Pokémon GO: Game-Changing Game Or High-Tech Pet Rock?

A little over 40 years ago, the Pet Rock was a national phenomenon.

The Pet Rock was the brainchild of an advertising executive sitting in a bar and listening to his friends complain about their pets. Gary Dahl suddenly realized something: The rock was the perfect pet. It was obedient, neat, quiet and cute, in a certain sense.

And while Dahl is not the first person to come up with an out-of-the-box idea while drinking at a bar, he is one of the few with the drive and previous experience in marketing to actually invent a “Pet Rock.” Dahl’s guess was that with some clever branding, cute packaging and a clever enough pitch, the Pet Rock would soon be a national sensation.

The shocking thing, from the point of view of history, is that Dahl turned out to be absolutely right.

For a brief window between 1975 and 1976, the rock was soon the pet that everyone wanted to have. Millions of units were sold, Dahl made a lifetime’s worth of profits and many rocks found good homes.

But by Spring of ’76, Americans had moved on mentally to the bicentennial celebration. Pet Rock popularity had dropped like a stone.

But in some sense, the Pet Rock was something of a lasting wonder. No one buys them anymore, but they’ve become something of a cultural shorthand for fads of all kinds. Pet Rocks may not have been the biggest, most lucrative, most annoying or most shocking of all fads, but it is, for whatever reason, the one that sticks out in consumers’ memories as the baseline fad against which all future fads should be judged.

And this summer, Pokémon has risen to be at least a potential comer.

From almost out of nowhere, the Niantic’s AR adaptation of an early ’90s cartoon has become a favorite among now adult millennials. Those adults grew up to be generation smartphone — and, powered by a powerful case of nostalgia and a complete and utter willingness to look silly in public, took to the streets.

Literally, all around the world.

Initially launched in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand — to make sure the servers could handle it (they couldn’t, which is why the global rollout was a bit delayed) — the virtual fighting monsters were set loose worldwide, pursued by players hoping to “catch them all.”

Pokémon GO can now be played in Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands,, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

That means that Pokémon has truly gone global, which probably should make the tidal-sized forces it brings to bear with it less than wholly shocking. As it turns out, with a thin (and reportedly buggy) layer of AR on what is essentially a Google Map, Niantic has managed to get consumers of all ages out, rushing to their app store of choice, and then running around and deeply dedicated to following the app wherever it chooses to lead them.

And it’s that power to pull the consumer from point A to point B — without their feeling pulled at all — that is the built-in feature that is beginning to look a bit to some like the pixie dust retail could use right now to get customers into the stores.

As it turns out, the Poké-conomy is a more complicated place.

The App Store Record(s)

According to the normally pretty tight-lipped team at Apple, as of about a week ago — before the full international rollout had even accorded — Pokémon broke the single-week record for any app in its first week downloads.

An exact number on that wasn’t forthcoming (Apple being Apple didn’t choose to put a hard figure on it), but the record being set at all was something of surprise to some segment watchers. Eight years into the smartphone revolution, the experts used to argue, consumers are no longer instantly entranced with apps such that mass downloading is likely.

But the estimated numbers that made the rounds this week care of Sensor Tower that belie that claim. If their count is to be believed, over 75 million people the world over have Pokémon go on their phone, or at least that was the estimate two days before this article was written. Given the sharp up and to the left trajectory of the app, that number could theoretically be a lot higher.

“For most mobile games and apps, even reaching 10 million downloads is a marathon,” said Randy Nelson, head of mobile insights at Sensor Tower. “Pokémon GO made that and 50 million in a sprint.”

All in, according to Nelson, Pokémon trounced that 50 million mark in 19 days, with only half its global audience even able to play at that point. The next most successful game in the app store took 77 days and a full global rollout to hit the 50 million figure.

And, of course, Niantic isn’t all the way there yet. There are a lot of markets still to go. So far, the game is only available in 32 of the 100 markets where the App Store and Google Play operate, according to Nelson.

More launches along with new features including the option to trade characters could help Pokémon GO continue its momentum.

“It may not be unreasonable for the game to pass 100 million downloads in its first 60 days, especially if some of the planned gameplay updates hit sooner rather than later,” says Nelson.

Keeping The People Moving Around

Our favorite out-of-the-box application for Pokémon GO in recent weeks actually goes to law enforcement, not retail.

People will go anywhere to catch a Pokémon. In fact, having responded to several traffic accidents and private property violations stemming from the game, Virginia police had noted that Pokémon was able to get people so involved in the virtual world that they forgot about real world choices entirely.

Lesser men would have complained. These cops realized that with every challenge comes and opportunity. So they decided to use Pokémon as bait to lure criminals into the station.

If you’re laughing, I wouldn’t. It worked.

Basically, borrowing from a trick employed by New Hampshire police earlier, Virginia police invited eight men with warrants out on them to come down to the station and catch Ditto, a rare Pokémon. Right in their processing room.

The police have as yet not revealed if any of the “random citizens” invited down to catch Ditto have done so, but the tactic worked in Detroit. A man went to a police station that was also a Pokémon gym. That man had many, many warrants, and was well-known to the police. Unsurprisingly, he did not get to catch them all, but the local cops got one step closer.

And while the police are using Pokémon to carry a heavy load — literally getting people to turn themselves in — the psychology behind what they are doing is similar to what retailers looking to cash in are doing. Using the Pokémon to move the consumers — and then using the fact of their already being in-store to motivate them to use your services. The challenge, of course, is that for Poképlayers, using the services in the in-game locations around them is optional, whereas once you’ve walked into the booking areas of a police station, you are probably getting served whether you want to be or not.

Merchants around the world have responded to this in a variety of ways. Signs noting that the Pokémon in area are only for paying customers have become prominent in other American cities. Other business (think McDonald’s)  are making nice, burning digital candles to lure Pokémon and deciding that rather than lock anyone out, they would rather let the law of averages do its job and bring in as much foot traffic as possible. At the end of the day, McDonald’s is willing to bet you’ll come for the Pokémon, but no normal human can resist the smell of the fries for long, especially someone who is hungry after chasing digital monsters.

At least one entrepreneur is going a whole step further — and actually attempting to directly tie his business to the brand. Branding genius James Kim is currently trying to lock down the word “PokéStop” with a trademark and then turn it into a chain of restaurants. Apart from food, folks and fun, PokéStop would also offer a chance to get re-upped with gaming supplies and socialize with other players.

To make this work, Kim will need more than a trademark. He will need a licensing deal with Pokémon or Niantic.

But why be exclusive with James Kim, when they can date every retailer and find a way to profit from those tens of millions of obsessed players.

Of course, Pokémon could just be another Pet Rock — destined for six months of adoration followed by four decades of derision.

But unlike a Pet Rock, which one really just admires from the comfort of their own living room, Pokémon has the power to move people all over their local map — almost totally on autopilot.

An app with the consistent power to do that could make some very big changes in how people shop, even if they’re only hot for six months.