Despite what some news reports say, Niantic’s Pokemon Go Fest was not a failure, in fact they flipped a fail into a major success.

Businesses Take Notice at How Niantic Took a Pokemon Go Failure and Flipped It Into a Major Success

SherryBlue
Jul 25, 2017 · 9 min read

Recently in Chicago a major festival occurred that could rival in its inaugural year those that have been held for decades. It sold out tens of thousands of tickets in one day. It had people coming from all over the globe and spending thousands of dollars in travel expenditures to attend. The festival surprisingly wasn’t going to last for a week or even a long weekend. It was to cover one day and not even a full 24 hours.

What was great for the organizers is that none of the stars in this event were of the typical demanding star mindset. The main event stars wouldn’t need first class accommodations, body guards, or extra security. None of the stars would be making extraordinary demands of the organizers because all of the stars at this event were digital. Yes, completely digital, with not one star in the entire festival needing a hotel room, food, or travel expenses, or payment for their attendance either.

The digital stars weren’t the most extraordinary thing. It was the fans themselves.

The festival was the very first Pokemon Go Fest to celebrate the first year anniversary of the mobile game Pokemon Go. The Alphabet (formerly Google) owned company Niantic has become one of the most successful names in gaming, a multi-billion dollar industry, in just one year. It not only is successful as a company with a wildly popular product, but the fans are loyal. Very loyal as you will soon discover and that leads to high expectations.

Most fans buy tickets to relax, sit back, and watch a show, or a game, or a concert. The fans attending the Pokemon Fest weren’t going to be sitting down and relaxing. They spent hundreds of dollars and in many cases thousands of dollars to go to Chicago and walk for hours in the hot summer sun to play their favorite game in teamwork fashion. By playing together in unison the fans would be able to gain access to a newly released digital monster, or Pokemon, from a category termed “Legendary”. It is for the Legendary Pokemon they had come.

The venue was perfect, a large 319 acre park in Chicago that offered easy access to hotel rooms, restaurants, parking and all of the other amenities that are essential to a successful event of this level. Check-in and security were well planned. Everyone waited in the que for hours to go through admittance procedures, and no one was bothered. Instead, they were excited to be a part of the event and civility was easily maintained.

Meanwhile, fans that hadn’t snagged the coveted sold out tickets or able to travel to the event were still going to be able to take part. The event would stream live across the world through Twitch.com and there were three 30 minute periods throughout the day that worldwide fans would participate in to complete a task that would benefit those attending the event in Chicago. In turn, as the worldwide fans succeeded in their tasks, it would unlock a major task in Chicago for the festival attendees to complete. This would release for all fans across the globe access to a new Legendary Pokemon.

Perhaps a bit confusing if you don’t play the game, but all of this is important for you to understand how Niantic organized a fabulous event that had those attending excited as well as those across the globe, yet failed miserably in giving the experience promised to those in Chicago. It’s important because after a major failure they managed to quickly regain and maintain the loyalty of their fans.

In summary, you have tens of thousands of people paying good money to walk around in a muddy park from heavy rain the previous night in the hot summer sun. Fans, walking and walking around a park, on muddy ground, on a hot muggy summer day, and all is well.

Fans are ready and awaiting across the globe to do their part. They have turned out in droves in their hometowns to walk in the rain, heat, cold, or whatever the weather gave them where they lived. They would do it with strangers, friends, or alone if needed. They would stay available through five hours on a Saturday to participate in three thirty-minute intervals and do their part to help those in Chicago have a better experience.

All was well, and then the event went live and while streaming across the globe everything fell apart.

The digital mobile game that relies on technology was overwhelmed in the concentrated area of Chicago’s Grant Park. That overwhelmed technology failed to allow those in Chicago to login and play the game. Some could login, but had their games lag or crash. Others simply could not gain access to the game, which was the majority.

This went fairly unnoticed or unshared with those worldwide that were busy adhering to their required task and not watching social media or the live stream. They wanted to be a part of the success of this historic event and the majority of those people had no idea what was happening in Chicago for they were busy playing the game and doing their part for their fellow Pokemon Go Trainers (as players are called).

The CEO of Niantic took the stage to begin the event and he was booed. The crowd yelled “Fix the game” and he acknowledged their frustration, anxiety, and assured them all was being attended to and soon they would all be logged in to the game and playing as planned.

It never happened. The exciting reveal of the Legendary Pokemon didn’t happen as expected. Niantic surrendered and accepted their failed moment of a well-planned event hours before conclusion and acknowledged to the crowd that they were not going to be able to deliver their promise.

This is where all businesses should take notice, especially airlines which have had similar experiences of failing their customer’s expectations, but all industries have made bad customer service decisions, so we’ve all got something to learn here.

Niantic said they were sorry. They admitted they had failed to deliver the experience hoped for by those attending. They followed the acknowledgement by announcing they would be giving everyone attending $100 of credit in their game immediately. Pokemon Go isn’t expensive to play, so $100 was a lot, especially since the game was currently running a deep discount of in-game items. They then announced they would be refunding ASAP everyone’s ticket cost. Yes, a full refund and they would do so swiftly.

Oh, and the Legendary Pokemon, the thing everyone had come for, well, they gave them that, too. They gave everyone attending the event a Legendary Pokemon in their game inventory. Then they did even more. They opened up the radius of the tightly sanctioned area of play in the park to 2 miles. By doing so the widened radius would alleviate strain on the game’s technology and allow entry to players. They could then play the game as they had hoped, but it was even better because the game had widened for them. They could explore Chicago, they could play from hotel lobbies, bars, and restaurants. This was even better, because that is how Pokemon Go is played every day, players play the game out in the real world not contained in one park.

Those that had played throughout the day around the world and not in Chicago had been promised one of six rewards for a few days following the event if they succeeded in their part. Instead of one of those rewards as promised, Niantic gave everyone worldwide all six rewards for days following the event. Then they promised not one, but two Legendary Pokemon would be available in game play by the next morning. Yes, you got that right, not one Legendary as promised, but two would appear in the game, and then Niantic put them into the game within hours, not making players (customers) wait.

Businesses take notice. Niantic made promises, they failed and even though it wasn’t really their fault, because technical problems can’t always be controlled, they didn’t pass the blame elsewhere, or stay tight lipped and try to control the damage, or state how policy ruled their ability to respond.

Niantic acknowledged they had failed their own plan. They assured their customers that this was not their standard, and then they gave those in Chicago more than promised in the beginning as well as those worldwide.

The players (customers) came to play the game and they played the game, maybe not in the time period expected, but they played. They came to get a Legendary Pokemon, and they got one without effort, then they were provided expanded opportunity to gain more of the Legendary as well as an additional one. Then every player from Chicago, around, up and down, across the globe and back to Chicago got not one of six rewards as promised, but all six and for an extended time.

Oh, and they got full ticket refunds and $100 credits in Chicago.

As suspected, since the event, articles have been written shouting aloud how the event had failed, how awful it was to have not had the experience promised, and how disappointed fans were with Niantic. If you only listened to television reports and read articles you would think Niantic had really blown it. They would spend years attempting to recover from this failure, and years to prove another Pokemon Go Fest could succeed.

The haters rained out their words, but they didn’t ask the players, the fans, the customers, because the players were out in massive numbers the next day akin to the levels seen when the game was first released last year. They have been playing the game more than they have in months. The customers, players from young ages to older, all over the world were happy with their game only hours later. They were happy with Niantic and they were happy to take their compensation, the apology, and move onward as loyal customers.

There is something to be learned in this event, and if you are a business owner you should try and follow in chronological order the announcements leading up to the event through social media and news, then as the event started, as it unfolded, as it crashed and burned, concluded, and how the company rose like the Phoenix out of the ashes (the Legendary Pokemon released were birds much like the Phoenix, as a matter of fact) to not only live another day, but soar.

Businesses need to do one important thing, be human. Come out from behind your corporate policies to meet face to face the customers you have failed. Do your best to remedy the problem, then give them more than they would expect in return. Show them that you realize without a customer you have no business and therefore each and every customer matters. Make them happy when you succeed and when you fail.

It is more profitable to keep the customers you have than to find new ones, and word of mouth advertising is more important than any campaign you sink money into for branding and marketing. If only we could all fail our customers and then see herds of them walking in the hot summer day, spending hours using our products and services, spending more money than they likely would have before we failed them, and encouraging others to join them on their quest with our company only hours after we failed them.

I applaud you, Niantic, you did well. Maybe I’ll download Pokemon Go this weekend and not only have a little fun, but study how you do what you do to keep everyone so engaged and happy with your product, service, and brand. Other entrepreneurs, branding experts, and public relations managers should do the same.

Niantic’s Pokemon Go has a motto “Catch ’em all” and that is surely what they are trying to do with customers. There is something to learn here, a lot of somethings I believe. Keep an eye on Niantic, for when there is a need to flip failure into success, they make it happen.

Thank you for reading — it means a lot to me. I appreciate your sharing as well. Please follow me on Medium, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn — I’d love to connect and be a part of your network team. On social media I share my own articles, but also those that I find helpful and relevant to business, success, entrepreneurship, leadership, community enhancement, and personal development. You can find out more about me at SherryHBlue.com.

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