Basel catches tourists with Pokemon Go Pikachu revenge prank
Brands continue to piggy back the Pokemon Go phenomena for an association with the game millennials can’t seem to get enough of. However the city of Basel is one of the few standing head and shoulders above others with its content.
Pokemon GO
The Swiss city’s tourism agency, Basel Tourismus, created a beautifully-shot Pokemon Go video that sees pranksters dressed in Pikachu onesies enact their revenge upon trainers.
The video has ramped up an impressive 65m views on Facebook and just shy of a million on YouTube, looking to promote itself as a Pokemon friendly city.
It also serves as a sneaky way of exposing the city sights to an engaged audience.
Shot with drones, the video promotes the city and a hub providing information for travelling trainers.
Christine Waelti, manager of marketing and communications at Basel Tourismus, said: "To attract a young audience, we had the idea to create a video about the Pokémon topic. We then contacted Fadeout, a digital marketing agency we’ve been working together before who came up with the story idea.
"Well first of all it’s a humorous way of looking at the Pokémon Go hype. And these days everyone knows someone or several people who are addicted to Pokémon Go, and seeing the video people felt reminded of their particular friends and tagged them. This made the video go viral very fast. Further it’s a nice combination of the 'product' we are selling (the city of Basel) and the Pokémon topic, so the message that Basel is a nice city to visit comes across."
The stunt was orchestrated by an influencers group named FadeoutTrashTV.