Who is to blame for Pokemon Go?

Perhaps you are one of the legion of fans gobbling up pokemon in the new mobile phenomenon from Niantic. I certainly have been addicted to it these last few months. Are you frustrated with the constant server issues, lack of information on updates, and occasional broken features? Me too!

Who do we blame for this? We could blame Niantic for not anticipating the huge success this game turned out to be. We could blame Nintendo for not helping to establish a temporary community team of contractors since one does not currently exist at all at Niantic. We could even blame ourselves for our avaricious need to be spoon fed information constantly instead of letting a company function on making its product. However, the person we won’t be blaming is the Niantic Marketing Manager currently on maternity leave.

Why is this? Because I would like to believe we are not assholes misinformed individuals like this individual “journalist” at i4u.com who published this article late last month blaming Yennie Solheim Fuller for daring to have a life outside of her job. Because to quote i4u News:

“Why is Niantic basically silent throughout the turmoil of viral growth that cause all kinds of issues?

The person who is responsible for PR and Marketing at Niantic gave birth two days after the launch of Pokemon Go. Yennie Solheim Fuller is on maternity leave.”

There are so many flaws in this article it would take a book length response to list them, but here are a few.

1. a Marketing Manager is not a Community Manager
2. it is virtually impossible to plan life events around a launch
3. it takes a team of people to handle a launch this big for Community, not one person.
4. talking to players is not her job.

I’ll let you in on a secret of the gaming industry. Things rarely go on schedule. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tried to plan vacations, important events and personal time around a phase or launch date to zero success. Even if Ms. Fuller scheduled her baby’s conception down to the second to have ample time for launch, it would be unlikely to happen exactly on schedule. Even if this was an unexpected pregnancy, the company had 9 nine months to consider adding to their marketing team. It would be entirely her business to decide when to enlarge her family.

HOWEVER, Let’s take a second here and think. Their marketing was spot on since we all know about the game and are playing it. In fact, their marketing was so excellent that they garnered an audience far more than they expected – enough to surpass Facebook and Snapchat users as of this month. Great job marketing team! This is the result that companies dream of. Global coverage, eager players, widespread discussion.

This brings me to another important point – a Marketing Manager is NOT a Community Manager.

“A Marketing Manager is a person within a company who supervises and helps create the various advertising or merchandising sales campaigns the business uses to sell itself and its products. A Marketing Manager can be assigned to a single product, a product line, a brand, or the entire company.” (from payscale.com)

According to this definition, she created a buzz for the game, got the word out, supplied interesting journalists and media kits to cover it, all while preparing for the birth of her child and handing things like a boss. She excels at this.

Ask i4u.com why one should have an Accountant AND a Banker, they both work with money right? Marketing and Community is the same way, just with people.

Now dolls, I understand the disgruntlement with the silence from Niantic to your feedback and questions. For this type of help you need a Community Manager. Let me drop some knowledge on you.

“A Community Manager is responsible for advocating the brand on social networks. They create their own social persona and actively go out within the online community to connect with potential customers and advocate the brand.”

Wouldn’t one of those be helpful?

So who do we blame for the widespread craze of Pokemon go spreading to all corners of the world? Yennie Solheim Fuller. Now let’s wish her a well-deserved rest.

And let’s hope that Niantic is as wise when they select a Community Manager and team to handle the rest.

Feel free to tell Luigi Lugmayr your feelings on his opinion about pregnant women and their responsibilities to the masses, even though it seems that he values his privacy enough not to have a twitter account. Sad that he doesn’t want to communicate with his readers. Maybe he needs a “Marketing Manager.”