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August 15, 2016
What can we learn from Pokemon Go to make sure that we remain relevant and gather data that will help our clients make better decisions?
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Pokemon Go landed in the UK last week and I jumped on board right away. Twenty-four hours and seven pokemons in my pokedex later, I noticed a few lessons we can apply in the market research industry. In case you are wondering, yes, I said it right: Pikachu can teach us something.
Pokemon Go Mania
It’s almost certain that by now, you’ve heard or read something about it. However, in case you don’t know what it is, this Vox article explains it in 400 words, or what is equivalent to 2.85 tweets.
Within 13 hours of launching, Pokemon Go topped the App Store charts. It already has more active users than twitter, and is now going for the heavy hitters, snapchat and google maps.
If you’ve ever done Google Trends analysis, you know that Facebook is the most searched term on Google. I use this term as a way to give some context to other search queries and identify, beyond just the number google shows, how they rank compared to the most searched terms. In Pokemon Go’s case, this is the first time that I’ve noticed in a long time a search term getting so close to “Facebook.” This is an indication, at least, of the incredibly huge wave of curiosity that this game is generating.
Pokemon Go’s immediate success responds to many things. They are betting heavily on nostalgia, and for my generation, that grew up with Nintendo, we have a soft spot for vintage videogames. It takes cues from RPG gaming, which also has a huge cult base following, and it leverages technology and augmented reality seamlessly, which brings together nicely the entire experience.
People are spending a lot of time playing Pokemon Go. To be precise, users average 33 minutes of daily use, according to Sensor Tower. Just to give you some perspective on what this means, the Facebook app is used for an average of 22 minutes, Snapchat 18 minutes and Twitter 17 minutes.
So, these are 3 things that became more and more obvious as I played with Pokemon Go for the last 24 hours and made me realize that we should be paying attention to some of these things in the market research industry, to make sure that we remain relevant with the people that we survey, and are gathering data that will help our clients make better decisions.
We are in the business of understanding human behavior, and the tools and methods that we use need to remain relevant. This is why we have no other option than to move at the same pace as the world around us, because they are not going to wait for us.
Now, I need to go and find a Pikachu, I’ve been told there is one hiding around the Houses of Parliament.
If you have used Pokemon Go and have also learned something, please send me a tweet. I’d love to hear about it.
Disclaimer
The views, opinions, data, and methodologies expressed above are those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect or represent the official policies, positions, or beliefs of Greenbook.
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