海角大神

Would you like a Frappuccino with your Pikachu?

It鈥檚 a question Starbucks baristas may be asking players of Pok茅mon Go starting Thursday, as the coffee retail chain has partnered with Niantic, the maker of the augmented-reality game. About two-thirds of Starbuck鈥檚 coffee shops are now Pokestops or Gyms, where players can unlock certain features of the game, including a flavor of the milkshake beverage it has brewed just for them.

Since Pok茅mon Go became a summer sensation, Niantic has teamed up with major restaurants and retailers abroad to bring Pok茅mon trainers into stores. But Starbucks is the first in a string of large American companies to become sponsors, turning their brick-and-mortar shops into hotspots for the game to bolster their business and Niantic鈥檚. It also offers a preview of how other chains could use augmented reality to draw in more foot traffic.

鈥淲e anticipate our participation in the game will encourage more customers to visit your store and increase the number of transactions,鈥� wrote Starbucks, in a to it employees that described the partnership.

Pok茅mon Go is a game that uses a smartphone鈥檚 GPS and camera to overlay the real world with virtual monsters. Players walk city streets and other public spaces to find and capture these monsters that appear on the screen of their phones. They can also stock up on virtual items such as eggs, Pok茅 balls, and potions at PokeStops, and battle other players at Gyms.

Of Starbuck鈥檚 13,000 or so coffee shops in the US, 7,800 have become PokeStops or Gyms. Players can also unlock and buy a special, berry-flavored Frappuccino, which Starbucks will offer them for a limited time.

Niantic hopes the partnership will be one in a string of sponsorships to rekindle the success it saw this summer. Pok茅mon Go, which took advantage of the nostalgia for the original card game and animated series from the 1990s, the first week downloads record on Apple鈥檚 App Store, and was the fastest ever to reach 50 million downloads overall, according to USA Today. But this success has waned since the summer. In August, the game developer said it was exploring more company sponsorships, a concept first born in Japan.

Shortly after the release of the game, McDonald鈥檚 became the first major company to partner with Niantic, turning nearly 3,000 of its restaurants in Japan into so-called Gyms, as The Wall Street Journal reported then. The move encouraged more game play while bringing foot traffic, and perhaps empty stomachs, .

Small businesses across the United States took advantage of this model by either paying for short-term promotions or just welcoming players inside. Small-business owners spoke of the uptick in traffic they saw, especially if their storefronts became Gyms or PokeStops, according to AdWeek. But Niantic also offered owners a feature called Lures, which, for $1.19 an hour, would attract players.

But sponsorships with major companies solve a general problem of mobile advertisers. Ambarish Mitra, chief executive of augmented-reality developer Blippar, told Marketing Week that advertisers have not seen push notifications or coupons on mobile phones translate to more in-store purchases.

鈥淏ut if you of Pok茅mon Go, the possibilities for marketers are endless,鈥� he said.

Andy Pringle, head of performance media at Performics UK, added that 鈥淧ok茅mon Go will actively encourage users to engage in 鈥榓ds鈥�, through driving them into store, or owned location, to have an interaction with the brand in return for an in game reward.鈥�

At Starbucks, players will be encouraged to buy the blended beverage.

A Sprint sponsorship is expected to come on the heels of the Starbucks announcement. Sprint will reportedly be the exclusive mobile sponsor of Pok茅mon Go. Players are likely to be encouraged to visit more than 10,500 Sprint and RadioShack storefronts in the US, which will also become PokeStops and Gyms.

"We expect in traffic," Sprint Chief Executive Marcelo Claure told CNET.聽He called this a different way to advertise.聽

As other mobile game developers look to replicate the success of Pok茅mon聽Go, this sponsorship stands as a model for them to replicate too.

Other companies are also incorporating augmented-reality into live shopping experiences. Ikea uses augmented reality to allow consumers to 鈥渢ry out鈥� furniture in their own homes via the IKEA Catalog app, as Bailey Bischoff reported for 海角大神.

鈥淭he app allows shoppers to aim one鈥檚 phone at a space in their living room and see the 鈥榩rojection鈥� of a couch to decide whether it would fit or to try out how different colors work with the room,鈥� she wrote.

This report contains material from Reuters.聽