Question for Millennials: Can Communities Somehow Leverage Pokemon Go?

This might sound like a strange question, but for those of you who don't know, Pokemon Go is a new game from Nintendo that is absolutely huge right now. Take this, for example: The game is such an amazing hit that Nintendo's stock rose 9.3% last week, which is phenomenal, but then rose another 25% today! INCREDIBLE!

The idea of the game is that players can now take a mobile device and similar to geocaching, find virtual Pokemon in the wild. From what I gather, the game uses your camera, and it overlays a pokemon in the real world setting.

My father in law does a lot of administrative duties at his church, and he was telling me last night how several kids were wandering around the church grounds because apparently there was a Pokemon there to be caught. If that's the case, then there might be people floating in and around apartment communities doing the same thing. Pokemon came around a bit too late for me to really play it when I was young, but maybe some Millennials on here can enlighten us - is there any way for apartment communities to leverage this?

That would be awesome!! I have no idea how you get your property to be included in the game, but if someone figures it out, what a cool marketing tool!

Ok, first.. It's not just Millenials. Gen X here and I am caught up in this game. I spent my lunch hour at a park catching Pokemon.. Saturday night at 1 am, I am running through the neighborhood with the local kids trying to actually catch them all.

Anyways, one of our properties here in Columbus, Ohio sits right on a PokeStop! For those unfamiliar, a PokeStop is where you get goodies for the game such as PokeBalls, Eggs, Potions and other similar loot. They have about a 5-minute refresh rate, so ideally you could camp the same one all day long. PokeStops are at Churches, Graveyards, Parks, Memorial Plaques and other similar places of interest.

How does this work with apartment marketing? Well, first of all, I fully intend to exploit the fact that one of our properties sits on a PokeStop. Ohh yes, it's going on our Craigslist ads for sure. I think it's also a fun idea to make a sign for the office door that explains that the community is PokeStop.

Next, I do think a Property 'Poke Group' (sounds awful!) would be a fun and neat idea. The point of the game is to get up and get moving. I have run across other people playing and in super strange places (behind Taco Bell, the graveyard, and a ton of people at the park today) and it's a pretty instantaneous way to bond with someone else, mainly because of how ridiculous it is. Also, I think it would probably put people at ease to understand why there is someone standing in the parking lot with their phone in the air, or wandering in a seemingly aimless fashion.

Already the photos, the jokes and the memes are taking the internet by storm. Friends are posting pictures of their gameplay, other people are posting pictures of how ridiculous it is. For those that are clever, you may be able to come up with a great tie in to your community.



So, if you aren't playing the game, you can still figure out how a PokeStop or even a PokeGym may play into your marketing efforts. It's all based on a mapping system and GPS coordinates. There is a great article about it HERE

Partner with your local Pokemon Go league to host an event, or host one for your residents. Here's an event coming up in Memphis. www.facebook.com/events/1115995211804153/

Make your business a Pokestop and advertise it. I haven't figured out how to do this yet, but this article helps: www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2016...siness/#37dd5b47fe48

And you can tie in social by hosting a "post your pokemon catches" contest on our Facebook page, asking residents to share when they find pokemon on the property.

This is great, you all! I didn't expect such a response on this!

You can't make your business a pokestop or gym yet, but probably in the future. What you can do is buy itunes cards and google cards and advertise things like - 1200 pokeballs for all move-ins! This is like $40 worth of gift cards etc... If you are a stop and/or gym - then I highly recommend you capitalize on it, by creating some fun things for visitors to see while at your property and buying lures on your own to release all day long. Plus all the other ideas on this thread are fabulous!

LOVE! So, wait, how do you buy poke balls to give out?

This is a great write-up by Inc about leveraging Pokemon Go for businesses:

Figuring out whether your business is a Poké Stop or Gym is the first thing you should do. Poké Stops and Gyms attract foot traffic without any effort--players flock to them for rewards and to battle other players--and they can be leveraged for massive sales if you know how.

There is no official Niantic map that lists all the Poké Stop and Gym locations yet. One workaround is to use the online map of portals created over the last three years for the game "Ingress," also developed by Niantic, which maps virtually 1:1 with Pokémon Go's Poké​ Stops and Gyms.

Check out the map here after you install the Ingress app on your phone and sign in (you can use a Google account, and it only takes about a minute to set up).

"Lures" are incredibly powerful in your strategy:

Lures increase the rate of Pokémon generation in the area around the Poké Stop where they're placed for one half hour. That may not sound that powerful, but Pokémon are scarcer than you think. Luring is an insanely powerful tool that you really have to see to believe.

You also might be close to a Pokemon Gym:

Gyms are a separate kind of animal entirely from Poké Stops. You can't put down Lures, but you don't have to either, because users are converging on Gyms day and night to face off with other users and "take control" of the gym for either team Mystic, Valor, or Instinct.

There is a whole bunch more in the article - I highly recommend reading the entire thing: www.inc.com/walter-chen/pok-mon-go-is-dr...nesses-here-s-h.html

Great idea- I just searched Pokemon promo items & tons of stuff came up!

I literally advertised the fact that we are steps away from a pokestop hours after it launched in the US.

We live in rural area, so that's a BIG DEAL.

Sponsored locations coming soon.

www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2016...mon-go/#5bb821da137e

www.engadget.com/2016/07/13/pokemon-go-s...rands-in-on-the-fun/

This just popped up from one of our properties! Excellent!!!

The Wind Song Pokemon!

Michelle Wood posted on FB a great example of how a student housing community is leveraging it that she personally experienced.

We are looking into partnering with a business (or businesses) near one of our lease ups. We'll offer to pay for lures for them if they'll let us be present in their location that day to interact with people who come to the business as a result. We'll solidify exactly what we're going to do once we find our "partners".

We kept it simple. As soon as the news broke about Pokemon Go, we shared an image on social media that we were "[Our Town]'s First Pokemon Friendly Community." We shared local articles about the game's explosion. Within a week of the game coming out (like, maybe a few days) we had an Instagram contest where residents could post a picture clearly taken on property of a Pokemon they caught and win a prize .... not a drawing, an instant prize: post, tag, share, and win. From that contest alone we more than doubled our Instagram followers (I actually think they tripled), engaged with more local businesses, and generated traffic from folks who simply heard some of the buzz about what we were doing with the game.