhood memories of classic video games to modern-day loyalty programs and fitness apps, Andrew and Jimmy explore how gamification has seamlessly integrated into various aspects of society, driving engagement and motivation.

As they reminisce about iconic games like Super Mario Bros and discuss the evolution of gamified experiences, they highlight its historical roots, tracing back to ancient practices of utilizing game mechanics for survival. With insightful anecdotes and examples, they reveal how gamification has revolutionized industries such as education, retail, and fitness, shaping consumer behavior and fostering loyalty.


Join Andrew and Jimmy as they unpack the essence of gamification, its impact on human behavior, and its role in shaping the future of interactions. Whether you're a seasoned gamer or new to the concept, this episode offers a captivating exploration into the world of gamification and sets the stage for an exciting journey ahead.


Tune in to The ZIZO Effect podcast and get ready to level up your understanding of gamification—it's game time!

Andrew Reimers:

Welcome to The ZIZO Effect podcast, where we talk about all things gamified. On our inaugural episode, we're going to start at the beginning. What is gamification, where did it come from and how has it infiltrated our everyday lives? Get ready, it's game time. Hello and welcome to the ZIZO Effect podcast. My name is Andrew J Reimers, I am your host and with me my co-host, Jimmy Chebat. Jimmy, before we get started, I just want to say congratulations, you made it to the future my man, so did I, and not everybody is that lucky, but here we are. It's 2024, and here we are doing a podcast and I'm really excited.

Jimmy Chebat:

We've been preparing for this for a long time. I'm really glad it's here. I'm excited. This is our inaugural episode, hopefully one of many more to come, so congratulations to you as well, Andrew.

Andrew Reimers:

Well, I appreciate that and I know a lot of people listening and watching are probably wondering what the heck qualifies us to talk about gamification, and I thought it might be kind of cool if we do some introductions for each other. And I'm going to challenge you why don't you go first and let's see what you know about me?

Jimmy Chebat:

I've got it all written down right here, so it should be pretty easy. Well, welcome to Andrew. Andrew, you had quite a journey in your career. You've done so many different things. You were a male carrier. You are a guitarist, a vocalist, a theater actor, so this suits you perfectly. You were a coffee house manager, and one of the most interesting facts that I found about you is your Buffalo's only Johnny Cash impersonator. But I think, really, what each roles taught you all valuable lessons, of course, but it wasn't until your current role as director of customer success here at ZIZO that you've really found your calling, and I know that I speak for everybody in the organization, but also to our customers. You're doing an amazing job and I think that experience is what gives you the credibility here.

Andrew Reimers:

I appreciate that. You're making me blush inside and out.

Andrew Reimers:

And again, this is my co-host, Jimmy Chebat, and you know, jimmy, it's it's an honor to call you a friend, it's an honor to call you a colleague. You are, after all, not just our in-house gamification expert our chief gamification correspondent, if you will but you're a forward thinking entrepreneur man. You're the idea man, you're a visionary, jimmy. You entered the IT world at the age of 19, started your own business yeah, yeah, that's a lot different than what I was doing in 19, but I digress and eventually that led into the accounts receivable world and you opened up some agencies. You had almost 200 employees, which I am proud to say I was one of them.

Andrew Reimers:

This isn't my first time working with you, and currently you are the CEO and founder of ZIZO Technologies, and we're obviously going to dive a lot deeper into that. But you know, I know for a fact, beyond your professional pursuits, you are a devoted family man. I've had a chance to meet your family. They're wonderful. Your son, chase, is great and helps me out so much in my position. But I think what impresses me the most is the amount of joy that you find in nurturing an organization as you do in crafting a product.

Jimmy Chebat:

Yeah.

Andrew Reimers:

It's really an honor to work with you. Thank you To see your vision, to help you see your vision through, and so happy to have you here on the ZIZO Effect podcast. Welcome again, my friend.

Jimmy Chebat:

Appreciate it. And yeah, it's quite a journey. I'm glad to have you on not only the journey of building ZIZO both the product and the organization, but starting the ZIZO Effect podcast. This is going to be fun. I'm excited, let's get into it. Let's get into it.

Andrew Reimers:

So, what better place to start on a gamification podcast than to play a game that we like to call "Name The Game", and what we're going to do here is we have some wonderful producers working with us behind the scenes, Emma and Alex, and they are going to be playing us a song from a video game and we need to guess the video game. Now we're just going to keep track. No money on the line here, or anything like that.

Jimmy Chebat:

Not yet, at least Not yet.

Andrew Reimers:

Yeah, just bragging rights. And then, after we go, we're going to give our audience at home a chance to play along as well about playing another song, but love it, Emma. Alex, why don't you cue up the first song and we'll see who gets it first? Oh, get out of here.

Jimmy Chebat:

Too easy.

Andrew Reimers:

I could say it yeah Super. Mario Brothers Super.

Jimmy Chebat:

Mario.

Andrew Reimers:

Brothers Original Nintendo Entertainment System 1985.

Jimmy Chebat:

Classic.

Andrew Reimers:

I still remember. I mean, one of my earliest childhood memories is Christmas morning, opening up that NES box, getting it plugged in on our little 20 inch TV that barely had color around the corners, and just playing that game. You know, just being five years old and it changed my life.

Jimmy Chebat:

Here's another trivia question, made of a bonus for you. What game came with Super Mario Brothers and the NES?

Andrew Reimers:

Well, if you were rich enough to afford it, you got the dual combo. Duck Hunt yes, super Mario Brothers, I didn't have that one.

Jimmy Chebat:

What was it? A couple extra bucks really right the game with it, with Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. Oh, but you're right, you needed to buy the gun.

Andrew Reimers:

You needed to, yeah, so there was an expansion pack. So now that we've gotten that shame out of the way, maybe we should move on to the next round I was right in your boat. I was a family of six, we shared everything.

Jimmy Chebat:

So, we fought for over that time, that game time on the NES.

Andrew Reimers:

No, it was you know it's so cool and we're going to talk so much more about. You know the history of gaming, obviously, and you know it's really cool where you know it's people in our position who have sort of that analog childhood that slowly turned digital.

Jimmy Chebat:

I wouldn't trade it for today's age.

Andrew Reimers:

I wouldn't I love it.

Jimmy Chebat:

It's such a great experience. Anybody who came from the Gen X generation, maybe the later stage millennials I mean the ex-ennials. I heard it's a new term, nice, I like it. They all experience the 80s, the 90s, I think some of the funnest times, at least from my memory. Of course, the new generation will say different, but in any case we've got another song that we do because. I know.

Andrew Reimers:

See, I can tell I have a feeling in my gut. Everyone at home is watching this right now, yeah, or listening to this, is probably wondering Well, so what? If? Of course, I mean you know, if I know the song, I know the name, you know I named the game Yep, what do I win?

Jimmy Chebat:

Yeah, it's a great question and we've got to make it exciting. It's part of what gamification is. There's got to be some sort of reward for guessing it correctly. So, if you do want to guess, wherever you get your podcast whether you're listening on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube you can get it at our website, at playzizo. com, or wherever you stream your podcast. Also on our socials, we'll be promoting this on Instagram, linkedin, tiktok, youtube. Put your answer in. You'll be put into a drawing. One of our first prizes will be this wonderful, high quality ZIZO hat that, if you want to zoom in there and take a look at that. And then there's going to be many more prizes in the future that will expand upon this.

Andrew Reimers:

But that is limited edition, that is limited edition.

Jimmy Chebat:

It's a great product. It's, it's, it's um. I'm excited to give it away, all right.

Andrew Reimers:

Well, enough talk. Yeah, let's play round two of "name the game. Oh, I know this one. I know this one as well. It is another absolute classic. I have a feeling we're going to get a lot of correct answers on this one. Uh, but my goodness, I mean, uh, forgive the pun. Game changing.

Jimmy Chebat:

Yeah, no, it really really was. For me, it was one of those first role playing games that took a long time. I mean, Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers, was difficult, but this one was challenging to another level and one of the great things that I loved about it and you call you. You said game changing, um, that it was the first game that I recall that even after you completed it, all of the missions, you still had some hidden clues and hidden treasures that you can go back and find, so you can continue playing the game for as long as you wanted. And you know, nowadays all the games are endless, Like there's no real finish to the game, so you can always continue playing it. But the first one that I remember expanded on just the original or completing all of the missions.

Andrew Reimers:

So yeah, classic. We're going to try in the future not to spoil the answer. Hopefully you didn". I mean, there's some clues there.

Jimmy Chebat:

I mean, if you come from our generation, you should have those are, those are our clues. So we'll make it easy this time around, but we'll make more challenging next time.

Andrew Reimers:

Absolutely. So make sure you keep tuning in for every episode. We're going to make it a little bit harder every time and you know, as gamification goes, your expectations and your difficulty level goes up. But what else goes up? Your rewards, and anyway, that's another episode. That's for another episode. So why are we here? Gamification, jimmy. In a nutshell, why don't you tell me the definition? What is gamification?

Jimmy Chebat:

Sure, I mean, I guess, the definition. It's a very simple definition. It's the application of game mechanics to non game tasks. That's as about as simple as you can put it. If I were to expand on it, it's it involves using techniques, like you know currency scoring, competition, rewards to enhance engagement and motivation and various activities. It's about as simple as I could put it.

Andrew Reimers:

Absolutely, and you know we're going to cover so many examples of gamification around us. It's not something you can avoid, even if you tried. But you know I'm not sure that people really understand how long this concept has been around. Now I'll be honest with you. I started working for ZIZO a couple of years ago. I thought gamification was a new term. I honestly thought you invented it.

Jimmy Chebat:

I wish.

Andrew Reimers:

Because I had never thought about it that way. You know, I never worked a job that incorporated it I just I didn't quite understand the concept. But as I began working here, as I began learning and growing here with ZIZO and reading and studying and getting to understand that gamification has been around for a very long time I mean it stretches back further than, like written history, almost.

Jimmy Chebat:

Almost.

Jimmy Chebat:

Yeah, I mean, it goes back to second millennium BC, you know at least the earliest story that I was able to find, and actually that's something that's in the book Reality is Broken by Jane McConagall, which it's an amazing book, one that I recommend to everybody.

Jimmy Chebat:

If you're listening to this podcast, looking for a book to read, Reality is Broken is great insight into the power of gamification and how it could help fix reality.

Jimmy Chebat:

But Jane tells a story about the Lydians that, back in, as I said, the second millennial BC, the society was going through change and they were starving, and the king of the Lydians said hey, we need to, we need to preserve our community. And so he devised a plan where he split society in half and he said to one half like everybody gets to eat every other day, and on the day that you're not eating, you get to play games. And by doing so it distracted them from, of course, the hunger, the starvation that they were going through, and it allowed them to be engaged and distracted by something that was fun and therefore not worry too much about starving to death, right, so? And what that essentially did was cut the consumption of food in half, allowing the Lydians to survive through this famine, so it's a very effective tool that dates back many, many millennia, but it wasn't until modern day that it was given the term gamification.

Andrew Reimers:

Okay. So, that's ancient, ancient history. Obviously I can't imagine going through something. I mean, I can't imagine not eating something for every other hour, let alone every other day, but that so that's really interesting as far as the history goes. But you know, history being what it is, obviously things change over time. Are there more modern historic examples? Is there more modern history, I maybe should say, of gamification in business or in life?

Jimmy Chebat:

Yeah, I mean the most recent modern history that you know you can find is a company called Sperry and Hutchinson who introduced trading stamps as reward for purchases. This was back in 1896. It was the first example of gamification being used in retail. But of course you know you can fast forward to 1979, which is something you know both of us at least I was two years old at the time I'm just dated myself but where airlines in hotels provided frequent flyer mileage. Now you may not look at that and automatically assume, oh, that's gamification, but it's a way to accumulate and people get rewards for accumulating enough miles to get free flights or free hotel rooms.

Jimmy Chebat:

And if I don't know, most people probably know about McDonald's Monopoly right. So when we were growing up, you know you would buy that meal and you'd get a cup and you'd be able to peel that sticker off and collect the different play, the different board pieces from the monopoly game and when you match a grouping you'd get a reward. Or sometimes you would just get a free coffee or free hamburger or free Big Mac, and that one was huge. It got people going to. It was probably one of the most successful recent forms where gamification was implemented to gain, to garner loyalty from you. Know their consumers.

Andrew Reimers:

Oh yeah, and that's, I mean, incredible point. I was dragging my parents to McDonald's multiple times a week while Monopoly was going on in order to try to win that million dollars or try to get a free French fry, or whatever it was. And you know, I love that. And it really brings us to our next point, because we discussed at the top of the episode, you know, ways that gamifications infiltrated our everyday lives. You, you talked about the McDonald's Monopoly. You talked about frequent flyer miles. You know when I think about it. I didn't realize at the time, but there was, you know.

Andrew Reimers:

As you know, we've recently gone through a global pandemic. Everything was shut down. Now I have a son. He's nine years old, and when that happened he was in kindergarten. And you know, I feel really bad for the kids of this generation who missed out, because he missed out on a full year, almost a year and a half, of schooling, and we were doing at home learning. Now there were programs like IXL, raz, kids, brainpop, that was teaching him what he needed to learn, but they were doing it using badges, using rewards, using point streaks, and not only was he learning because I mean, I'm not a dumb guy, but I'm not a teacher and I don't have the patience to be a teacher, I'm going to be honest with you but these programs incentivized him to want to learn more and to want to do better, and I love it because it really helped us through a very, very hard time. That being said, what are some other areas in our lives where we see gamification and we might not even realize it?

Jimmy Chebat:

Yeah, I mean I don't want to just gloss over education, because it's an important part of how you know gamification. Not only is it infiltrating our lives at our current age and our kids' lives, but as early as your kids can hold an iPad, they're using gamification. They're giving them stickers for completing tasks, for watching videos. So, from a conditioning standpoint, it's really important to recognize that we're putting technology in our kids' hands at the earliest age possible and gamification is part of all those applications. But expanding on education, Apple Watch right, if you have an Apple Watch, you're probably familiar with the fitness component of it the rings. Closing the rings, you're able to invite friends and family members to compete. You know, getting your 10,000 steps in Peloton.

Jimmy Chebat:

Peloton is one of my favorite examples of how gamification can completely revolutionize an entire industry, right? I mean, we're talking about a stationary bicycle that was used for the most part as a coat rack. After the first maybe month or two, it's almost like, you know, going to the gym in January, right, everybody's New Year's resolutions. They go to the gym and it's really packed and then after a month, maybe even a couple of weeks even, it starts to die down. Same thing happened with the stationary bicycle.

Jimmy Chebat:

That's what I hear. I don't have any experience with that. You know I'm fortunate here, we get to work out in the gym here at our office. But with the Peloton, you know what was great is it just introduced leaderboards, you know, badges, you know, created that community and that competition and nobody wants to finish last and everybody towards the top wants to race to be number one. And that built a four billion dollar brand with Peloton. But every other fitness app that you can think of Nike, fitbit, they all use gamification in their app to keep people engaged. But beyond that, let's look at retail.

Andrew Reimers:

Okay, starbucks you drink Starbucks, so I'm not a Starbucks guy. I know this. You know we're in Buffalo, new York, basically Canada. I am a Tim Horton's guy, but I similar systems and I think along the same lines of what you're about to say.

Jimmy Chebat:

Yeah, I mean Starbucks is again a very, very, very successful brand and they were quite successful before they implemented the strategy of rewards right Earning. I believe they call them Starbucks again. I'm not a Starbucks drinker either. I'm with you. I'm riding the Tim Horton strain, but my daughter, I mean the pink drink, holy cow. I mean talk about crack. I mean she is, she's one or two a day at least, at least one a day, but in any case. Let's not try to talk about crack too much on this podcast, but that's okay.

Jimmy Chebat:

I mean, it's just an analogy of the addictive qualities of a product and you know part of that is the gamified part, but of course caffeine does does help with that addictiveness. But in any case they they create, you know their loyalty reward points where you're challenged to earn double rewards, triple rewards to get that free drink. And people love that and it's it's. That's just again, another part. I'm sure that you've got some examples of something that you've experienced in your life from a retail standpoint.

Andrew Reimers:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, speaking of Tim Horton's first of all, if they're not called Starbucks, what a missed opportunity. But I think you're right. Yeah, tim Horton's has roll up the rim to win, or at least say they used to. Now it's done on a digital app, but you purchase a coffee and you had a chance to win another coffee, and you know what. It drove so much business for them that the odds were really good. We were going to win a free coffee because they could afford to give it away, one that I'm slightly embarrassed to admit, that I've really bought into Khols. Uh, Khols cash.

Andrew Reimers:

During the holiday season, going to Khols and they incentivize you with free money, nice, and they say here's some Khols cash. All you got to do is come back next week again, spend a little bit of money. Yeah, here's some free $15. And I love that. Um, first of all, with Khols, gamification in itself is just trying to figure out what anything costs in that store. That's its own game, um, but now, no, that was something. And and again, you know, I joke and say I'm a little bit embarrassed about it, mostly because I tease my mom so much about Khols cash. Uh, but I get it and it incentivized me to go back and want to purchase more, because they're giving me a reason to do so and it feels good. It feels like I'm earning something.

Jimmy Chebat:

It's effective. It's. It's highly, highly effective. I don't know. I mean you talk about analog. We come from the analog generation. Uh, the punch cards, right, I mean you go to I don't know that subway originated it, but you would go and get a sub and it'd give you a whole punch In your card and once you've collected, seinfeld did a whole episode Right On it. Uh, with Elaine, where she gave her number away on her subcard. I forget the name of the sub place. I got a card and they stamp it every time I buy a sub. 24 stamps and I become a submarine captain. What is that man? Free sub. I can't believe it. I've lost my atomic sub card. I've eaten 23 bad subs. I just need one more. It's like a long bad movie, but you want to see the end of it Now you walk out All right, then it's like a boring book, but you've got to finish it.

Andrew Reimers:

Oh, you wait for the movie.

Jimmy Chebat:

I want that free Sub, but you get enough punches. You get a free sub and people that it was a challenge Number one to hold onto the card for that long and to get all of the punches and to be able to redeem it for that reward, which is just a free sub. Yeah, and talk about loyalty. You're not getting your subs for anywhere else. You're going back to the same place because you want that punch. So, yeah, a ton of different places.

Jimmy Chebat:

I can guarantee that your life and somebody in your family is engaging and interacting with some form of gamification, at least once a day at the very minimum. You know, if you're learning a language, duolingo, right, every language learning app Rosetta Stone, duolingo I can't think of any of the other ones. They're teaching it my kids as well. You know my kids are now in high school, but they still have the apps that you know in terms of studying. You know that they have the flashcards and they have the trivia and you know they're able because it's a lot easier to retain. You're much more engaged when you're winning something. It's that dopamine rush that you get for winning and you want to repeat that behavior, and one of the things that they do in those apps is they give you the ability to go back and correct your answers and redeem yourself. I think they call them redeem rewards. So it's, it's everywhere it's, it's not just in one place.

Andrew Reimers:

Well, jimmy, in today's episode we talked a lot about gamification and all the ways it's infiltrated our lives from food, fitness, education, even sleep and that's a huge chunk of our lives, but that's not even all of our lives. But we'll dive into that a little bit more because we are not done. On the next episode, we're going to take a deeper dive into the elements and techniques that bring gamification to life and why that even matters. So don't miss out. Thank you for joining us today and remember the game is not over, it's just getting started. Be ready, it's game time.

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Andrew Reimers

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Jimmy Chebat

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