Wii Believe in Nintendo
In this article, one of Fellows and Associates’ resident Journalists, Safiya Kinshasa, looks at the impact of the Nintendo Wii. Safiya argues that there are marketing lessons in Nintendo’s innovative approach.
Nintendo games consoles have evolved a great deal over the years, remember their first efforts with awkward joysticks and bright bold colours? Nintendo has outlived Sega and competed against the ever changing Playstation and the dynamic Xbox models but it did not seem like they had anything new to offer. Until deep in Japanese headquarters the Wii was created. A stunning, sleek design which uses motion sensing technology to enable you to perform actions you couldn’t otherwise have done with a normal controller, combining virtual reality and interactive play.
Even though virtual reality play and interactive gaming had already been established, the Nintendo Wii managed to sell over 20million consoles after 30 months in America. So apart from the Wii’s innovative design what were the other main components of the Nintendo Campaign that boosted its phenomenal success?
1. The Consumer
It is very rare to watch an advert with the entire conventional family playing a games console together, but the Wii made this possible. The Wii focused on group interaction, an experience which could be shared with family and friends. Finally there was a gaming product that appealed to everybody, of every gender and generation.
2. The Games
Simple, family orientated games that take advantage of the target market such as Wii Sports (which was packaged with the console) made it a firm favourite for parties and for children with their parents. This was further enhanced by the release of Wii Fit and its Balance Board tapping into the exercise market and particularly targeted at women in its advertising. Nintendo realised that complexity and stunning visuals were not the only way to succeed and bowed out of the console technology arms race by expanding the market into new directions instead of competing for share of the existing one.
3. Celebrity Endorsements
Clever use of celebrity advertising (a technique also used when advertising the Nintendo DS) has helped the Wii’s mass appeal – the family orientated Redknapp advertisements have emphasised its target demographic (i.e. potentially everyone).
4. Old School Brand
Everyone remembers the Mario Brother’s games and merchandise and Donkey Kong which was one of the Nintendo’s first games; so bringing them back in the Wii arena helped to maintain Nintendo’s success and reminded people why Nintendo was a contender in the game world in the first place. Nintendo did not forget its original consumers and was deftly able to appeal to them at the same time as expanding the console market in its entirety and its own share within in it.
Nintendo’s recent successes took the games industry largely by surprise given the inferior processing power of the Wii when compared to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. However, a combination of innovative marketing strategy and a deliberate tactic of expanding and diversifying the console market in its entirety has meant that this round of the console wars has undoubtedly gone to Nintendo.
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