AT&T, Cricket Wireless are 1st brand sponsors of 'Harry Potter' AR game

Brief:

AT&T is the first brand to sponsor "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite," the mobile game that combines characters from the popular fantasy franchise with the augmented reality (AR) playability of "Pokémon Go," Ad Age reported. AT&T stores appear as "inns" and "fortresses" in the game.
Cricket Wireless, the AT&T-owned provider of prepaid cellular plans, will be added to the game on July 15. When the rollout is complete, players can visit the more than 10,000 AT&T and Cricket stores to recharge their energy level, find challenges or see virtual wizards and magical creatures.
As part of last year's acquisition of Time Warner, AT&T gained the video game rights to "Harry Potter." Its WB Games division collaborated with game developer Niantic, creator of "Pokémon Go," to release the new game last week.

Insight:

As the first sponsor of "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite," AT&T could see greater foot traffic to its stores as players gather as part of the location-based game. The sponsorships are reminiscent of Sprint's marketing efforts around "Pokémon Go," which popularized the idea of urging mobile users to explore their real surroundings while playing a mobile game.

The sponsorship smartly taps into the release of a highly anticipated game. "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite" hit No. 1 on Apple's App Store and Google Play stores on its first day of release with roughly 400,000 downloads, and generated about $300,000 from in-app purchases, per analytics firm Sensor Tower. However, the firm said those numbers lag compared to "Pokémon Go," which generated 7.5 million downloads and $2 million on its first day. Still, the mobile AR market is set to generate more than $3.5 billion this year, according to a forecast from Nielsen-owned analytics firm SuperData, and continues to be a crucial playing field for mobile marketers looking to engage younger, mobile-savvy consumers.

Gaming apps drove 74% of spending in app stores last year, demonstrating the power of gaming content among mobile users, per analytics firm App Annie. The company found that 33% of all mobile downloads worldwide consisted of gaming apps, which also made up 10% of the total time spent on mobile devices. In another gaming move, AT&T this year became the founding sponsor of a mobile esports league called the ESL Mobile Open, created by esports organizer and producer ESL.