Serious play practises and the creation of the brand. An analysis of effects of serious play methods among all stakeholder involved.

Abstract

Having a brand strategy today is no longer an opportunity but a necessity to be able to be competitive in increasingly global markets. Branding, a concept as important for all companies as it is difficult and complex to build effectively, seems to be an insurmountable obstacle for Italian companies, especially small and medium-sized ones. This has quite a negative impact, leading companies to remain in the shadows. Starting from the literature on branding, I decided to tackle this problem of building a brand in support of a Sicilian company operating in the renewable energy sector "F.E.R. S.r.l.", whose identity is completely doublelinked to the reputation of the people who work there. The objective of this thesis is to determine how it is possible to create a brand for small and medium-sized enterprises where company culture and communication are almost non-existent, and to analyse the beneficial effects of serious play methods adapted to brand building. Several questions were asked on how to involve all the members of a company who are not used to internal dialogue and know little about the theory of branding, to build from the inside and, above all, to understand once and for all the mission, the values, culture and have a clear vision for the future. After several searches, I came across gamification and serious play, which immediately fascinated me. Deepening both concepts, I decided to find something that would make business meetings more effective and efficient by involving everyone, while transmitting complex notions, such as branding, at the same time. "Ain't a Game Ltd" - a company founded by players, which is providing advice to accelerate innovation and growth of companies - has created gamified tools, which can answer my questions. After examining the literature on branding and gamification, using the "action-research" methodology, several meetings took place within the company. It was not easy, especially in the first meetings because theoretical knowledge was almost non-existent among the members of the company, the vision was somewhat self-referential, the company's reputation linked exclusively to the people who work there, and the only communication happened mainly by word of mouth. However, after several bounces between theory, practice and the implementation of serious play, together with the participants it was possible to create the business brand, avoiding long boring days of brainstorming and managing to keep the participation high.