What sounds like a Hollywood script is happening right now in many countries where the game Pokémon Go has been launched. More than 100 million people worldwide have already downloaded the app. A phenomenon.
Thousands of Pokémon hunters compete in public spaces to capture these small virtual creatures.
How did a game with child appeal become a global phenomenon and trigger a social transformation in the way brands, products, and services interact?
We know that the entertainment trade relies on a simple formula: fantasy. Something that pulls us out of daily life and transports us to another reality. Technology is increasingly doing exactly that, whether through virtual or modified reality, what we call Augmented Reality. The applicability of this is immense and will certainly change your life.
So, is this global commotion over the launch of Pokémon Go all about this technology? No. It is not just that. In any online game, everyone wants collective recognition and wants to rank among the best. Pokémon Go is no different.
Now imagine being able to do that in a real setting, enhanced with fun new virtual components. It is a blend of reality and fantasy, all at once. The game board can unfold anywhere: on the street, at the office, in a soccer stadium. To play, all you need is a cell phone. This is the end of the image of the solitary gamer locked between four walls, or of scenes from futuristic movies showing us as enormous brains in atrophied bodies. Forget that. People are out in the streets, interacting in this new world.
The game's rapid spread generated curiosity and significant exposure in the media and on social networks. Every day we see creative people using clever tactics to perform better in the game, deploying drones or even pets to help them. We also hear about people getting hurt or putting themselves in danger because they are immersed and distracted by the game.
This reaction from people shows how we will interact with the world and what the next step in socialization will look like. We are witnessing the beginning of a different society, one where the virtual and reality move closer together. If we once knew how to tell digital from analog, and today that distinction no longer makes much sense, in the near future we can expect that we will not be able to tell virtual from reality either.
This is not just about a new game, but about how we will relate to one another from now on. Facebook has already announced a major investment in Augmented Reality, and those who have already experienced this new environment are certain that it will completely change how we interact on social networks. Would it be the real world lived inside the unreality of virtuality, or virtuality being lived inside the real world? It matters little. Reality as we know it today will never be the same.
Even those who have already taken the initiative to study and anticipate behaviors, built their innovation labs, and developed new consumption technologies have realized it is still too early to know the full impact of this technological socialization that is underway. But it will not be a small thing. Imagine the power someone will hold by mastering the technique of transforming our own reality.
Marketing will also be significantly affected by this new behavior. The way we buy things, how we choose products, and even how we use products in our homes will all change. Those who get ahead will be the ones capable of understanding that their strategies, products, services, and ways of engaging with consumers no longer need to be composed exclusively of real elements. Would you have imagined polling stations, like those in the United States where voting is not mandatory, using Pokémons to attract voters? Or the creation of a moto-Pokémon service launched in Brazil for creature hunters?
In this scenario, Pokémon Go is just an appetizer, but an endless laboratory for testing what is coming in terms of social behavior.
