Mecca Bingo has released the initial results of a campaign designed to engage with a younger, male audience, encouraging them to visit one of its venues.

With the Pokémon Go craze sweeping the globe, the company teamed up with London-based digital creative studio SMACK and invited Pokémon Go players to take a screenshot of any Pokémon characters they came across at within Mecca Bingo venues, and then share the photo on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with a dedicated hashtag - #MeccaPokemon – for a chance to win prizes at the club including food, bingo games and slots vouchers.

Mecca set itself a KPI of 800 Facebook engagements for the campaign, which ran from 23 July for a week.  Top posts across all three social networks were a video post titles ‘Are you Pokémon crazy?’ promoting the campaign, and a name generator, which generated a name for players as a Pokémon character based on the first letter of their name and the month in which they were born.

In fact, it achieved 12,378 engagements on Facebook, with 974 Likes and other Reactions, and 1,656 comments. In total, the campaign reached half a million people and saw Mecca’s highest ever male engagement. It also delivered the highest organic and paid reach of the last quarter.

"The Pokémon social media campaign was brilliant in its simplicity and quick turnaround," Mecca's head of brand marketing Caroline Webb told Mobile Marketing. "It piggybacked on the biggest trend of the moment and got our players engaging with us in a way that was effective, but above all, fun. It also helped us engage with a younger audience, drew footfall to the clubs and got people talking about us. We loved it, and what's more, our customers did too! We’re delighted with the results."