POLITICS & Pokémon GO

The Importance of Staying Ahead of the Curve

Jeff Huston — Steelehouse Lead Creative

A common dismissal of the Pokémon GO craze has been to say it’s a sad commentary on our frivolous society, particularly at a time when so much injustice, unrest, and division is going on in the world. People should be politically and socially engaged, not wasting their time obsessing over how many fake computer creatures they can catch with their blankety-blank smartphones.

Setting that obnoxious self-righteous grandstanding aside (some people sure can get their Poké Balls in a bunch), the political world — particularly this year, one in which the paid pundits are at a complete loss to explain the populist movements of the Right and the Left — could take a cue from this phenomenon that has its pulse on the culture. When 75 million people worldwide download an app in less than a month, there’s something to be learned.

Direct corollaries are pointless. Game programmers and news analysts live in completely different vocational spheres, with different audience needs and dynamics at play. But one thing is evident: Pokémon game developers clearly understand their market while political experts currently don’t. Understanding why that’s true is a universal lesson for all people, in all spheres of business and cultural influence.

For the better part of a year, experts have been predicting the collapse of Donald Trump, expecting the next politically incorrect gaffe to be his downfall. Less controversial but still hard to peg, Bernie Sanders forged a movement while the pundits were predicting Hillary Clinton would coast to a coronation. Trump was too divisive and Bernie too socialist. This was the conventional wisdom.

For twelve months, the pundits kept getting it wrong. What were they missing?

While most experts griped that the rules somehow didn’t apply (to Trump especially, but also to Sanders), what they failed to realize is that the rules had actually changed — and it was the public who changed them.

Stuck in their elite echo chamber, pundits continued to analyze political gaffes and fallout according to old Liberal and Conservative metrics. But the public had moved on to new standards of judgment and lines of demarcation. Now instead of Left vs Right, it’s the Bipartisan Political Class (i.e. The Establishment) vs the Disenfranchised Working Class.

In this new world, liberal and conservative positions are fluid. So are political tactics. No longer do voters primarily look to a candidate’s platform; preferences now favor how a voter perceives a candidate’s instincts. Honest talk that reflects common sense is more valued than which candidate gets the most correct in a mainstream media “fact check.” Political experience (even success) has gone from an asset to a liability.

Experts have lagged behind in perceiving this shift, leaving them bewildered — and often wrong. They’re judging events by rules set a generation ago. Voters changed the standards. The experts didn’t see the change because they weren’t even looking for it.

Then there’s Pokémon Go. Instead of trying to conceive the latest “Angry Birds” style smash hit according to current app industry expectations and paradigms, San Francisco’s Niantic, Inc. (the makers of Pokémon Go) looked at where the industry curve was bending towards — augmented and virtual reality — and began to think outside the box.

Taking inspiration from niche “augmented reality” sci-fi apps, Niantic chose to utilize other aspects of smartphone technology (namely GPS) in a way that opened up whole new possibilities. By employing other technologies on smartphones, Pokémon Go became the first to attach a popular existing brand to a growing new platform. The rules were changing, Niantic capitalized, and the results have been record-breaking.

In similar fashion, Marvel Studios — the most successful brand in movies — formed a plan years ago that would help keep them ahead of the curve of moviegoers. Rather than simply churning out sequels until fans were exhausted, Marvel embarked on a Three Phase strategy for their Marvel Cinematic Universe (or MCU). Phase 1 encompassed seven films from Iron Man to The Avengers, and Phase 2 tracked from Iron Man 3 to Ant-Man.

This summer, Phase 3 began with Captain America: Civil War. When it continues this fall, Doctor Strange will take Phase 3 to another level. As MCU guru Kevin Feige describes it, the Marvel Universe will expand into the Marvel Multiverse. By having set this plan into motion years ago, Feige not only created a vision to keep the MCU fresh and evolving, but he also allowed Marvel to shift as unexpected surprises occurred (from the blockbuster success of Guardians of the Galaxy to the coup of bringing Spider-Man into the fold).

Meanwhile, DC is struggling to play catch-up.

“Staying ahead of the curve” can often be perceived as a milquetoast buzzphrase with little practical application, a slogan that’s reflexively proclaimed by leadership gurus yet holds little meaning. But right now, the worlds of Politics and Pokémon actually give us two concrete examples to compare and contrast how vital that overused slogan actually is.

When we sit on our hands, don’t anticipate cultural shifts, and simply assume things will remain static, we can no longer hope to be leaders in our given field. Instead, we become worse than followers; we actually lose credibility.

The moment you assume there’s a conventional wisdom, it’s probably outdated. Staying ahead of the curve requires perceiving where your audience is headed, even more so than where your industry is trending. Just because we may come up with something visionary within our impressive Think Tanks doesn’t mean people will flock to it.

Just ask Google Glass.