Gamification taps into our innate impulse to play. Practically speaking, it is the application of the game elements such as competition, ranking or scoring into what are traditionally non-gaming contexts. It is also one of the most promising trends in marketing.

In today’s podcast Margee Hocking, head of enterprise accounts for the engagement and gamification platform CataBoom, discusses gamification and how it is being used to level up the effectiveness of today’s marketing campaigns.

Topics include:

• The three elements that every gamification effort should consider.
• How gamification can be integrated into different parts of the marketing funnel.
• Why gamification works across demographics and industry verticals.

In this podcast MaryLeigh Bliss, Chief Content Officer at YPulse, maps out the landscape that surrounds the intersection of fashion, social media and young consumers. She shares where trends originate, how they are amplified and why “dress for success,” might just start to involve sweats.

Topics include:

• The social platforms influencing Gen Z and Millennial style discovery.
• Why TikTok’s unique algorithm further democratizes fashion and elevates the importance of hashtags.
• How IRL choices and social feed outfits diverge (and why this expands the opportunities available for brands).

In today’s podcast Alyssa Gelbard discusses personal branding, older job hunters and how to approach the third act of your career.

Topics include:

• The truth about ageism – and what you can do about it.
• How senior level job hunters should their approach their job search.
• The importance of LinkedIn and how to leverage it to your advantage
• The words you need to remove from your resume and emails.

Alyssa Gelbard is the Founder and CEO of Point Road Group, a unique branding firm that helps companies make better brand impressions through their people. Point Road Group, a woman-owned and woman-led company, also strengthens personal brands of executives to support a job or board search.

Leading a talented team that advises diverse companies, executives and board directors,

Alyssa is passionate about strategically improving brand impressions to drive business and

career success. She is an expert and frequent speaker on personal branding, LinkedIn, communications and marketing yourself for a board seat.

People compare themselves with other people. It’s human nature.

Today we’re speaking with Professor Jing Xu about how these comparisons with others impact people’s subsequent purchasing decisions. 

Our conversation explores the different feelings elicited by upward and downward comparisons, the mechanisms that drive these feelings, the subsequent impact of these comparisons and the factors that modify these outcomes.

Topics include:

• The difference between competence and warmth-oriented products.
• The two fundamental needs that are activated when people compare themselves to others.
• How a brand might operationalize this insight into human behavior.