Archit Bhargava, Niantic’s Global Marketing Lead, received a prize for Niantic during the Webby Award for the Best Mobile game of 2017.
Winners were allowed to make a 5-word acceptance speech and here’s what Bhargava said: “This summer will be legendary!”
Mind you trainers, this is Niantic’s global marketing lead speaking – people like him do not make public announcements and/or leaks by mistake. This is marketing 101, playful but informative tease for anyone watching the awards (players, investors, other game developers).
In other words Bhargava just pulled a “save your candy” style announcement and confirmed that we can expect amazing things this summer, legendary Pokemon included!
Video source (19:00 – 19:20)
Who is Archit Bhargava?
Archit Bhargava (LinkedIn) has been in charge of product marketing for both Ingress and Pokemon GO since November 2011. His biggest endorsements and featured skills are:
- product marketing
- strategy
- social media marketing
He has worked and followed up on almost every marketing strategy in regards to Ingress, orchestrating both “Go-To Market” and Ongoing Marketing Strategy. Bhargava was also responsible for developing messaging and assisting with key product brand assets while he was working on Ingress, at Niantic Labs (Google).
His Twitter account (@archbhargava) has been mostly used to re-tweet Niantic’s social messaging and work related announcements, awards, etc.
He graduated from University of Mumbai (Bachelor of Engineering) and continued to pursue a MBA at Walter A. Haas School of Business.
This is not a drill!
Considering that Bhargava is Niantic’s marketing lead, we can safely say you can draw conclusions from this. Bhargava is marketing legendary Pokemon right there, on the stage of Webby awards.
The Legendary event was already promised to be later this year by John Hanke (Niantic CEO) in an interview with Wired in February (link).
Additionaly, Niantic Japan has also shared that a huge summer event is planned for Pokemon GO, making this just an additional bit of information added to the list of evidence.
You can safely get on board, the hype train has left the station!
Related reading:
- In-depth look at how Legendaries will affect the game, part 1 of 4
- In-depth look at how Legendaries will affect the game, part 2 of 4: The Mew Duo
- In-depth look at how Legendaries will affect the game, part 3 of 4: The Johto Beasts
- In-depth look at how Legendaries will affect the game, part 4 of 4: Lugia, Ho-Oh and Celebi
Forum discussion: link
