If you are not already aware of it, you will be soon. It seems the Pokemons are back and they’ve literally taken over the world. Again. This time with an augmented reality game.
What is especially inspiring about this takeover is that they are not spending bucketloads of money on traditional app advertising like Clash of Clans, Mobile Strike, etc, but somehow within 3 days of since their July 6 launch, they’ve got everyone talking about them, sharing real life stores, and spreading organically like wildfire.
I’ve read stories such as
Today, I was driving with my little brother when out of nowhere he yelled at me to stop. Thinking it was urgent, I slammed my breaks, almost getting rammed from behind. Why did he yell for me to stop? The Pokémon GO said there was a sparrow near us.
Pokemon Go put me in the ER last night,” read one post on the Pokemon Go subreddit. “Not even 30 minutes after the release last night, I slipped and fell down a ditch,” said the Reddit user. “Fractured the fifth metatarsal bone in my foot, 6-8 weeks for recovery. I told all the doctors I was walking my dog
I think the key lesson for entrepreneurs is that we are beginning to see the end of traditional digital advertising and the true emergence of what social viral advertising, where the creative (i.e. ad) is dynamic, native, and value driven, and the distribution is largely or completely crowd sourced. I for one am looking deeply into how this particular execution is unfolding and hope to learn some valuable lessons from the orchestrators i.e geniuses behind it.
So who’s going to lose out in this new world order?
Those that rely on massive billboard and TV budgets.
Those CMOs that are not judged by their ROI and who think a multi-million naira marketing budget is the key to success.
That Pokemon GO is going to be the app of the year is increasing indisputable. What is more interesting is to observe its impact on digital marketing in the years to come.
Interesting analysis. However let’s not discount the massive brand that is Nintendo/Pokémon. I wonder if a fledgling business/brand that is not as well known would have enjoyed the same marketing success?
All great marketing start with the development of a great product. A product that understands the customer requirements so well it sells itself.
As the described “father of modern management”, Peter Trucker said:
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
Nintendo seems to have understood its target market well. And made good use of its experience in game design to create a great product.
The game does seem to provide a great immersion experience. Again, a great product will always sell itself without too much effort.
But the company went further to create a great adverting video. One that has all the elements of virality. It did go viral as they hoped.
I have talked about creating virality in this radar thread. There is no guarantee with virality. It could catch on or not.
That makes it difficult to rely on solely as a marketing tool.
It’s best when it’s integrated with other marketing tools as part of a multichannel strategy.
I think every marketing tool has its role to play depending on your:
Target audience
Product type
Marketing capability
Resources at your disposal
Analysis of your peculiar situation. Your set goals based on such situation. And your strategy/plan of action to reach such goals more than anything else determines the success of your marketing. Starting with a great product of course.
Lastly, I think that any marketing not backed by a measurable effort to make a good ROI will lose in this new world order.
Whilst the brand awareness is a plus, I think the quality of their execution is the main driver here. Most people that were part of the first Pokemon wave 20 years ago are in their late teens or grown-up, and since the target demographic is largely the same, they are essentially trying to win new users that don’t have a strong historical and emotional affinity to the brand.
This. The product-market fit is so good that as you read and watch all the stories, videos, and forum discussions emerge in such an organic way, it starts to work on you in a subliminal and eerie way even if your sceptical marketing antenna is well-tuned. I know it was all orchestrated but I can’t help but be impressed by how effective it is. It’s almost like a Jedi mind trick.
I wonder if there are any similar executions in Nigeria. The big brands all seem to spend shitloads of money to gain market share yet it all seems so fleeting. Jumia and Konga - I’m looking at you. I won’t even touch on the obscene amounts that Etisalat and MTN have spent.
Digital advertising maybe evolving in advanced countries like US but certainly not in countries like Nigeria for now. The Pokemon stuff it’s an interesting concept, I think it’s still too early to speculate it has been the future of digital advertising.
What’s “advanced” about it isn’t the tech being used. If anything, the new order is remarkably low tech. If anything, it is bridging the gap between technology and behavioural sciences i.e. sociology and psychology. The skills that make it work so beautifully, whilst exceptionally rare, are universally applicable so Nigeria is no exception.
In the history of the Apple App Store, Angry Birds holds the record for most days at the top of the Paid Apps chart, having spent a total of 275 days at the No.1 position; Angry Birds Rio has been No.1 for a total of 23 days, ranking ninth on the list.[87]
@techscorpion I agree but how does Nigeria benefit from this?, I don’t know in detail how the Pokemon GO stuff works but seem to rely on location based technology, which is an untapped technology as far as Nigeria is concerned. So my emphasis on advanced countries is based on the notion that location based advert delivery technology which you highlighted will be more practicable, applicable to countries like US than African countries like Nigeria. I am not ruling out the future but for now, Nigeria is an exception to the new order.
I think we are talking about two different things. The tech I referred to as low-tech and universally applicable is the advertising technology they are ostensibly using because instead, they have focused primarily on stimulating emotional bias (through a unique and fun gameplay experience) and social proof (through the countless organic reviews that are popping up).
The actual mechanics of their augmented reality and location targeting technology in the product has a tangential impact on the virality of Pokemon GO. After all, Google has launched augmented reality products in the past, Oculus has state of the art VR technology, but none has made such an emotional impact as the Pokemon GO launch.
The impact on Nigeria will probably occur when the first truly viral product launches and disrupts a local industry. It’s then that Nigeria’s famous copy-cat culture will force many boards to ask their CMOs strong questions as to how why they have to spend so much money in comparison to the upstarts.
IMHO, medtech and fintech are two emerging industries that are very likely to create a disruptive influence using social viral marketing. It’ll definitely require new thinking though.
Exactly, Jumia and Konga have very terrible Customer Service and a bad Customer Experience, the issue is they treat it as a department rather than a culture of the company.
Fixing Order issues and how they process orders and inform their clients
Product Quality and Pricing Mechanism.
Experience from Checkout to delivery
How they answer clients, crisis management, resolution of angry clients,
On the contrary, it’s quite OK to plaster your site with ads if you have the traffic comprised of Nigerian users. I just concluded business with Linda and the advert rate is another topic on its own. Maybe you will be right in 10 years but for now…
On the original topic,
I envy their marketing brilliance. The safety concerns tho…
It achieved its purpose. Like you said, right now, advertisers are willing and ready to spend. hence, plastering your popular site with ads works right now. We may not like it but it does. Yes, I am also baffled why you can blind users with ads in 2016 and still get away with it but it works. As techpreneurs, we need to forget about techcrunch/silicon valley and adapt to what works in our environment.
Blog Header Ad (728 x 90) 1,000,000 a month. she usually has about 3 when she is not being greedy and there are other ad spaces.
Just to clear, and I’m not interested in precise numbers, assuming you were charged N1mln for a month for that ad, are you confirming that you measured at least N1mln + N0.01 in profit?
Your answer will be very helpful to a lot of people reading this. Thanks.
I took that out of the list that was sent to me. I nor get power to post everything. I did the sponsored post just recently and it was for brand recognition which is paying out quite well. I can’t draw up a profit and loss statement for that. I got the brand recognition, subscribers and downloads I projected for.
Now, If I was selling some fake T-shirts/Penile enlargement pill/bleaching creams/waist trainers, I will be able to give you a profit and loss statement at the end of the month. Just not in two days. Unfortunately, I don’t deal that way.
I am just showing you that
“Its OK to plaster your site with ads” and it pays currently
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the koko of the oro!. If you can manage to get the Nigerian audience, blast them with ads, it’s ok and it currently pays too
Life can be very interesting when you study the market and not rely on Techcrunch for business advice to be applied in the jungle. What do the people want? X. Then bloody well give them X and you can get away with placing 5 horizontal banner headers Ontop each other (5 Million a Month)
And to you, you feel people want splashy ads? Remember they go there for content, so if another company comes up with better content n smarter ad targeting they will win, just to make a point, Pulse.ng launched few yrs back n Naij and have seriously eaten into LIB and others Marketshare, its just a matter of time before people get their gossips from other sources without the Ads blaring them in the face.
OP used Go to emphasize the latest trend in marketing, virality and Ad Targeting via Augumented Reality, for how long do we hv to keep being backwards in how we run Ad Platforms?
