Nintendo's Wii blitz campaign [update 1]
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Nov 13th 2006 at 10:45AM }
Guten Tag und willkommen zum Nintendo Blitz. Yesterday the news broke that Nintendo will spend over $200 million marketing the Nintendo Wii. A lot of readers said advertising isn't everything, and they're absolutely right. To back up the ad buys, Nintendo is also unleashing a massive publicity blitz across various demographics into our general culture.In the last month, the Wii was featured in a special two-part episode of South Park, along with Time, Fortune, National Public Radio, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal -- mind you, all in a positive light. The only bad thing Fortune said was the Wii's name was scary.
What happens next? For the sake of brevity we'll bullet point it after the jump.
- Wii Mall Experience: Beginning Nov. 15 interactive kiosks will be set up in 25 Westfield shopping centers. A mall conglomerate like Simon's.
- Blender magazine with have Nintendo Fusion Tour headliners Hawthorne Heights talking about Wii in the December issue.
- "Urban Gaming Hours" for urban "influencers" like Vice [sic] magazine and Def Jam Records employees.
- RISE magazine will feature teen athletes talking about their Wii experience.
- The midnight Wii launch at Toys R Us in Times Square and Universal CityWalk in LA is a guaranteed 11PM news feature.
- Brand partnerships: 7-Eleven will give away 711 consoles. 7-Eleven will also introduce the "StrawberrWii Banana" Slurpee. Pringles chips will have themed canisters and give away 100 consoles through a contest.
- Comedy Central will give away a Wii every hour during Thanksgiving weekend. The Wii will also be featured in a series of spoofs on reality shows.
- Wii Would Like to Play: Wii's central ad campaign follows two friendly Japanese men who bring Wii to people's homes to demonstrate how easy and fun it is for everyone to play. Stephen Gaghan, who wrote the screenplay for and directed Syriana and won a best screenplay Oscar for writing Traffic, directed the four spots. The director of photography is John Seale, who won an Oscar for best cinematography on The English Patient and was nominated for Oscars for Rain Man, Cold Mountain and Witness. The spots begin airing the week of Nov. 13.
- Nick @ Nite: Wii will be featured on the Nov. 24 Nick@Nite episode of Road Crew. The spots feature a family from Long Island that finally finds something they can all enjoy together -- playing Wii.
- Nickelodeon: A Wii ad begins Nov. 20. The 60-second spot shows a dad mistaking the Wii Remote for his television remote control. Dad becomes immersed in the fun, and soon the whole family joins in.
- TeleFutura: Nintendo will be at November auditions in New York for the highly successful international singing competition show Objetivo Fama (Objective: Fame) to allow contestants to sample the Wii console and calm their pre-audition jitters.
- Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Discovery Kids Network: A feature scheduled to air in December showcases kids, parents and teachers sampling Wii at a school event and sharing their experiences.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
hardreturn @ Nov 13th 2006 10:52AM
it was also editors pick in wired's 'tested' special issue
32_Footsteps @ Nov 13th 2006 10:57AM
"Comedy Central will give away a Wii every hour during Thanksgiving weekend. The Wii will also be featured in a series of spoofs on reality shows."
Don't tell me this means the Wii will appear in Drawn Together (especially given that two characters on the show are clearly based on Nintendo properties). I still don't get how that show has lasted more than a season.
Hmm... Nintendo certainly seems to be casting a wide net this time around. I wonder if it'll do any good.
kc @ Nov 13th 2006 11:01AM
so we know how much nintendo and microsoft are spending, how bout sony? so far ive seen the less than informative playbeyond commercials, and i know that RobotChicken in conjuntion with Adultswim is giving away three ps3s.
ConstyXIV @ Nov 13th 2006 11:01AM
@2:
"Hmm... Nintendo certainly seems to be casting a wide net this time around. I wonder if it'll do any good."
No shit, Sherlock. They've been saying since about a year into the DS that they want to expand the gaming market to equal with other mass media. They aren't going to get there advertising on G4, EGM, and friends.
TheChaz @ Nov 13th 2006 12:34PM
It's westfield, not westerfield. They're the largest retail property holder in the world (by market cap).
http://westfield.com/uscentres/
Morder @ Nov 13th 2006 11:06AM
not to mention that they can back up their ad campaign with actual product...unlike some one else we know.
32_Footsteps @ Nov 13th 2006 11:13AM
"They've been saying since about a year into the DS that they want to expand the gaming market to equal with other mass media."
And you wouldn't be able to tell that from the advertising the DS has had, really. The DS rollout didn't see anything nearly on this level. Granted, the games certainly were "outside the box," but the advertising was nothing new or all that broad.
For the DS, it walked the walk but didn't necessarily talk the talk, to use a cliche. With the Wii, Nintendo seems intent on talking big. Now, we see if they deliver.
JodyAnthony @ Nov 13th 2006 11:21AM
"i know that RobotChicken in conjuntion with Adultswim is giving away three ps3s."
Sony should get the Robot Chicken guys to do their commercials. I saw that RC contest commercial thing, and it was awesome, much better than crying baby dolls and exploding rubik's cubes.
flymolo @ Nov 13th 2006 11:24AM
Hey how do you e-mail joystiq with tips?
I found this, thought it was pretty cool.
http://www.nintendic.com/news/169
SecondChance @ Nov 13th 2006 11:27AM
Why didn't Vladimir Cole write this post? And, more importantly, is this comment going to get "edited?"
James @ Nov 13th 2006 11:27AM
Here's my perception of what is going on with these advertising campaigns:
Microsoft: "Battle stations! Wiis has been spotted in the skies advertising to our customer base! Scramble all consoles and advertise them back!"
Nintendo: "Sunday, Sunday, Someday! See remotes with coordinating action! Watch as you will see way too much crap about a console be blabbed about and you will not care! Care! CARE! Pre-orders are on sale now! Now! NOW!"
Sony: "...zzz..."
A bit overdramatic, but it is about right so far.
TehSudds @ Nov 13th 2006 11:35AM
# RISE magazine will feature teen athletes talking about their Wii experience.
Holy crap, this is cracking me up.
mattva01 @ Nov 13th 2006 11:41AM
Some of the advertising is so corny!
zero2dash @ Nov 13th 2006 12:02PM
$200 million blitz campaign is right. Not really "blitz", moreso "last minute". Who was the smart guy with the "we'll wait 'til the week of launch to rollout the mainstream advertising" idea at Nintendo?
No offense, but I have yet to see a Wii ad for anything and meanwhile I've seen three [bad] Sony ads that have nothing to do with games. But at least Sony gets a C for Effort. Nintendo with nil...WTF?
/shrug
lets just put the gun down and we go get me those fries @ Nov 13th 2006 12:06PM
"how childish!" -ignignokt
BlindsideDork @ Nov 13th 2006 12:11PM
Joystiq, why delete my comments?
KrunkSplein @ Nov 13th 2006 12:17PM
Zero2dash - Nintendo has gone on record saying that they didn't want to start mass advertising until after the Wii was readily available in stores. They want people who see the commercial to be able to easily go to the store and pick one up.
The only "hype" they want to generate is word of mouth.
Ritz @ Nov 13th 2006 12:20PM
Reggie spoke about this at one point zero2dash. Nintendo already knows it has the demand generated to sell their systems at launch. Nintendo says they didn't want to start mass advertising only to have people come to the store and find the shelves empty. All throughout the rest of this year, the hardcore fanboy hype will keep Wii going. As they begin to advertise now, the Wii will get mainstream exposure along with (hopefully) positive word-of-mouth from current customers to drive sales throughout the new year. Or so thats my understanding of their plan.
Sony on the other hand has a much more difficult task ahead of them, relatively speaking. Their ads have to generate an insane amount of hype so that customers who walk into the store looking for one will be willing to wait (possibly months) and not impulse buy one the competition's (cheaper) systems instead.
Judd @ Nov 13th 2006 4:05PM
This site keeps on putting up the link, to the post about the first part of the two-part Wii South Park. But they never mentioned the follow up. Maybe it's because it sucked? Seriously, the first part was my favorite episode of this season, and the second part was my least favorite. And my liking the first part wasn't just because it was about the Wii. I found the religous jokes funny in the first part, but so stale by the second. http://www.southparkstudios.com/show/display_episode.php?season=10&id1=1013&id2=156
anOne @ Nov 13th 2006 12:33PM
the magazine is called VIBE, not vice.
Steve @ Nov 13th 2006 12:39PM
I don't understand why either Nintendo or Sony is advertising at this point. The fanbase of both companies is large enough to eat up every system that is released at launch - especially Sony with their production of 3-4 dozen systems. Why advertise what's already sold?
Games? Now I can understand advertising games since they aren't guaranteed to sell unless they contain a reference to the triforce.
Might as well throw it in, but Sony's commercials have been artistic but ineffective. A crying baby? An exploding rubix cube? The commercials are meaningless and do not showcase the product. At least the magnetic egg commercial promotes the concept of Nintendo's motion sensitive controller (oops, I meant Sony's) but that only works if you already know about the system!
wonkwonk @ Nov 14th 2006 8:02PM
all adverts are corny shite. JUST GIMME SOME ZELDA
Jonn @ Nov 13th 2006 2:24PM
@20: It's not the launch, it's the rest of the holidays they're concerned with. The fans snap up the launch supply, and then everybody else comes a-lookin'. Sony can't even hope match the numbers.
Paul Gale @ Nov 13th 2006 6:14PM
Nintendo spending $200 million throughout the year on Wii advertising is excellent news for videogame fans. This means that while we're watching hit shows like Smallville, Lost, Raw, and Survivor, that get viewed by many people throughout the country, plenty of non-gamers will also be introduced to Wii.
I'm glad that Nintendo's not being cheap in the slightest with this upcoming ad campaign. It's really important for their goal, that they get the word out that its an easily accessible, fun machine to as many people as possible.
I'm most excited for the new Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess commercial. The way Nintendo pumped up Ocarina of Time back in 1998 was absolutely perfect. Let's hope we get a similar, majestic commercial for this game as well.
Paul Gale
1up.com
V1L3 @ Nov 13th 2006 6:57PM
22: Oh come on. That ending had to be the single BEST ending to a South Park episode ever. I didn't see it coming, and it made me laugh my ASS off. Admittedly, it was 1am and I'd been drinking, but still...
As for the advertising, I think Nintendo is on the right track here. They know that their fanbase and the hardcore gamers know all about the system and games. Why advertise to people who already know more information about your product than you could show in even a 30-minute infomercial?
Focus on the people who don't wake up everyday and head to their computers for the latest video game news. Get the information out there. The misinformation amongst "non-gamers" is really quite astounding. You could stop any number of people on the street and ask them what the difference is between an Xbox and an Xbox 360 or a GameCube and a Colecovision, and most probably wouldn't be able to tell you.
Whether or not this information translates to sales could remain to be seen. But even just arousing people's curiosity could see major sales. It's like when Coke release a new flavour. It may well taste like crap, but most people will buy it at least once just to try it out. Most people will go see a movie that everyone's talking about - whether it's good or not - just so they're "in the know."
Seriously. How many of us "hardcore gamers" are not going to at least TRY out a Wii game, regardless if we think we're going to like the new controller or not?
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it could be a goldmine for Nintendo.
Sponge @ Nov 14th 2006 12:00AM
#3 What self respecting gamer (or anyone for that matter)would watch G4?
kiyoshi67 @ Nov 16th 2006 4:03PM
Anyone else notice the real revelation? Not only is George Harrison still alive and well, but Nintendo's senior VP for marketing.
Quote, since the link is down:
"About 80 percent of advertising for Wii will target adults in an attempt to expand the video-game market beyond children and teens that have been Nintendo's traditional market, said George Harrison, the company's senior vice president for marketing."