What are Balloon Ads and how do they work in Pokémon Go?

There’s a new advertisement in Pokémon Go that highlights nearby local businesses and larger companies. You might encounter a GrubHub, KFC, or a nearby business being promoted by what is being called a Balloon Advertisement. The Balloon Advertisement appears right in the middle of your screen and takes up a good majority of what you’re looking at, resting right in the middle of everything. Players won’t be able to do anything about it until three seconds after they appear. If you have these appear on your screen, you receive a gift for looking at the advertisement. It’s similar to the sponsored gifts that appear at PokéStops.

A Balloon Advertisement shows up every so often in Pokémon Go. These advertisements feature a hot air balloon’s bottom, and it has a pink gift underneath it with a letter. The Balloon Advertisement will have a ‘sponsored’ message under it with a pink letter. It includes some words regarding whichever company is advertising through Pokémon Go, and then you receive a few gifts.

The advertisement does prevent you from playing for three seconds. Following those three seconds, a small ‘X’ will appear on the top right, and then you dismiss the message to resume playing. It’s not a huge problem, and if you don’t mind seeing a few advertisements on your screen every so often, it’s not the worst thing in the world, especially to receive some free Pokémon Go items that you might want to save.

You can choose to remove yourself from receiving these advertisements. They fall under the category of ‘sponsored gifts.’ To remove yourself from this list, you need to go into your settings in Pokémon Go, and it will be the last option on the core settings, underneath, “Email me events, offers, and updates.” Once you check that bubble off, you will no longer receive sponsored advertisements.