Nuvendil said:
Uh, no Nintendo was great at marketing once upon a time. The N64 marketing campaign was very, very strong early on (Get N or Get Out being the most memorable and prolific ad and epitomized how you reach out the young while not alienating the old), which is why it had a very strong start. The lack of 3rd party support, cost of games, and game droughts (all mostly due to cartridge nonsense) led to the legs dropping off but the marketing was on point. The Super Nintendo had a large number of ads. The slogan "Now Your Playing with Power, SUPER Power!" was quite widespread and of course the Super Mario World ad was a major push many remember to this day. The marketing blunders of Nintendo started with Gamecube, where they did piss all to market that thing (I watched Cartoon Network all the time growing up and only knew Super Mario Sunshine launched because Toonami reviewed it months after release). The Wii saw a revival in Nintendo marketing, with the "Wii Would Like to Play" ad campaign being very well done and wide spread all the way through 2008, advertising Mario Sunshine, Smash Bros, Red Steel, Wii Sports,Mario Kart, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (which got two other, seperate ads that were quite prolific), and even Metroid Prime 3 (though the ad was very rare to see). It was late 2009 - 2010 when their marketing took a nose dive from "competent" (where it had fallen to) to "non existent," (they went from marketing nearly every exclusive to launching Skyward Sword, Xenoblade, Last Story, Mario Party 9, and Pandora's Tower without a word essentiall) where it remained until the Wii U's uninformative launch ad and it only went downhill from there until they woke up in time to market Mario Kart 8 over 1.5 years later. Nintendo were great at marketing for a long while and then...well then I don't know what. They just up and gave up. And it's something they must fix. Marketing isn't a good helper, it is essential. Those who don't market, don't succeed. That's just a foundational principle of good business. |
Nintendo was badly outmarketed by Sony in the N64/Playstation days (Hey Plumber Boy, FF7's marketing, etc. etc.) and Sega completely dominated them during the Genesis days. That was really how Nintendo got any competetition in the first place ... Sega started marketing towards the MTV/teenager crowd, while Nintendo was still using as you put it, the lame "Now you're playing with SUPER Power" stuff, which was just recycled from the NES days.
Sega was vicious, lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDpTLY6dpXQ
Nintendo's sucked at marketing for the better part of 20 years now. It's just not how their products sell, their products tend to sell through strong word of mouth.
Case in point, I don't even remember seeing a TV ad for GoldenEye 007 on the N64, yet that sold through the roof.