Upamanyu Acharya
In the time you spent chasing that “rare” Doduo, businesses across the world have figured out a way to extract the popularity of Pokémon Go to its full potential. Here’s how they’re doing it.
What makes Pokémon Go special?
It gets people moving to specific locations
The amount of value businesses place in getting people to travel to exactly where they want is staggering. Imagine if ad agencies could get you to walk to the exact place in a prominent plaza to get you to see their billboard. Or if they could lure you into walking into a coffee shop on your way to the subway. With Pokémon Go companies and even local businesses don’t have to spend much time and resources in getting at least a small percent of the population (still a huge amount of people) playing Pokémon to step inside their business. It’s already happening in restaurants, bars and clothing stores, which either have constant lures in them, or have been turned into a gym.
Connecting with your customers
There’s nothing like a business using what you like to sell things to you. Yesterday T-Mobile launched a plan to give free Pokémon Go data for a year. Net-neutrality violations aside, this move means that even the biggest companies in the world are eyeing Pokémon Go with $$$ in their eyes.
If you haven’t started playing Pokémon Go and want to get in on the action, we have just the quick guide for you. Everything you need to get started with Pokémon Go.
Of course, it’s not specific to big companies or small businesses. These group of guys decided that they could earn some quick cash by helping out fellow trainers.
The park had 50+ people last night. these guys are genius. from pokemongo
Catering to individual teams
Part of the genius of Pokémon Go is that it incorporates a system that builds pride with team affiliations. The three teams, Team Mystic, Team Valor and Team Instinct have distinct rivalries with one another. This enhances the social aspect of the game but also provides an opportunity for businesses to leverage this added point of contention.
Pokemon Go is a serious threat to companies like Foursquare and Groupon, who are being left behind if they don’t innovate in the field of Online Marketing. The true disrupter it turned out to be, as the app is able to boost sales in locations by as much as 75% through spending a few dollars on Lures. Is Pokémon Go itself just a fad? Maybe. But it’s so immensely popular right now that it makes sense for businesses to hop on to the bandwagon. As businesses are investing, they’re also saving those stocks. To learn about business banking, check out sites like wecu.com/business-banking/.
