5 things Pokemon GO can teach us about marketing in today's world

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Guest Feature, reposted with permission from the blog of Peter Bolognese, ProForma Brand X. 

(I have not yet met Peter, but I will soon at the conference that has brought us together though email. I have been so impressed by his professionalism, thoroughness and friendliness, that I asked to borrow some of his wisdom from time to time.)

Over the past week or so, you may have noticed an increase in the number of kids running through your yard talking about PokéStops and Pikachu’s (or who knows, maybe you’ve been running all over trying to catch ‘em all). Pokémon GO has swept the nation and captured the attention of children and adults alike. Here are a few things we can learn about marketing in today’s world from this unique game.

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To Stream or to Batch?

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Guest Feature by Dale L. Oldham

I'll mirror Malcolm Gladwell and write about the obvious. Clearly Mr. Gladwell isn't accountable for my resentment over his success, because countless textbooks have likewise stated the obvious, but that gentleman has become famous and rich just because he can label indisputable phenomena (give me a break: "tipping point"??), provide countless supporting examples, entertain me and leave me seething that he wrote it before I did.

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A Seminal - albeit brief - Moment for our Language

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I’m a political news junkie. I admit it. I kicked the sugar dependency, I can limit myself to four ounces of wine each evening, and I refuse all opiates for the rare pain I might have, but I suck up political news and reporting and “speeching” like nobody I know. I watch it all. (Yes, I’m of that generation that still has a thing in her living room called a television.) How bad is my affliction? I watched ALL the debates.

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“Myriad” – Is any word more often misused?

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I know what you’re thinking: “There are a myriad of ways to use that word.” If your mind immediately goes to “of” after “myriad,” just stop it, please! That construction, which we hear at every turn, is just plain wrong. I heard it again this afternoon; I hear it almost everyday. A beautiful Greek word that means, literally, ten thousand, has been adopted – and very poorly – by just about every Tom, Nick and Shari.

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Customer Service – good, bad and – well, uh - weird!

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Recently I was cleaning out old – really, really old – files on my computer, the kind that, had they been food, would now be covered with mold and crawling with bugs. Old files! And I came across this story I wrote – oh, probably 12 or 13 years ago. I never did anything with it; maybe I wrote it just to vent. Who knows? It’s a pretty good story, though, so I want to share it with you. Pretty unbelievable, actually. It’s about customer service gone very, very wrong. 

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First Tip for Trade Show Success: Listen!

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After a number of years as the expo hall manager (or “concierge”?), when I was working strictly in non-profit fund development, I finally got a chance to stand on the other side of the table. Just a few weeks ago I had the privilege of representing one of my corporate clients at a healthcare conference. Having been the one to recruit and contract the exhibitors and sponsors, to assign the tables and see that each one’s display packages were available for set up, to check on everyone’s access to electricity and satisfaction with the flow of traffic – finally I got to be one of “them.”

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