The power of Augmented Reality

Unless you have been hiding under a rock lately, you will have heard of Pokémon Go, the Augmented reality app that makes Pokémon appear in the world around you, from bars to gardens, stadiums to hospitals, and has whipped people across the globe into a frenzy to ‘catch ‘em all’.

Niantic (developers of augmented reality game, Ingress) very quietly released Pokémon Go in Australia and New Zealand on July 6^th and shortly after, it was released in the US. The game went straight from release to viral at record speed. So much so, that the Niantic servers couldn’t handle the sheer amount of people trying to access the game.

You know your game must be doing okay when the Vice President of Amazon Tweets asking if they can help with the server issue (#LifeAchievement).

Dear cool folks at @NianticLabs please let us know if there is anything we can do to help! (I wanted that drowzee) pic.twitter.com/UVwVKA0Lz8
— Werner Vogels (@Werner) July 8, 2016

If you’re anything like me, you will want to see some hard facts about just how well this app has done. So, lets take a look. 

Just two days after the release, 5.16% of ALL android users in the US had downloaded the app, which doubles Tinder’s downloads.

Furthermore, Pokémon fans are currently using the app daily more than they are currently using such popular apps as WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Messenger. In addition, Pokémon catchers are spending on average 43 minutes, 23 seconds a day on the app.

However, for me the most astonishing fact is that the app is already set to rival Twitter in the space of just a few short weeks. Over 60% of those that have downloaded Pokémon Go in the US are using the app daily, which in numbers means 3% of the entire US Android population are on the app. This measurement puts it very close behind Twitter and I think it’s a safe guess to say in the next few days this figure could well over take Twitter. But don’t worry Twitter, fans of the app are still tweeting about how much they love Pokémon Go at a rapid pace so much so that it has racked up over 6 million mentions to date. An amazing feat by anyone’s standards.

And of course, we have also seen some great reactive PR and marketing efforts from around the globe too.

Here are just a few of our favourites:

Extra batteries, beef jerky, and more: The @BestBuy in Virginia Beach is helping #PokemonGO trainers #CatchEmAll pic.twitter.com/833mmOlUdG
— Best Buy News (@BBYNews) July 11, 2016

@abbyfuller72 We've heard! There's a lot of Pokémon in our neighborhood. Gotta catch em' all...at the Mall! pic.twitter.com/eIY9PrXzME
— Mall of America (@mallofamerica) July 10, 2016

Gotta catch 'em all @Pokemon #pokemongo pic.twitter.com/68QcmAdGeR
— Moe'sSouthwestGrill (@Moes_HQ) July 10, 2016

Trying to catch all the colorful characters? We understand how that goes. – The M&M’S Crew pic.twitter.com/x81gDZRg3U
— M&M'S® Brand (@mmschocolate) July 11, 2016

Have you downloaded the Pokémon Go App yourself? What do you think of it? Let us know by tweeting us at @bcsagency