Abstract
In fewer than ten days during the summer of 2016, millions of smartphone users around the world went crazy over Poke´mon Go, an augmented reality videogame app. If only all new high-technology products–—and their investors–—could enjoy such runaway success! Alas, the road to new technologies can be bumpy, and marketers of new high-tech products face numerous obstacles. Six perils await these marketers: significant market uncertainty, significant technological uncertainty, issues of compatibility within a product’s complex multi-component system, struggles to orchestrate self-reinforcing network effects, challenges of navigating ecosystem complexities and competition, and inherent risks of making hard choices among multiple product-market options with significant path dependency. This article discusses these dangers and concludes with advice regarding steps marketers can and should take to make the journey to market less perilous.
8. Concluding comments
As I was finishing this article, Poke´mon Go, an augmented reality smartphone app, took the world by storm.Released forpublic download inAustralia,New Zealand, and the U.S. on July 6, 2016, the app was available in many European countries by the week of July 11. In little over a week, several million people had downloaded the app and users were swarming streets, neighborhoods, spaces, and places across three continents. True, the app was free (although in-app purchases were available), but regardless, Poke´mon Go has been a big hit and a marketer’s dream.
