Is the Pokemon Go craze relevant to the events industry?

By Bluehat project director Dave Turner, head of the UK agency’s GPS event Go Team The Pokemon Go craze has taken the world by storm and has left many of us wondering: how can a B2C product be relevant to what is often a B2B industry? Pokemon Go is a product which has used gamification to achieve two things; engagement and influence. These two factors are inextricably linked to the events industry, which leads to the definitive answer – yes, there is a clear connection between the new craze of catching Pokemon and events. Pokemon Go has engaged people by capturing their imagination. After all, there is nothing substantive about the game; nothing is actually there, it is simply augmented reality. While an image can be seen through the app, it’s the user’s imagination that allows them to feel a sense of exploration and the hunt. It reignites a sense of adventure that many of us have lost over the years: when was the last time you left your front door without a firm idea of where you were going? As children we used to do it all the time, it’s tremendously liberating which is what makes it all the more engaging. Here at Bluehat, we have the tagline ‘Using our imagination so you can explore yours’ which makes the link between the app and events themselves, as well as demonstrating what any good event company in our field should do as a business. The phenomenon is also being lauded for the influence it has on the behaviour of some participants. For many gamers, it’s taking them from a largely sedentary position, when they interact, to getting them out and physically seeing their neighbourhoods in a new way or, indeed, totally new areas. Gamification has also encouraged exercise in those who wouldn’t normally consider it. Events are generally held as a result of someone, somewhere who has a message they want to convey. Whether this is explicitly communicated or achieved through more subtle methods, the message must be communicated, and for this to happen, delegates need to be engaged. When planning an event, it is important to consider how to engage the audience. This may not necessarily need to be frivolous but often the principles of gamification can help. Simply capturing the imagination of your audience and creating the need to be a part of the experience can keep delegates engaged. The final lesson to be taken from Pokemon Go is, in order to be successful, you need to ensure you have the right tools. There are plenty of articles about how fundamental the success has been due to Pokemon Go being a native application specifically designed to be used in a mobile application rather than html5 – a webtool that has been adapted. Pokemon Go might just have settled the debate between html5 vs native. Investment into the right tools can be high, with native being more expensive to program than html5, but to get the best result, it’s the only way forward.