Christchurch City Council has been quick to jump on the Pokemon Go craze. This week a Marketing Association blog urged kiwi business to piggy-back on the success of the game. Now we hear Christchurch was an early adopter.
Radio New Zealand reports Christchurch City Council has used Pokemon Go lures to encourage people to the weekend market in New Brighton. And after a slow start it’s starting to pay off.
Market organiser Martha Baxendell said: “It started pretty slowly because the market started before the lures were in place but it was like we were going from a normal winter market to the zombie apocalypse, except they didn’t want to eat – they just wanted to look at their phones.
“It was pretty crazy, just bunches of people shuffling slowly through the market.”
But the Pokemon Go players did finally manage to tear themselves away from their screens for long enough to open their wallets as well, she said.
“There were definitely increased sales, especially for the food. I think if you land Pokemon near food, especially because they might have been doing it all day so they got hungry. Definitely the food was a big seller and the other stall holders did much better than they normally would have done on a cold, windy winter’s day.”
The Pokemon lures were bought by the Christchurch City Council owned company Development Christchurch for $130.
Chief executive Rob Hall said they represented good bang for buck and he might consider using them again.
“We sent a member of staff out with an iPad who could activate them [lures] as the day went on, we also opened one of the council facilities and put some charging points in there so people could charge their phones, advertised it on social media and on the day probably 500 to 1000 extra people went to New Brighton Markets that day.”
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