Pokémon Go and how augmented reality will change every customer experience
Pokémon is a success story of a franchise that just keeps on going. Even though Nintendo has continuously and for more than 20 years made money of the Pokémon franchise, the recent revitalisation with Pokémon Go wasn’t a given. In fact, it didn’t stem from within Nintendo or the Pokémon Company, and it might never have seen the light of day. It only did because the parties embraced the collaborative aspect of innovation and the potential of augmented reality.
A flexible and collaborative mindset towards innovation is what several successful companies such as LEGO have adopted in order to stay alive. In fact, many companies who haven’t adopted it already, are no longer with us.
To better understand what happened this summer when Pokémon Go hit us, I turned to Lasse Chor, a J. Boye Aarhus 16 conference speaker, start-up mentor and digital entrepreneur. He stressed the focus on external collaboration in a recent conversation where focus quickly turned to the innovative success of Pokémon Go and how augmented reality will change customer experiences across industries.
One innovative step at a time
Pokémon Go is actually developed by Niantic Labs on a license from the Pokémon Company, and while no aspects of the technology is new, the combination is. Niantic Labs describes it as exploiting the capabilities of smartphones location technology. Effectively building an extra layer on top of the world — known as augmented reality.
Google and other major players have been tinkering with and preparing for virtual reality for some time now, but so far no one has made the final push — predicting that consumers are hesitant towards being completely shut of from the world by wearing headsets for extended periods of time. So Pokémon Go isn’t providing users with a new world, but building on top of the existing one through the users’ smartphones and Google Maps.
The customer is always right — here comes open innovation
In the case of Pokémon Go, several major players contributed with well known technology and it resulted in something new. In terms of innovation, this falls under the category of collaborative innovation.
In our recent conversation, Lasse Chor pointed to the fact that the success and very survival of companies such as LEGO is not solely due to the creativity of some secret power group within the corporation, but rather the willingness to let the experience of the customer dictate the further development of the product. There is no doubt that the future belongs to so called open innovation, where the lines between internal and external stakeholders are purposefully lifted.
A famous case study of this is LEGO Mindstorms where users were actually hacking the core product; infringing LEGO’s copyright. But many of the hacks were in fact improvements on the core product, and instead of sending an army of lawyers — which someone in the company probably did consider for at least a moment or two — LEGO embraced the risks and thus also harvested the fruits. Resulting in a streak of open innovation successes where customers were innovating together with the company.
Augmented reality will change the customer experience across industries
What the case of LEGO Mindstorms teaches us, is that open innovation is closely linked to the experience of the customer. It is also in this regard that augmented reality will be a game changer.
It would be easy, but also wrong to dismiss augmented reality as a phenomenon isolated to the entertainment industry. I am confident that we will be seeing companies across industries implementing augmented reality into existing products. Perhaps sowing the seeds for an all out virtual reality revolution. Some might target micro-boredom like Pokémon Go (or like Angry Birds), others might find other use cases.
Right now rumors are swirling that Snapchat is gearing up for augmented reality by joining the group that runs the bluetooth wireless standard, but augmented reality won’t just be a game changer for digital products. On the contrary, it will become a competitive parameter in all industries where customer experience is key. This is why Ikea have been experimenting with augmented reality; letting customers envision how a specific piece of furniture will look in their living room.
Learn more — continue the conversation
You can gain further insights into digital innovation and its relationship with customer experience at the upcoming J. Boye Aarhus 16 conference where you Lasse Chor is among our keynote speakers.
You can also have read at the future of Snapchat in my piece Why Snapchat will survive Instagram stories.
