“12k for burger?”. This was my reaction when I saw the prices of the famous Jazzy’sBurger online. So, I was curious and went ahead to download the application from the Appstore. I must say, pretty simple interface and interaction. Alas! the prices matched the online prices, it was not a system glitch. Hahaha.
Surprisingly, something else caught my attention. I noticed a “trophy” logo just at the extreme right of the navigation bar. “What’s that?”, I thought to myself. Once again, curiosity won and I just had to click on the icon to find out what it was. It was a leaderboard! A leaderboard of burger buyers! Steven was on top of the table with 930,500 naira. “Wait.. what??” You mean to tell me that Steven has spent close to a million on burgers? “People get money o” probably resonated in my mind a million times.
So I began to think about the psychology behind this feature. “Why did they implement this?”, “Did it increase sales?”, “Is it just for the fun of it?”. Those were some of the questions that sprung up. Alas! I could only attribute it to something very peculiar, CLASS! Oh no! not JSS3 class, I mean SOCIETAL CLASS. Why do you want to be Duolingo’s no. 1? Because you’d get to post it on your social media platforms, probably brag about it amongst your peers and attain a level of societal class in that regard. Sweet cheery on top of that, you actually got to learn.
So, in order to attain that class, you keep playing to keep that spot. I mean, learning becomes FUN at that point!
This is the same psychology Jazzy’sBurger implemented. They know humans are wired to want to attain some sort of societal class, and what better way to fully be shown than on a popular app. Really smart move, because say I was 2nd with just 35,000 naira separating me from the top spot. I’d definitely be persuaded to have a weekend hangout with 10 of my guys at my home, order 10 burgers (approximately 125,000) and claim the top spot. Everyone wins in this situation. I get to spend quality time with my guys, munch on some nice burger, Jazzy’sBurger makes sales and to top it all up, I get to claim the top position.
The now-second customer sees this change and is furious because I mean, he just boasted to his girlfriend that he claims the top spot in Nigeria. He’s also persuaded to get burgers that’d get him back to his reign. The cycle goes on and on and Jazzy’sBurger keeps smiling to the bank. They’ve successfully turned buying burgers to a game. And I mean, who doesn’t love a good game?
And yeah, there are those who don’t even want the top spot but just want to be on the leaderboard (top 10). I’m sure Jazzy’sBurger runs prompts to the 11th customer like “You’re almost there!. You’re just 15,000 away from the 10th on the leaderboard”. This model has pretty much worked for them because in such a short time of launching, someone has spent close to a million naira on burgers. Still de burst my head!
Having to predict how users would perceive some features or implementations can be very vital in making your product as successful as you imagined. For me, I’d say this was a nice implementation!
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