Pokemon Go - a lesson in Innovation and Customer Experience (good and bad)

A Half-Baked Product
Pokemon, if you have not yet heard about it (unlikely, but there are supposed to be still some people out there), is a new type of augmented reality location based online game offered free of charge to smartphone users around the world where the players have to get out into the streets or nature and collect, fight and train small creatures (called Pokemon) and items.
Still, it is a very interesting proof of concept of the available technology, although in my opinion rolled out too early with too many shortcomings, but this is likely linked to Agile Project and Product Management which seems to be everywhere nowadays – let the users test the program and we can fix it later… (but that is probably the topic of another post in the near future).

Why is it though that everyone talks about Pokemon GO?
One week after the official launch on July 6th it is already sporting some impressive statistics, 21 million active daily users (as of July 13th), with pictures of large groups of people staring and pointing at their phones ever present in the media.
It took only 13 hours to reach the top of the highest grossing app chart in the US. It has impressive diffusion levels on Android devices in the US, Australia and New Zealand (the first markets it got released in) with 10.8%, 16% and 15.1% share respectively.
Constant media coverage, with unbelievable (and thus “newsworthy”) stories around players dropping off cliffs, being mistaken as burglars, walking into restricted military installations or through Live Weather reports on TV. No wonder the media is in on the hype.

Yes, although this was quite some Pokemon GO bashing, I am also totally hooked on the game, and so are many others. In fact, I seem to be only a late joiner in this hype (with one week after the launch that is), judging by the excessively high levels of Pokemon already stationed in the gyms all over Dubai, and the game is not even officially rolled out in this region. Yesterday night the traffic of very slow moving cars in my residential neighborhood (walking speed anyone…) with frequent stops and looking at the phone significantly increased - up from zero a week ago. Last week some of the youth were racing or doing acceleration trials with their typical high powered Dubai cars, this week they are snailing through the streets…

So what is so great about the game that I love it so much?
First of all, it is an outstanding example of a gamification based culture change program. To play it, people actually need to get out into the open and walk around. Believe it or not, this is probably the best exercise regime ever conceived for increasingly obesity ridden societies, especially among the computer game addicted youth. Some years back, Dubai started a weight loss program whereby people were rewarded with gold for every kilo they lost (I’m not kidding!!!), and yet the participation level seemed much lower than what I see already with Pokemon GO, again, in a market where the game was not yet officially launched. Yes, people take shortcuts and use cars, but at temperatures of 44 degrees Celsius / 111 Fahrenheit, who blames them. Once the summer is over and the game is officially launched in the UAE, I predict that more people will actually go outside and walk. I totally see my kids wanting to go for walks to the park with me when they return from their vacation to go for Pokemon hunts. After all, if Americans can make this shift, so can we.

Second, I am very excited as this is the first time I see augmented reality go mainstream, and as teacher of Innovation classes at University, this is a great case study of many other things to come. With only a relatively small investment of reportedly 30 million USD by Nintendo and Google, they have raked in a whopping 14 million revenue through in-app sales within the first 5 days of operation. While the data is somewhat fuzzy on the exact amounts, consider an estimated daily revenue generated of 1.6 million USD – PER DAY! When was the last time you saw a product that got a break even timeline of less than a month, or actually measured in weeks? Why is this important? This is sparking interest in the industry as well as among startups and innovators to come up with other ideas, possibly with more actual value and relevance to our lives, but now the acceptance and understanding among the mainstream is established, and small valuable implementations can refer back to the success of Pokemon Go and get necessary seed funding – AR and Technology Gold Rush anyone?

Lessons learned for Innovators and Startups
I believe the Pokemon GO implementation highlighted many issues and dangers startups and innovators face nowadays… For example, the poorly developed game-play structure and user interface of the game, the far less than optimal resource planning (server outages and under-capacitized infrastructure), and the concentration on the media hype, could trigger fast user turnover to the next game or hype, and thus reduce the traction of this exciting technology and leave many disillusioned about the true potential. As such this is a great lesson to learn for other startups and innovators on the need to properly plan and prepare, have enough capacities, scaling options and plans in place in case something goes wrong, and not to release products too early into the marketplace, regardless of the push by investors or the overly optimistic belief of the owners that the product and support structures aere ready. Customer Experience, complaint management, social media strategy, sufficient capacities and worst case scenario planning should not be forgotten, even though it might cost to set it up and run it, but a user acquired in a hype is not necessarily loyal if things go wrong, and as such will not be able to get re-acquired afterwards, thus resulting in very costly churn.

But enough of writing this article, which was a procrastination exercise anyway… Now on to my evening walking exercise routine in the park and back to listening to music or audiobooks, or recording ideas and notes for my Innovation book in progress. This instead of hunting Pokemon, not because I don't want to play the game, but because all day today the Pokemon GO server is not letting me sign in due to "too high demand over the past days and too many users"…

Oh, and why am I not allowing my kids to use the game yet? They are traveling at the moment with infrequent access to internet (especially mobile) and as such would grow really quickly frustrated and move on to the next game. So to prevent this, I rather let them build up the excitement and start playing with them together (imagine, going for actual walks with your kids) when they return. Also, this gives me some time to get a head start and be the super dad having already completed many of the challenges, so I actually have a chance to compete with them…

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Marc Karschies is the Managing Partner of “Karschies, Ceron & Alred Consultants”, an International Service Strategy and Quality Management Consultancy based in Dubai, UAE. KCA Associates help companies identify the hidden aspects of their “promise to customer” and evaluate how connected they are with customer needs and expectations. This further extends into improvement initiatives of the actual service delivery touch-points and throughout the whole organization and their Innovation Management.