Physical and Virtual Spaces

I just returned from a year-end holiday in Tokyo. As always, the city never ceases to amaze me.

The people in the photo above are all standing outside Yodobashi Camera, an electronics store in Akihabara. The store offers free wifi for anyone with a Nintendo DS and on that network they can get access to free games and unique characters for games they already own.

In a similar type of cross-promition, my son walked into a McDonald’s and switched on his DS and downloaded a free Pokemon character for a new game he bought. In a clever cross promotion between Nintendo, Game Freak (the game publisher), and McDonald’s, the character was only available via wifi at McDonald’s. After giving your name, age, and email address, the character is downloaded to a specific location in the game.

Tyler has been spending the last week making his way through the game to reach the in-game location so he can interact with the character. Brilliant way to combine physical and virtual location around brands and maintain engagement.