Pokémon? Go figure … Gamifying engagement
It probably won’t surprise anyone that I was NOT one of the hundreds of millions of people who got swept away in the whole Pokémon Go thing last summer. If you would have told me a year ago that you were looking for Pikachu, I probably would have said, “God bless you.… Now what are you looking for?”
But with some 600 million downloads in all, and roughly 25 million active daily users at its peak, Pokémon Go might as well be a Harvard Business School case study of how augmented reality, virtual reality and game-ification are changing the way brands engage with consumers. If retailers and CPG companies pay close attention, Pokémon Go offers some fresh ideas on how to drive consumers to their stores and to their brands, including:
Retail-tainment. As brick and mortar continues to struggle to find its place in a post-omnichannel world, the experience of shopping the store has to change. Retailers must find a way to make it fun. Hunting for Pikachu could drive an awful lot of traffic into an awful lot of stores — particularly, millennials who tend to favor online and mobile over in-store.
Health-and-wellness engagement. According to Mashable, Pokémon Go players had, collectively, walked 5.4 billion miles by December — that’s roughly 200,000 trips around the world. During the first week of Pokémon Go usage, “activity increase was significant — a boost of 955 steps, or an estimated 11 minutes of additional walking a day,” according to a December 13 Scientific American article, citing a recent study published in the British Medical Journal. While that study concluded that the increased activity was short-lived, it is important to note that although the game requires users to physically move around to collect points, fitness was not necessarily the endgame — but it could have been.
On a completely separate note, this issue of DSN features a fresh new look for 2017, designed to be easier to read and navigate, and to deliver more insight in every page. New features include The Takeaway — a candid, one-on-one discussion each month with an executive in our industry.
Why? We often say retailing is a “people business,” but what do we really know about the people in it?
The Takeaway is NOT about business; it’s about the people behind the business. It’s about life, leadership and the people, places and things that inspire the very best in all of us everyday.
This month, we feature NACDS president and CEO Steve Anderson — just one month shy of his 10th anniversary in chain pharmacy.
Got someone we should feature? Drop me an email at [email protected] — I want to know what you think.