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New Nintendo TV Spots

by Michael Cole - April 21, 2004, 4:26 pm EDT
Total comments: 20 Source: Press Release

Nintendo finally advertises Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and other upcoming games!

Did You Know? - Nintendo Launches New Ads for Game Boy Advance and Nintendo GameCube

April 21, 2004 - Nintendo continues the evolution of the "Who Are You?" campaign with new advertising created by Leo Burnett USA for Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance, two of the hottest systems in the video game industry.

"Interviewer," which launches this week and showcases Nintendo GameCube software, features a guy in a therapist's office that appears to be living out the personalities and experiences of characters within Nintendo GameCube games. He is transformed by each game's experience and "becomes" the characters he plays. The campaign is a continuation of the "Who Are You?" theme launched in September, 2003. Two 30-second and four 15-second versions of the spot feature game footage from titles including EA Sports’ MVP Baseball™ 2004, Custom Robo™, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid®: The Twin Snakes™ and The Legend of Zelda®: Four Swords Adventures.

Also launching this week is a new campaign for Game Boy Advance, entitled "Freeboy." Set to the beat of U.K. dance act Goldfrapp's "Strict Machine" from the album Black Cherry (recently achieved Gold sales status in Britain), the first of several spots in development visually illustrates how Game Boy Advance has untethered a generation from their gaming consoles and has "freed" them to enjoy Nintendo games anywhere and everywhere. The portable interactive entertainment system allows gamers to explore themselves by changing the world around them. Game Boy Advance can transform ordinary life into an exciting experience. This new campaign is a collision of reality and fantasy. With the help of groundbreaking effects, the ads give viewers a peek into the mind of someone playing Game Boy Advance, illustrating how a player's perspective on the "real" world changes as they play. The "Freeboy" work will also carry the "Who Are You?" theme.

These new spots will run on network, cable and in syndication and will be included during such programs as UPN's "One on One," "Rock Me Baby" and "I'm Still Alive;" WB's "Angel," "The Jaime Kennedy Experiment," and "Smallville," Fox's "The Ortegas," ABC's "Married to the Kelly's" and "America's Funniest Home Videos," MTV's "ET on MTV" and "Real World" and BET's "106th and Park."

The Game Boy Advance print campaign will break 4/28 in ESPN Magazine. The rest of the print ads run in the June and July issues of music, men's and alternative publications such as Rolling Stone, Stuff, Maxim, Spin, Blender, DC, Marvel and Transworld Surf. The print campaign mirrors the television look and feel, featuring a collage of real-life and game-world elements.

The effects in "Freeboy" were created by Asylum Visual Effects, a special effects company touted for its work on films including "Minority Report" and "Moulin Rouge" and was nominated for a special effects Academy Award for "Master & Commander." The company's visual effects will be featured in three additional Game Boy Advance spots promoting Mario vs. Donkey Kong™, the Classic NES® Series for Game Boy Advance and Mario Golf ™: Advance Tour breaking now through mid-June.

The "Who Are You?" campaign unifies Nintendo products under a single theme and encourages gamers to unleash what is inside them. It showcases the ability of Nintendo games to let players explore a wide range of emotions, experiences and personalities through Nintendo's stable of the most popular and diverse video game characters in the world, such as Mario™, Donkey Kong®, Link and Samus. The initial spot, "School's Out," was voted #1 on the first annual GameSpot TV commercial awards in December last year.

To view the new Nintendo television ads, please visit http://www.leoburnett.com/breaking/nintendo.

Talkback

Bill AurionApril 21, 2004

Here's your ads...Now shut up... face-icon-small-thumbsup.gif

vuduApril 21, 2004

the gba ad was awesome. the gamecube ones were typical nintendo commercials--they made the gamecube look childish.

Perfect CellApril 21, 2004

A litle bit late i say... but hopefully these commercials stay on TV for a while. I still see True Crime commercials on TV!

Ian SaneApril 21, 2004

Hey Nintendo has always had ads. It's just that a lot of their post-N64 ads really suck. Judging from these descriptions these ads are going to continue in the same direction they've been going for the last few years: little game footage, vague description of what the game even is, and weird concept that either doesn't really fit with the game at all or requires the viewer to have pre-existing knowledge of the game beforehand to get the significance.

Why are they continuing with the "Who Are You?" concept? Those ads were TERRIBLE. If you want to see what an ad should be like check out the GTA ads. Those ads are nothing but game footage yet they totally get the idea of the game across and actually make you want to buy it. Nintendo ads are about on par with the new Mr. Plow commercial on The Simpsons. The best a Nintendo ad has done this gen is merely inform that a new game exists. That's not enough. They have to make people want to buy the game.

And what's with the timeslots they picked? The Ortegas? UPN? Who the hell watches any of that stuff?

Berto2KApril 21, 2004

Its about time Nintendo got an ad for MGS going. Maybe this can help to give sales a recovery boost. I like them all but the GBASP one is heads above the other 4.

mouse_clickerApril 21, 2004

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And what's with the timeslots they picked? The Ortegas? UPN? Who the hell watches any of that stuff?


Yes, let's completely ignore them advertising on Fox, and the WB, and MTV, and ABC- Nintendo must be CRAZY. ::rolls eyes::

ArbokApril 21, 2004

Wow, the Gameboy one is awesome, too bad the Gamecube ones aren't on par with it... but hey, in their defense, they got me interested in Custom Robo. The baseball one I found a tad annoying though...

KirbySStarApril 21, 2004

Typical of Nintendo to do an awesome GBA commercial and then a mediocre one for GCN. I mean look at the freaking camera work for the GCN's commercial! They couldn't hold it steady. Really cheap work.

I'm all for amusing commercials but that wasn't amusing. You know what?! They should just bring back the Zelda kid.

NinGurl69 *hugglesApril 21, 2004

With or without the ZELDA RAP?

PodApril 22, 2004

Well it's good you guys are happy Nintendo is going for the pop culture, and makes flashy commercials with licensed music, and markets GBA-SPs with tribal tattoos on them.

At least it's all in time. I hope these spots are aired in Europe, as the general public around here still has no clue of what the GBA can do at all. If Nintendo aren't keen to spread the awareness soon, Game Boy might seriously get its teeth kicked in by the PSP in PAL land.

vuduApril 22, 2004

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Judging from these descriptions these ads are going to continue in the same direction they've been going for the last few years: little game footage, vague description of what the game even is, and weird concept that either doesn't really fit with the game at all or requires the viewer to have pre-existing knowledge of the game beforehand to get the significance.
that might be the best description of nintendo's advertising problem i've heard yet. especially the bit about "requires the viewer to have pre-existing knowledge of the game beforehand to get the significance". that was the biggest problem with the custom robo ad--if i didn't know what the game was already about, i'd just see some fruit playing with an espresso machine.

cheers, ian. beer.gif

The OmenApril 22, 2004

Why can't Nintendo just re-use their old NES and SNES ads, but with new game footage? Nostalgia works for everyone. Remember the Zelda "Which way to go?" ad? Just place the four swords in there, or even WW2. Stupid stupid marketing.

JonLeungApril 22, 2004

I was about to say that I liked the GCN ads, but peer pressure may make me change my mind... *whimper*

Though I suppose it's true that it doesn't say much about the games themselves. Watching very little TV these days, any burst of advertising that I hear of is going to sound like a good thing, I guess. Maybe I need to watch more TV. I may think I know all about Nintendo but when it comes to seeing what the average TV-watching Joe sees about Nintendo I have little to no idea.

I have seen the commercial for Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox, and several PS2 game ones. Whether Nintendo tries to copy that humourous style while pushing its "who are you?" thing succeeds I have no idea.

I'm surprised they don't show many Nintendo commercials during Kirby: Right Back At Ya! episodes (though now that I think about it, I have seen the Metroid: Zero Mission one on that channel and others). And for that matter, Pokémon, if they don't. Nintendo-related cartoons may be advertisements in themselves, but since you've got people interested in Nintendo characters already watching the "'tube" (do they call TV that anymore?), you'd think the shows should practically always have some Nintendo commercials with them.

And now that I'm wishy-washy and going in circles, it would probably be best to show commercials on shows that have less to do with Nintendo, to reach a larger audience. Yeah, maybe that's what they should do.

Remember those ads of the Super NES and Genesis, cutting into each other? Why don't they do that? Like for the kiddy image, even though it may be retarded to even bring it up, show games like Eternal Darkness next to the PS2's Blue's Clues and Olsen Twins and etc. Though many people might find that absurd. I don't know. I'll shut up, I guess.

RennyApril 22, 2004

It's really depressing/embarrassing that you can always 'hear' a game commercial as soon as it starts--whether it has an identifying sound effect or not. They're as cliche as movies previews, except that commercials aren't the least bit entertaining. But "Freeboy" doesn't fall into that trap at all. It has catchy music and great visuals. This should be a good buzz commercial. My only complaint is that it only features one game, despite having multiple game characters in CG. I guess they'll have different versions of the commercial though.

Edit: Of course "Interviewer" is terrible; it's just another commercial making video games look lame.

jasonditzApril 22, 2004

I was going to post a comment, but I agree 100% with Renny.

"Boo-yah"? please...

KDR_11kApril 22, 2004

Bah, Quicktime Format. Can't people use codecs you don't have to install some severely flawed proprietary player for? I mean, DivX, XVid, MPEG-*, etc all work without having a dedicated playback app and most of 'em offer better picture quality than the three big sucking proprietary formats (wmv, mov, rm).

NinGurl69 *hugglesApril 22, 2004

Thank you.

jasonditzApril 23, 2004

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Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Bah, Quicktime Format. Can't people use codecs you don't have to install some severely flawed proprietary player for? I mean, DivX, XVid, MPEG-*, etc all work without having a dedicated playback app and most of 'em offer better picture quality than the three big sucking proprietary formats (wmv, mov, rm).


Mozilla and mplayerplug-in.so were able to play them all back for me.

Hostile CreationApril 23, 2004

Interviewer could have been better, but it was all right, especially considering the theme of Who Are You? Freeboy was an excellent commercial, far better than some crap GTA commercial. The only good thing about that stupid commercial was the Flock of Seagulls song.

Nintendo should show more footage in their commercials, but I prefer style to. . . crap, frankly. Freeboy was awesome.

EdisimApril 25, 2004

ya know, i hear that the lyrics to "strict machine" are "obscene"... ;-)

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