Nintendo’s marketing guru talks about new advertising campaigns and the future of the company.
During Nintendo’s recent press event in Seattle, vice-president Reggie Fils-Aime addressed the group of journalists to discuss the company’s holiday marketing efforts, as well as broader issues they are facing.
Reggie began with a few comments on Nintendo’s current position. He said that Game Boy Advance is not only the best selling game system in the world, but it is the “hottest” consumer electronics product, outselling such popular items as Apple’s iPod several times over. The GBA SP has seen a 70% increase in sales since last month’s price drop to $79.99, and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is selling “extremely well”. For this holiday season, Nintendo considers its biggest title to be Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which Reggie described as a “thinking person’s FPS”.
He then cued up a new commercial for Echoes, which will be finalized soon and begin airing for the game’s release. The ad is titled “Iron Woman” and begins with a tall, blonde model walking down the street. As she walks, bits of metal appear from off the screen and fly onto her body. This goes on for several seconds, as the metal accumulates and eventually forms her suit of armor. Samus then holds out her cannon arm and fires at something in the distance. The ad finishes with a few seconds of gameplay footage.
Reggie then shifted his focus to the DS. Referring to the role of Super Mario 64 DS in the launch lineup, he said: “Mario is like the postman – he delivers.” He also mentioned that WarioWare DS will be released in America in the next quarter (Q1 2005). Nintendo will be pushing DS with a theater ad campaign throughout the month of December. The 60-second ad currently in production was previewed to the group. It shows a young adult couple sitting in a nice restaurant, eating dinner. The man is using his fork to write something in a sauce on his plate, ignoring his companion as she talks over the food. The camera pans over the plate to reveal that his is writing “smack talk” on the plate. Elsewhere in the restaurant, a young woman picks up her frosted drink glass and writes on the side of it with her finger, replying with an equally aggressive remark. The two go back and forth sending message, as the young man’s date gets more frustrated at his refusal to pay her attention. Then we see a waiter writing something in icing on a small cake. As he brings it into the dining area, the camera zooms in to reveal the cake’s message: “You’re both toast!” There is no gameplay footage at all, but the entire commercial is set to a very catchy techno song. Reggie warned that the song could get stuck in your head all day, and that’s exactly the effect they are going for. He wrapped up the presentation by confirming that both GameStop and EB have halted pre-sells due to high demand for DS, and he added that the system’s library will have doubled in size by the time PSP arrives in America in March.
At this point, Reggie opened the floor for questions, which often reached beyond marketing to address the company in general. PGC was not able to transcribe every question, especially once the discussion was uprooted by an unexpected fire drill and continued outside in the NOA parking lot (see pictures below). However, here are a few highlights:
