McDonald’s Plans to be Pokémon Trainers First Stop in Japan

If you haven’t heard of Pokémon Go, then you’ve seriously been living in a cave.

The latest craze in the world is turning regular people into Pokémon trainers and masters.

But people aren’t the only ones going through transitions. Local businesses are also transforming into reunion spots for the players and adopt a ‘Gym’ identity in this virtual world.

The local businesses aren’t doing this to be the best players in town, but instead to make some profits from the trend.

John Hanke, chief executive of the company Niantic responsible for the development of the game, announced a new revenue stream called ‘sponsored locations.’ This process allows companies to pay to be a location within the game, eventually bringing in loads of foot traffic.

Apparently, the first company to get a taste of this marketing strategy will be McDonald’s. They are planning to turn their 3,000 locations in Japan into PokeStops and Gyms.

McDonalds is going in with force, as they will also sell Pokémon themed happy meals and toys to the raging fans of this virtual world.

The expectations for the results are definitely high. The investors perceive the partnership between McDonald’s and Pokémon Go as a big win. Because of this, there has been a 23% jump in McDonald’s shares. They haven’t seen a jump this big in 15 years.

Once there is success with McDonald’s, we are pretty sure other big companies will get on the bandwagon and get a slice out of the biggest success a game app has ever had.

 Photo credits: Fotokon& Matthew Corley / Shutterstock.com