Marketing Communications Nintendo

Table of contents

Introduction page 3

Company history and background page 3

Decline and come back page 4

Marketing strategy page 4

Evolution of advertising and methods page 4

Hands on sampling page 5

From weakness to opportunity page 7

Buzz marketing page 8

Sales promotions and methods page 9

Sponsorship page 10

Conclusion and Recommendations page 11

I. Introduction

a. Company History And Background

Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi near the end of 1889 as Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda.

In 1956, Hiroshi Yamauchi visited the US, and this is when he realized the limitations of the card business and hence moved on to different arenas of the gaming world. In 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited to Nintendo Company, Limited. During 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company, a "love hotel" chain, a TV network, a food company and several other things. All these attempts at expanding and diversifying the business failed, except toy making, where they had relatively prior experience with from selling playing cards.

In enormous debt, Nintendo was trying to withstand the Japanese toy industry; it was still small at this point. Due to the short product life cycle of toys, innovation and constantly new product development was vital. This was the beginning of a major new era for Nintendo.

In 1970, Hiroshi Yamauchi discovered the hidden talents of Gunpei Yoki, a maintanace engineer at the factory, who built what was later called The Ultra Hand which soon turned into a huge success, selling approximately 1.2 million units. Yokoi was soon moved from maintenance to product development.

Nintendo’s first step into the video games industry was in 1975. At the time, home video game consoles were very rare, even the seminal Atari Pong console had not yet been produced. The early 1980s Nintendo created some of its most famous and infamous arcade names. The extremely popular Donkey Kong was created and produced in 1981 and released in the arcades and on the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision video game systems. Then, in 1985, Nintendo hit the jackpot with its Nintendo Entertainment System and continued with their highly successful Game Boy. Nintendo continued producing innovations and alterations to these two ideas making it one of the world’s biggest video-game manufacturer.

b. Decline And Comeback

According to an article written by Seth Schiesel in the New York Times on May 26th, 2007, Nintendo was close to being marginalized about a year ago due to fierce competition from Xbox by Microsoft and the three consecutive generations of Sony’s Playstation consoles. However, what was kept hidden from the rest of the industry and the world was the fact that Nintendo’s president and chief operating officer Reggie Fils-Aime, had a new strategy that would literally over-throw the competition. He had devised a plan to revive Nintendo by stepping away from the regular targets of this industry and broadening its perspectives and reach to other prospective gamers. He tapped into the concept of “Family-Time” with the Wii and the business people with the Nintendo DS, who never thought they would see eye to eye with what Nintendo had to offer. “Last month, Nintendo sold more than four times as many Wii units (360,000) as Sony sold PlayStation 3’s (82,000), and many people still can’t find the Wii on store shelves” (New York Times, May 26, 2007).

II. Marketing Strategy

a. Evolution of Nintendo’s Advertising And Methods

Nintendo’s advertising methods throughout the years has been just like the rest of the companies I the industry, all based on the weak theory of advertising which attempts to build awareness, trial, and reinforcement. However, with the newest of Nintendo’s inventions, the Wii, a new era has begun in the gaming industry. They now focus more on the strong theory of advertising where they are trying to change attitudes and persuading old users and new target groups to buy something new.

According to an independent student newspaper called Red and Black, the editor asks a very important question which was later fully answered by Nintendo’s Wii console release, “Throughout gaming history, new systems have always sought to bring new visual horsepower to the table, but when was the last time a gaming console radically changed the way you play your games?” this was exactly what Nintendo intended for the success of it’s new console. According to Reggie Fils-Aime, “the next leap is about playing,…because playing is believing”(red and black)

Moreover, all the players in the gaming industry have always targeted a certain demographic, 5-17 old males. Never did anyone attempt to target all the ages out there in the market, except for Nintendo. This new era that has been marked by Nintendo, has taken the next step in the gaming industry, not only is it targeting all ages but also both sexes and targets from different walks of life by the introduction of its Wii console and Nintendo DS.

b. Hands-on sampling:

“Color TV Game” (1977-1980), one of the first game consoles invented by Nintendo, did not benefit of any hands-on sampling, for it wasn’t very notorious at the time to use this technique in marketing products.

Then the “NES” (Nintendo Entertainment System 1983-2007) came out. It didn’t need a lot of marketing effort; at least not hands-on sampling techniques. The reason for that was the uniqueness of the console which gave Nintendo a “monopoly”