For the artsy Pokémon trainers here

[inkstone]

If you live in the U.S., Michaels is holding a promotion for today only. Show a cashier which team you're on and you'll get a 50% off coupon to use on any one regular price item.

Which brings us to today's topic! In the time since PokeGo launched, lots of businesses have taken advantage of the marketing potential. Bars constantly drop lures. Cafes do rotating discounts for the three teams. Restaurants make cookies in the shape of pokeballs.

What are some of the promotions you've encountered during your time playing the game?

Comments

[worlds_of_smoke]

The GameOn (video game resale store) by my pharmacy apparently drops Lures for 3 hours on Wednesday evenings. I just found out about it yesterday. XD They're within walking distance from the library, which has a pokestop.

[monanotlisa]

A nearby ice-cream parlor is totally marketing off the Pokétential for more clients:





:)

[inkstone]

Someone save that pikachu that's drowning in green ice cream!

[monanotlisa]

Hee -- I'm sure someone is "saving" it by eating all the green ice-cream as we speak...

[yuuago]

Money is tight up here due to disaster recovery, so while I'm mildly disappointed that I haven't encountered any specials/discounts like the ones I've seen people talk about online, I'm not surprised.

But I have seen a lot of lures dropped at cafes within reach of pokestops. There's one here that's next to a Starbucks, and almost every time I pass by, it has a lure going. And while some of them might have been put there by customers, I'd bet that some of them are planted by people working there, too.

[kshandra]

My local karaoke bar has a PokeStop next to it, and has started a weekly event where they keep it lured non-stop between 9pm and midnight, encourage people to show up in team colors, and offer themed drink specials.

[playswithworms]

My park has a couple of PokeStops, and I've been playing around with advertising a time when we'd put out a lure, maybe lead a hike to catch Pokemon and hatch eggs, but half the time the app crashes or won't let me log in - I'm afraid to advertise it and then not be able to follow through, at least on the lure part.

[inkstone]

The game seems to be more stable since the last update, but I can understand that!

[playswithworms]

Didn't crash at all today, and my test lure worked great! (And also I caught a Tauros, and a Beedrill, and a Pidgeotto, which were all new ones for me, while I was doing "research for work purposes" ^_~)

[inkstone]

A tauros! I'm jealous. I see his shadow on my tracker occasionally but I've never been able to find him.

[moxieweed]

I haven't witnessed it personally, but I have it on good authority that the Living Computer Museum drops lures during business hours. Pretty smart plan on the whole, since a major feature of the museum is to play restored old-timey computer games and it's a safe assumption that their visitor base will also be playing pokemon go!

Since I'm in the museum field myself, it's a really interesting question how museums are responding to pokemon go (from zoos where it's really encouraged and beneficial to the Holocaust Museum where having a pokestop was disrespectful to say the least).

[inkstone]

I know there are a few PokeStops are the Arlington National Cemetery, which is really unfortunate and inappropriate. I don't know if they've requested them to be removed by now, but I know it's possible.

[laceblade]

Our comic bookstore offers a free back-issue of anything they have in the boxes at the front of the store if you go there showing a Pokemon that you caught. It's not a huge deal because they're cheap anyway, but still like $0.50!

The comic bookstore is also a gym, so people are going there anyway, :D