O2O Destination Marketing Using a Location-Based GPS Game:

Abstract

The location-based game “Station Memories!”, in which players travel around more than 9,000 stations throughout Japan with bishôjo (animated beautiful girl) characters, has recently become an online-to-offline (O2O) destination marketing approach for railroad companies and local governments that are suffering from a decrease in passengers. By holding a short-term local digital stamp rally featuring a bishôjo character, this approach has succeeded in attracting three kinds of otaku—game otaku, railroad otaku, and bishôjo character otaku—who are enthusiastic about the game and willing to spend much of their time and money to visit the destination where the digital stamp rally is held. This paper reviews some of the many successes of “Station Memories!” campaigns and discusses its potential as an O2O destination marketing model.

Keywords

• destination marketing
• online-to-offline marketing
• character business
• local revitalization policies for a shrinking and aging society
• otaku pilgrimage