Bryan Smith·
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Three ways creative South African brands are jumping onboard Pokemon Go

Numerous South African brands have made creative use of Pokemon Go as a marketing tool; we unpack three of the best examples!

For a region in which the game isn’t officially supported, South Africans are a particularly festive towards Pokemon Go. As players around major metropoles – and even remote locations – jump on board the game, a unique opportunity has been given to enterprising South African brands to flex their marketing muscles.
Pokemon Go is a unique title not just for its use of augmented reality; the game is capable of directing consumers to physical locations; just ask the thousands of New Yorkers who descended on Central Park, or the multitudes of South Koreans heading to Pokemon-rich regions around the Northern border.
Read: New research shows the amazing virality driving Pokemon Go
While the lack of official support for the title within the country means a mixed reception in terms of spending power (there’s little support to conduct in-game transactions) that hasn’t stopped some creative South African brands from coming up with their own ideas.

RocoMamas: In-store promotion

If you’ve been to RocoMamas before, you’ve likely seen their strong social presences online. Mixed posts depicting not only well-made burgers but happy customers connote a powerful image to potential consumers.
It’s logical, then, to combine that potential with the virality of Pokemon Go -and that’s precisely what the brand elected to do. With a sponsored in-store promotion offering customers who published images of Pokemon within the franchise chain a R200 voucher, the brand succeeded in mixing its own narrative with that of the game’s.
With the help of social traffic, RocoMamas relies both on its unique visual identity and social strengths to entice customers; the brand is able to quickly crowdsource content and branch a social media story ahead of the game’s official arrival in South Africa.

Slice Pizza: Reward Programs

Continuing with the theme of food, Slice Pizza is a noticeable South African brand for being one of the first entites for offering a reward program.
Centered physically on Kloof Street in the Cape Town City Bowl, Slice Pizza is uniquely located to a hub of in-game Pokestops near the Company’s Gardens and surrounding locales.
Right on the cusp what we could term Cape Town’s ‘Pokewalk-path’, Slice Pizza makes use of a reward program to lure customers in with an incentive to purchase.
Importantly, Slice Pizza’s goals aren’t lofty. As players in Cape Town’s central district will be able to attest, levelling up is easy. Rewards for players begin at level 5 and end at level 18; offering an abundance of gratification for consumers hungry after a long trek. Further, each bonus is just enough to tempt customers into a great purchase.
Slice Pizza not only makes clever use of the game itself to configure its reward system, but further takes advantage of its proximity to the game’s reward stations – Pokestops – to offer one of its own.
south african brands

Raru: Virality marketing

A proposed haven for marketers needn’t be found only within the app in supported territories. While brands can sponsor messages within the app – or, in the case of McDonalds, become the first sponsored location – there are alternatives; and one is cashing in on the humble Pokewalk.
Jumping onboard a planned Pokewalk as well as the South African Pokemon Go community, e-commerce site Raru offers a voucher reward up for grabs to Facebook users who participate in and share a Pokewalk event page.
While not even being directly associated with the organization of the Pokewalk, Raru is able to onboard with the concept on the platform and cleverly link its online platform with an abundance of consumers who plan to attend the event.
With a rich target market, Raru is further able to advertise its own stock of collectible merchandise; Pokemon themed and otherwise.
Through maximising opportunities based on real-world events, Raru is able to execute a nearly cost free campaign which establishes brand awareness and visibility. Further, the brand offers an engagement campaign on Facebook to further tie encourage interaction.

Bonus: Do It Yourself

If you don’t happen to own a brand, that doesn’t mean you can’t join in the action with Pokemon Go. Certain enterprising individuals have managed to make their money off the game by merely levelling up their profiles, and placing them on sale.
One such seller has even offered their level 15 account for sale on Gumtree for the sum of R1000 ZAR. South African brands could stand to learn a thing or two!
Read: Here‘s how to find Pokemon in South Africa with Pokemon Go
Further, if you don’t plan on creating an account to sell it – why don’t you join in on the fun and become a paid player, with the intent of levelling up someone else’s account? Though it was but a joke, South African courier company WumDrop offered just that and actually received applications.

Have your say!

Have you seen any great examples of South African brands jumping on board Pokemon Go that you’d like to share? Do you have a burning idea you’d like to put out there? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA