Foot Locker (and its Champ Sports subs-brand), Niantic and Puma have teamed up for a November initiative to turn 400 retail locations – including the Puma NYC flagship store – into Pokémon GO Gyms and PokéStops to promote a new capsule collection spanning shoes, jackets, sweatpants, t-shirts, hoodies and accessories spearheaded by a range of Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle and Gengar sneakers.
The kicks, which became available to buy for between $30 and $130 from 12 November, are available in kids and adult sizes exclusively at Foot Locker and online through Pokemon. They come in different styles and each pair of trainers is themed after a specific Pokémon: emulating their colour scheme and depicting their type on the heel.
To promote the game-inspired clothing and trainer line, the sportswear brand, retailer and US software developer (originally an internal start-up within Google and best known for developing augmented reality mobile games like Ingress and Pokémon Go) set up hundreds of multi-branded gyms and game centres across the USA which will be active for six months from Mid-November where players can interact with each other and in-game creatures.
As well as the participatory in-store experiences, the collaboration was promoted by a social media campaign and a PR push led by agency Allison+Partners.
New shoes are coming from Pokémon and @PUMA! Featuring Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle, their will be both adult and children's sizes. Coming this month, possibly on November 12. More images below pic.twitter.com/Zgb9GFdJch
— PokéJungle: Gen IX (@pokejungle) November 1, 2022
Pikachu pic.twitter.com/cDIcP2Bpoj
— PokéJungle: Gen IX (@pokejungle) November 1, 2022
Bulbasaur pic.twitter.com/BLDpueCYHK
— PokéJungle: Gen IX (@pokejungle) November 1, 2022
Squirtle pic.twitter.com/5Nke9LpAC4
— PokéJungle: Gen IX (@pokejungle) November 1, 2022
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This entertainment property tie-in is part of the red hot trend for sneaker brand collaborations across the arts, culture, entertainment, film, gaming, music and sport space which explore ways to link the physical and virtual worlds using AR technology to engage younger consumers.
Recent trainer/entertainment tie-up examples include Nike/Flintstone/FruityPebbles to Adidas/TheSimpsons.
The 2016 phenomenon Pokémon Go is still going strong six years later, although annual active users have dropped significantly and steadily since the game was first released: although there was a 60m download spike in the 2020 pandemic lockdown. The game was downloaded 56m times in 2021 and 23m times over the first eight months of 2022. More importantly, the game generated $4.5bn in revenue for Niantic with more than $1.8bn spent on in-app purchases.
A Camera IQ study from early 2022 found that more than three-quarters of American consumers had used AR in some form and more than half expected to do so in the future: with 59% saying they would be more likely to purchase a product they visualized using AR and 82% said they were more like to accept a brand that used AR to educate them about their products and services.
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