Gamifying sustainability : A qualitative study on how gamified services can create a sustainable purchase behaviour among women.

Abstract: Gamification, defined as the application of game elements in a non-game environment,has in recent years gained significant influence as a favourable marketing strategy. Gamified services can be found in a variety of markets, ranging from education to wellness, and have the ability to transform low involvement purchases into high ones. Gamification and gamified services have the ability to change consumer behaviour and guide the consumer towards specific favourable behaviours, such as sustainable purchases. Grocery purchases, which can be defined as low involvement purchases, are notoriously difficult to change. We decided to take a closer look at how gamification motivates individuals when making sustainable purchase decisions and limit the thesis to only studying women. This was made with the consideration that women have been reported to be more socially motivated in a gamification process in comparison to men. Women have also reported gaining a higher degree of benefit from the gamification process compared to men. Furthermore, the study will specifically target a specific age range, which we have identified as individuals aged 20-30. Consequently, this thesis aims to answer the following research question: How can the use of gamification motivate women to make sustainable grocery decisions? The purpose of the thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of the motivational aspects of gamification and more precisely understand what motivates women to make sustainable purchase decisions. In order to fulfil our research purpose and question, semi structured interviews using the snowball method have been conducted with 10 respondents. The interviews have been structured into themes in order to sufficiently provide us with relevant answers to our research questions. Moreover, the thesis has been conducted as a qualitative study, which we found to be most suited to answering our research question. Our findings show that information regarding the environmental sustainability of grocery products has an impact on consumers' behaviour when purchasing sustainable products. Findings also show that respondents, ages 20 to 22, in our study reports to show more consideration for social injustices compared to environmental sustainability. Additionally these respondents also reported to be more receptive to gamified services. In conclusion, it proved to be a big difference in how our respondents were motivated in a gamification process, even though the respondent group could be considered homogenous. With these results in mind, the decision was made to provide a figure that described our social reality.