Why Does Nintendo's US Advertising Suck?

[Albicant]

Soundwave said:

Albicant said:
Is the Japan ad really that great? Assuming the people who like Pikmin are already planning to buy it, Nintendo should be targeting people who are unfamiliar with it. The ad only has a few seconds of gameplay footage, and wouldn't really tell me what the game is like if I didn't already know.

I think that's what NoA are going for with their ads. They don't need to make a Mario ad that targets the core. We already know about Mario! They want kids who might not know to go 'hey, mom, I want this!'. I'm not saying NoA's ad is great; it's not, but I think that's who they're targeting with this kind of ad. We might think it's crappy, but we're not being targeted.

Really though, Nintendo need to think of a way to make the gamepad appeal to people the same way they did with the wiimote, which that ad just doesn't do. Do that, and then they'll be in business

There is no commercial that's going to make the Wii U controller as appealling as the Wiimote was for 2006. Just not gonna happen.

All their commercials now are doing is making the machine look like a novelty product for the 8-year-old kid in the family that mom and dad can help out with.

Marketing is about the image you create for the product, not neccessarily being a banner point for every feature of your product. Apple doesn't explain everything the iPhone does in their commercials, that's not good marketing. The Japanese ad is funny, clean, and elegant and protrays how cute the Pikmin are while meshing it with an attractive looking Japanese model, which creates the impression that this is not just a product for kids but for adults too. Do the exact same ad for the West, but substitue in a Western Victoria Secret model or movie actress, and it would be very successful at getting people curious about the game.

But we'll probably get the stupid "little brother playing Pikmin while his parents watch" thing again.

Apple doesn't need to demonstrate the iPhone because everyone on the planet knows what one is. They have the ability to put on stylish, minimalistic ads. Nintendo obviously doesn't really have that luxury with the Wii U. I agree that they should try to make ads more elegant, but they also need to showcase the actual product, because not many people outside of forum-goers like us have any idea what the thing even is. Slapping a model on the tv and a few seconds of difficult to interpret gameplay is going to make me curious, but not about the game!

I see what you're saying about making it seem like a kids product, but ultimately that demographic is a big part of Nintendo's userbase, and they need to go after it. The NoA ad was poorly executed, obviously, but it's pointed at an audience that is likely to result in a few sales.

Hopefully they'll try something a bit more ambitious with their Pikmin ads.